Many thanks. Appreciated. I find David Cay Johnston who has been following Trump for years offers some very interesting opinions, insights and warnings. Worth a watch.
Rick, Trump’s allegiance is as it’s always been — to himself. What’s different is that he’s now contracted imperialist’s fever. He and his “worthy adversaries”, Putin and Xi, are carving up the world for their own interests.
Thank you, Rick, for your relentless courage and leadership in this fight. All decent people need to do the same in whatever capacity they can.
Furthermore, our leaders need to do something beyond that to win: They need to come up with a strong *counter* vision to Project 2025 to lay out how things *should* be and how to get there from here. I suggest updating JK Galbraith's 1995 "The Good Society" as a starting point.
What happened? I want to ask the Pynchonian question of where we made the wrong turn. I think maybe it was demonizing Communism after WW2. Not that we should have embraced economic central planning or the labor theory of value, but that we should have been like Europe and allowed true left wing parties into the discourse. We might have wound up with universal healthcare like everywhere else. But instead we demonized Communism as an illicit _idea_ that went well beyond objecting to the abuses in the East bloc, real as they doubtless were. We went after "Communism" with a religious fervor, which merged remarkably well with fundamentalist Christianity (especially considering that Jesus was, effectively, a socialist. The fundies always refused to believe that).
Our first superstar of anti-Communism was Joe McCarthy, who also gave birth to the first Deep State conspiracy theory. For a few years he was untouchable due to his massive fan base that stretched well beyond Wisconsin. After his sad alcoholic demise, his conspiracy so immense was kept alive by the John Birch Society, mostly disgruntled ex-military misfits who patrician WF Buckley, Jr. had to disown for being riffraff. But it set the stage for Barry Goldwater, an uber-hawk but also a simon-pure constitutional conservative who opposed the Civil Rights Act as a violation of the Free Assembly Clause. He was a bit too loose with the nuke 'em all rhetoric and got squashed.
And we haven't even gotten to Nixon, a man and an administration more evil than many like to credit these days because he wasn't an Austrian school economics cheerleader, Ailes (who invented the "New Nixon"), Reagan, Limbaugh, Gingrich, Rove and the clueless Dubya, the last man on earth (save Trump) who should have been in charge of the 9/11 catastrophe's aftermath.
If we hadn't invested so much energy into "fighting Communism," it would have affected the careers of all these men. And why were we so strident? After his successful revolution, Castro toured the US and he was amenable to coming under our wing; the anti-commies wouldn't have it. Ho Chi Minh sent desperate telegrams to Ike reminding him of the American Revolution and requesting aid in their struggles against the French. Ike ignored them, the way Wilson ignored the Vietnamese during the Versailles Conference. What were we trying to do here, exactly?
Maybe it was less about humanitarian concerns with the oppression in Communist societies and more about wanting to prevent a successful counterexample to American-style capitalism.
That point is debatable, of course, but for whatever reason, this led to a terrible hubris in American foreign policy, that the US wasn't just a shining example to all, but that American-style corporate capitalism was the only viable development strategy. Our giddiness when the Wall fell was obscene and we rushed over there to help apparatchiks become oligarchs by distributing Russian state assets like Monopoly houses 'n' hotels, all in the name of (so-called) free-market capitalism. And that created the 90s Lost Decade and nostalgia for Soviet-era stability that led directly to the strong man Putin.
In the Mideast it was worse. I'm not going to thumbnail the catastrophes of Iraq and Afghanistan, I've done it enough elsewhere, but bottom line is it shredded our pretense to be the beacon of democracy rather than making the world safe for Halliburton. The GOP crashed headlong into this.
Without Dubya's failures in those two wars, Donald Trump would never have stood a chance.
I love you, Rick, I read you every day and I cherish this community. I always agree with your tactical analyses. But your entire previous worldview led directly to where we are today.
Chamberlain knew what Hitler had planned. And he knew that appeasing him wouldn’t not work. It was a delaying tactic, in order to get British factories up and running at full speed to get ready for war.
The 🍊 felon is an illegitimate President and he is a traitor. Repugnantans in Congress should be ashamed. I always felt that Ukraine would be in trouble if he won the election, but it's way beyond Ukraine. I'm also starting to worry about my own country, with the constant comments about FOTUS annexing Canada. 🇨🇦 🙏 🇺🇸
If a foreign country learns of a possible terrorist attack against the US, who would they contact, Kash Patel? Countries might be reluctant to release info fearing their agents and sources names might be revealed. Trump and his loyal gang of amateurs are putting the US at great risk. Many US voters were okay knowing that Donald Trump has this bizarre affection and admiration for this ex-KGB thug Putin, who eliminates political opponents and his critics. Putin plays Trump like a cheap fiddle.
If a foreign country has info about a possible terrorist attack in the US, who would they contact, Kash Patel? Many could be reluctant to divulge info knowing their agent's names could be exposed. The US will be in great risk if Trump's gang of loyal amateurs remains in charge. US voters were not concerned that Trump has this bizarre affection and admiration for this murderous ex-KGB thug who kills his opponents.
Thank you for helping us stay strong in the fight. I like how you summed it up: we are fighting against evil. EVIL. We have to b be the light in the darkness and spread it. I’m so disheartened t卐musk have ruined our relationship with our allies. The conmen have a stronghold while dismantling our democracy and our people.
People in this country are terrified. I’ve been trying for weeks to keep a client out of one of our local mental health hospitals and this week it just became too much for them and they checked themselves in. And you know what? I don’t even know what to tell “my people “ anymore! I try to get them to moderate their exposure to the news, but holy crap, that’s hard when your brain is screaming danger, danger at you 24/7! We’re all exhausted and scared and constantly being told we can’t give up. It’s just hard. I do appreciate all of your work, Rick and that of LP. You all are doing a lot of the heavy lifting for so many of us who just can’t. Thank you so much and please, please take good care of yourselves too as you navigate this hellscape.
How do we as Americans let the NATO allies know that this garbage is Not what most common sense Americans want~ that we do not back Trump and his administration and the Maga view of world order?
Is this free?
This is very true and also he is taking advantage of their own red states that believe in him I wrote about it
https://open.substack.com/pub/davidsypherjr/p/title-trump-is-betraying-maga-and?r=2sshtz&utm_medium=ios
Many thanks. Appreciated. I find David Cay Johnston who has been following Trump for years offers some very interesting opinions, insights and warnings. Worth a watch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CUMDP_GR54
Lindberg finally, long after he is gone, got his wish. America is now aligned with the axis of evil.
Sinclair Lewis and Philip Roth are rolling in their graves.
Rick, Trump’s allegiance is as it’s always been — to himself. What’s different is that he’s now contracted imperialist’s fever. He and his “worthy adversaries”, Putin and Xi, are carving up the world for their own interests.
Thx Rick! We saw that in Helsinki during our first Trump enema.
We must resist this self-destructive madness! The courts can’t do it alone.Take to the streets! There’s this in DC tomorrow!
Thank you, Rick, for your relentless courage and leadership in this fight. All decent people need to do the same in whatever capacity they can.
Furthermore, our leaders need to do something beyond that to win: They need to come up with a strong *counter* vision to Project 2025 to lay out how things *should* be and how to get there from here. I suggest updating JK Galbraith's 1995 "The Good Society" as a starting point.
What happened? I want to ask the Pynchonian question of where we made the wrong turn. I think maybe it was demonizing Communism after WW2. Not that we should have embraced economic central planning or the labor theory of value, but that we should have been like Europe and allowed true left wing parties into the discourse. We might have wound up with universal healthcare like everywhere else. But instead we demonized Communism as an illicit _idea_ that went well beyond objecting to the abuses in the East bloc, real as they doubtless were. We went after "Communism" with a religious fervor, which merged remarkably well with fundamentalist Christianity (especially considering that Jesus was, effectively, a socialist. The fundies always refused to believe that).
Our first superstar of anti-Communism was Joe McCarthy, who also gave birth to the first Deep State conspiracy theory. For a few years he was untouchable due to his massive fan base that stretched well beyond Wisconsin. After his sad alcoholic demise, his conspiracy so immense was kept alive by the John Birch Society, mostly disgruntled ex-military misfits who patrician WF Buckley, Jr. had to disown for being riffraff. But it set the stage for Barry Goldwater, an uber-hawk but also a simon-pure constitutional conservative who opposed the Civil Rights Act as a violation of the Free Assembly Clause. He was a bit too loose with the nuke 'em all rhetoric and got squashed.
And we haven't even gotten to Nixon, a man and an administration more evil than many like to credit these days because he wasn't an Austrian school economics cheerleader, Ailes (who invented the "New Nixon"), Reagan, Limbaugh, Gingrich, Rove and the clueless Dubya, the last man on earth (save Trump) who should have been in charge of the 9/11 catastrophe's aftermath.
If we hadn't invested so much energy into "fighting Communism," it would have affected the careers of all these men. And why were we so strident? After his successful revolution, Castro toured the US and he was amenable to coming under our wing; the anti-commies wouldn't have it. Ho Chi Minh sent desperate telegrams to Ike reminding him of the American Revolution and requesting aid in their struggles against the French. Ike ignored them, the way Wilson ignored the Vietnamese during the Versailles Conference. What were we trying to do here, exactly?
Maybe it was less about humanitarian concerns with the oppression in Communist societies and more about wanting to prevent a successful counterexample to American-style capitalism.
That point is debatable, of course, but for whatever reason, this led to a terrible hubris in American foreign policy, that the US wasn't just a shining example to all, but that American-style corporate capitalism was the only viable development strategy. Our giddiness when the Wall fell was obscene and we rushed over there to help apparatchiks become oligarchs by distributing Russian state assets like Monopoly houses 'n' hotels, all in the name of (so-called) free-market capitalism. And that created the 90s Lost Decade and nostalgia for Soviet-era stability that led directly to the strong man Putin.
In the Mideast it was worse. I'm not going to thumbnail the catastrophes of Iraq and Afghanistan, I've done it enough elsewhere, but bottom line is it shredded our pretense to be the beacon of democracy rather than making the world safe for Halliburton. The GOP crashed headlong into this.
Without Dubya's failures in those two wars, Donald Trump would never have stood a chance.
I love you, Rick, I read you every day and I cherish this community. I always agree with your tactical analyses. But your entire previous worldview led directly to where we are today.
Chamberlain knew what Hitler had planned. And he knew that appeasing him wouldn’t not work. It was a delaying tactic, in order to get British factories up and running at full speed to get ready for war.
This is Chamberlain revisionism that's pretty easy to credit, although we'd need primary sources to be sure of his exact thinking at the time.
The 🍊 felon is an illegitimate President and he is a traitor. Repugnantans in Congress should be ashamed. I always felt that Ukraine would be in trouble if he won the election, but it's way beyond Ukraine. I'm also starting to worry about my own country, with the constant comments about FOTUS annexing Canada. 🇨🇦 🙏 🇺🇸
Canada needs to join the EU tout de suite!
If a foreign country learns of a possible terrorist attack against the US, who would they contact, Kash Patel? Countries might be reluctant to release info fearing their agents and sources names might be revealed. Trump and his loyal gang of amateurs are putting the US at great risk. Many US voters were okay knowing that Donald Trump has this bizarre affection and admiration for this ex-KGB thug Putin, who eliminates political opponents and his critics. Putin plays Trump like a cheap fiddle.
If a foreign country has info about a possible terrorist attack in the US, who would they contact, Kash Patel? Many could be reluctant to divulge info knowing their agent's names could be exposed. The US will be in great risk if Trump's gang of loyal amateurs remains in charge. US voters were not concerned that Trump has this bizarre affection and admiration for this murderous ex-KGB thug who kills his opponents.
Thank you for helping us stay strong in the fight. I like how you summed it up: we are fighting against evil. EVIL. We have to b be the light in the darkness and spread it. I’m so disheartened t卐musk have ruined our relationship with our allies. The conmen have a stronghold while dismantling our democracy and our people.
People in this country are terrified. I’ve been trying for weeks to keep a client out of one of our local mental health hospitals and this week it just became too much for them and they checked themselves in. And you know what? I don’t even know what to tell “my people “ anymore! I try to get them to moderate their exposure to the news, but holy crap, that’s hard when your brain is screaming danger, danger at you 24/7! We’re all exhausted and scared and constantly being told we can’t give up. It’s just hard. I do appreciate all of your work, Rick and that of LP. You all are doing a lot of the heavy lifting for so many of us who just can’t. Thank you so much and please, please take good care of yourselves too as you navigate this hellscape.
How do we as Americans let the NATO allies know that this garbage is Not what most common sense Americans want~ that we do not back Trump and his administration and the Maga view of world order?