Over and over again, I have talked about this spectacular era of American corruption as being unprecedented in American history. Make no mistake, there have been previous eras of spectacular corruption, but there has never been anything like this moment. It is simply staggering.
Equal justice is a two word phrase. It does not discuss ethnic, gender, or other characteristics so Menendez gets a fair trial by his peers as the first step. Under the justice part, if guilty according to those peers, he pays the same penalty would any other person convicted of that crime. Being a Senator, being Latin, being male, or being married does not affect that aspect. Rule of law means rule OF law for all. Pretty straightforward. Same for Anyone else.
we all have a right to innocent until proven guilty, but given the preponderance of evidence, we don't all have a right to be in the Senate when there is this much being charged against you.
He should resign asap, as it an example that Democrats don't support possible corruption in office. For other reasons, McConnell and Feinstein should also resign. If your cognitive faculties are failing, the U.S. taxpayers deserve your replacement.
These persons are not able to accept reality. Being Older or Old does not cancel you out of life if you are still capable of reason, clear judgements, conclusion, etc.
Because McConnell has a deep voice and they have no one else to replace him, this does not cancel out the fact that dementia is occurring, this is quite obvious. To be able to think occasionally is no longer a concrete position. McConnell & Feinstein, it is time to let go. And Corruption must be dealt with quickly.
I think everyone forgets Santos because he represents a vote yet is unfit as many are. Trump in 2025 will have no justice for all. His will be justice for his foes. I don’t want to die thinking our Constitution meant nothing and I’ll be imprisoned for who I am. Yeah, you’re absolutely right. Look at Wisconsin. Look everywhere. This next year is about accountability not being afraid of a former moron who believes in not one of the institutions or the constitution and shits on it. He’s hoaxed himself into the emperor with no clothes or a defense other than cry me another deep state hoax, witch hunt...A DOJ and 91 indictments is not some made up BS. Good fraud would be a couple. Truth is 91 plus all else.
I’m still rooting for the lesson to sink in. I’ve seen the American People rally up amazingly. How well are you insulated if not? Prepare best possible .For those who can spread the word and talk about real losses , the poor and disenfranchised have the greatest loss always , we sure don’t need more of that. Read The Great Depression? And most everyone those days knew a helluva lot more about survival.
What is so disconcerting and concerning for me is the vast numbers supporting the anti-American politic. The in-your-face belligerence coupled with defiant ignorance without any shame is demoralizing. One must hope and pray that the people will "rally up". We are being overrun by scoundrels and miscreants. Thank you for the thumbs up on my nom de plume! We are Celts going way back. Years ago a colleague remarked how I looked like one of the ten thousand brave hearts marching atop the heath! 😂
While I agree with this take overall, I think you need 1. to check your privilege; and 2. To think more about the brutal cowboy capitalism behind what has caused what you describe here:
“Fascism is rising in 2020s America because our democracy has grown weak, corrupted and rotten. A decaying society is vulnerable to a great danger: a strongman with a promise that they alone can fix everything. Sound familiar?”
1. What you experience as moral decay, others far less privileged experience very differently. I won’t try to capture all of it here, but, depending on the community, demographics, etc., that experience includes extreme economic deprivation -- and the resulting extreme sense of insecurity, the stripping away of personal and political agency, unending police brutality, homelessness and/or housing insecurity, a reaming-out and privatizing of the once phenomenal “public goods/commons” -- including education at all levels, our vastly unequal health care “system,” and virtually all public-facing public services. I could go on but I said I wouldn’t.
And do you know what caused all of this: our brutal cowboy capitalism which was for a time, following FDR and WWII, finally pulled kicking a screaming into some sort of real relationship to the welfare of the people and not just the shareholders, but then unleashed by the very GOP led by Ronald Reaganthat is still revered by even the most avid “Never-Trump” former republicans. Forty years of brutal “Trickle-down” economics driven by the “imperative” of Globalization, eviscerated enough of the “Grand bargain” between workers (and their unions) and the underserved that had been literally fought for for generations. The white working class finanlly experienced the indifference and stripping away of dignity that had become part of ancient history in this country.
Our capitalism was unleashed and freed to freest itself on the extraordinary bounties of wealth that it is possible to accumulate when you are freed from any obligation to society.
And so, yes, what we privileged people call “morals” began to erode across the board in middle/working class. Resentment grew and a reach a boiling point by the time of the 2008 meltdown where millions lost the only economic safety-net left to them: the equity in their homes. The desperation and then turned to outrage as the bankers were bailed-out but not the people. All of this made for what you describe above: a Union torn apart at the seams by forty-plus years of bi-partisan public policy focused almost exclusively on enabling a capitalist feeding frenzy.
Moral decay is not a free-floating phenomenon. It is tied to real circumstances. In history, most of those circumstances involve elites on an avaricious rampage that savages the lives of ordinary people. Our “Democracy” was designed to be better than that. After a Civil War and economic reform era, two world wars and a renewed civil/womens’ rights movement, we were on a decent track towards being better when it was all redirected back onto the exploitative fast track. ANd here we are, left fighting the morally depraved Trump and his legions of resentful, revengeful followers.
Biden and the Dem Party gets much of this and the huge investments in “Heartland” projects, jobs, and a sustainable future are the basis of a way forward through this mess. It is far past time for so-call “normie” republicans to renounce their false Reaganite Idol and join with “democrats”everywhere in this country to bring us back onto the tracks that lead to a more equitable and prosperous future that “centers”the wellbeing of all.
“Biden and the Dem Party gets much of this and the huge investments in “Heartland” projects, jobs, and a sustainable future are the basis of a way forward through this mess. It is far past time for so-call “normie” republicans to renounce their false Reaganite Idol and join with “democrats”everywhere in this country to bring us back onto the tracks that lead to a more equitable and prosperous future that “centers”the wellbeing of all.”--John Saxton
Agreed, and excellent points. However, if you think that heartland investments will win over republicans in the Confederate States of America, I want what you’re smoking. These people are indoctrinated and get their news from a right-wing ecosystem.
Republican politicians who voted against Build back better, the Infrastructure and CHIP bills are the same politicians who voted against the bills and now are claiming credit in their congressional districts and succeeding.
Talk to any Trump voter and the crimes of Hunter, who never held public office are greater than a man who committed treason and stole top secret documents and lied in affidavits about giving them back.
Everything you said is correct, but the root cause of these problems (republicans) is irrelevant. In order to convince these low information voters would be in the war of public opinion. And so far, it’s a losing battle.
I agree with you totally. The heartland investments are just a start, but I do believe an important one. Wrestling with the morass of dangerous and delusional fantasies that are now firmly rooted in the heartland is a major issue. This will take a lot of time and so, my default position is the need to assemble an overwhelming majority coalition that can beat back the authoritarian juggernaut in election after election, until new/saner leadership can emerge. What that leadership will look like and will stand for -- I have no idea. But I think we have to work towards this possibility with everything we’ve got. Thanks.
I’d add a few comments which support your conclusions.
Churchill one said, “democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the rest.”
The same can be said for capitalism. It’s the worst form of economic stimulus, except for all the rest.
From 2001 to 2007 alone (Pew Research), more than 700 million people globally moved out of severe poverty. So capitalism does work when regulated properly.
However, unfettered free market capitalism is nothing more than the Wild West: survival of the fittest with little to no rules; making it difficult to prosecute the villains of any economic demise.
Under Reagan, we started the deregulation and outsourcing of our manufacturing and in some cases service sectors, to China and India and elsewhere. Both republican and democratic policies gave companies incentives to do so. This continued with Bush, Clinton and Bush Jr., until the Great Recession.
Yet, we haven’t learned our lessons. Even after Dodd Frank, financial companies paid lobbyists to neuter much of the laws regulatory aspects over the years, and this year alone, more than six banks failed when interest rates were increased to combat inflation.
And the type of capitalism we practice is debatable. Greenspan and Friedman believed that there shouldn’t be regulations in free markets because the markets themselves would rid itself of bad actors, yet that never materialized.
Instead, we bailed out banks after they destroyed the economy, and to add insult to injury, these same bankers after pleading for a bailout, paid themselves record bonuses when millions were losing their jobs monthly.
Even Trump’s COVID bailout was a scam. A trillion dollars that went straight to corporations who used the money to give special dividends to shareholders while employees were either fired or furloughed.
My point, we need stipulations when giving these companies any bailouts, and we need dark money out of politics. Otherwise, all is lost. And we can’t count on the Supreme Court for help. The majority of them are bought and paid for by corporations and billionaires.
Just some thoughts to add to your excellent column...:)
Again, totally agree. I wish I had a better sense of where “corporate” America is on all of this. I know it’s not a monolith, but there are definitely thought leaders in every industry. Some, like Koch Industries, are sponsors of all of this. But some/most must realize that authoritarians don’t believe in free markets. They operate on patronage, intimidation, and chaos.
I wrote an earlier piece about the issue that elites are buffered from a lot of the impacts of Trump and MAGA so far and so tend still to just look away from it all and hope it will go away. But what about corporate America? They know as well as anyone that things don’t just go away, especially at this level of a “Dire Moment.”
I do think that more of these corporate leaders would come forward if the sort of new coalition I talked about were to form. I think that would “work” for them, at least to get past this moment. Down the road, of course, looking towards incentivizing more corporate social responsibility, etc., things would undoubtedly get contentious!
Love Steve's simple clear takes. He has, I think, the big pen and brain that can include these key facts into his brief pieces about our nation's painful past 50 years or so.
I believe THIS is what brought us here. People are angry for a reason, the reasons you stated. And feel powerless, and power has been taken away. That is the truth. Thank you for saying this so clearly.
I stay optimistic . I’ve been told my Rose Colored Glasses are old ...also! The long list of how we got here /how it got there, has been written at least three times to my knowledge and is currently in it’s forth revision . Hope is necessary , ‘be not a quitter’ was a drilled topic. However, also at my EOL (maybe another 20 with good practices followed) I hope it’s not my biggest fight yet...it’s not for me ...it’s for my children, my grand and great grands and the millions of YOU.
That in a nutshell is the key.
Because ME is all the others promulgating -this 2025 either in essence or action is about.
That doesn’t fly, never has, but....
I don’t want to see America suffer 12 years of having to claw back what’s going to be lost ....
True. Then there’s gerrymandering, brainwashing, and just plain apathy.There’s many people I know who have more than half a brain and they’re on the fence leaning right.
Do I wish we were focused on something else, yes. I would rather be learning how to throw pots. However our skills and strength are needed in this fight We cannot tire and we can see this through to the end.
I recently had a discussion on fascism with a few friends. I said the MAGA party led by Trump epitomizes fascism to its core.
Some agreed, other friends who weren’t ardent Trumpists but several voted for him twice, said not so fast. Their justification; the democrats are more corrupt than republicans.
I laughed of course. However, now with Menendez’s indictment and the plethora of envelopes stuffed with cash in suits, that bore his name on them, in his home, along with several gold bars, how can I argue differently, when the senate majority leader, Schumer, continues to give this man political cover?
Democrats always have a disadvantage in elections. Democrats need at least a 3% margin to win the electoral college every four years. Democrats won 5 of the last 6 popular election vote counts, yet only 3 of the presidential elections. Extreme gerrymandering in every red state and purple state gives republicans even a greater advantage: In WI, democrats won 53% of the votes, yet received 36% of the state legislative chamber.
As for fascism, few of my friends truly understand what it means. As far as Hitler is concerned, Nazism and Hitler are misused so frequently, that the name and “ism” have lost all meaning. Therefore, I’ve included the definition below.
“Fascism (/ˈfæʃɪzəm/ FASH-iz-əm) is a far-right, authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement, characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived ...”--Webster’s dictionary
Steve is 100% correct. In 2020, the US came close to a fascist state. We take for granted just how close the US military came to becoming a cudgel for the MAGA movement and turning the country into a fascist state.
Milley and several other military leaders are true hero’s, but let’s remember, the Joint Chiefs have NO command authority. That lies in two people; the President and the Secretary of Defense. Imagine if Flynn was appointed Secretary of Defense after Trump lost the election? And mid level officers control the troops. Technically, while Milley is their boss, he actually isn’t. And we’ve seen that a lot of mid-level officers are in bed with Trump. Think of Gallagher, the SEAL officer who Trump pardoned or the Army Lieutenant Clint Lorance, also pardoned for heinous crimes that their own platoons turned them in.
The military has estimated that about 30-35% of the military are filled with white supremicists or sympathizers. Flynn’s brother is an army four star general and a white supremicist in his brother’s mold.
And if Trump is reelected and republicans take back the senate, it’s not impossible to imagine that Michael Flynn could be the next Secretary of Defense and his brother Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
So back to fascism. If you read the definition, it’s not hard to imagine how close we are to achieving the end of democracy and the country being reduced to a true authoritarian kakistocracy.
Vote blue and kick Menendez out of office. The stakes are too high to give republicans another whataboutism moment. We saw how easily these charlatans can twist the truth and claim Hunters crimes are worse than Trump!
We were very close to fascism in 2020. Trump has 91 indictments in four jurisdictions pending, and he’s still the republican frontrunner by a mile. Anyone else would have been kicked to the curb by either party, and have no more than 1% support, yet here we are? Let that sink in!,
You can disagree with your friends because Menendez is and outlier within the Democratic Party. Unlike Trump, Steve Mnuchin, Ryan Zinke, Rick Scott, just to name a few, and all of the MAGA thugs, corruption is their goal. It is their operating system.
Agreed, and if only logic could possibly win an argument these days, I’d agree. Unfortunately, many believe Hunter’s crimes (never held office) are greater than the former president’s, soooo there’s that!...:)
I believe that the comment about being pushed out of his seat because he was Latino was not said by Schumer, as you wrote in your piece. That was Melendez's comment.
Correct. Thanks for flagging. I’ve updated the essay to include Schumer’s comment, which was as follows:
“Bob Menendez has been a dedicated public servant and is always fighting hard for the people of New Jersey. He has a right to due process and a fair trial.”
Thanks Steve. I read Schumer's comment in the piece you wrote yesterday. I was so disgusted I emailed him my criticism in no uncertain terms. I'm encouraged to see that Andy Kim stepped forward immediately and, hours later, announced he'll run against Menendez in the primary.
Outstanding column. Extremely important. I am sharing with as many people as possible. This information and grave alert somehow needs to be distributed to a much wider audience than just the folks who read “The Warning.”
Total agreement. My own small community of people(125?) very few of whom are not like thinkers are pretty well convinced of the danger. The other pretty well convinced 2025ers.
I shared Steve extensively this morning.
Would ...I..WE pose ....would he run for President.
This is perhaps your greatest among your great posts. When you watch, as I do, Jordon Klemper, from the Daily Show, question the MAGA zombies at their public functions, they state outright that they do not care about facts..
If their Dear Leader says night is day and day is night they are onboard. I cannot believe these people will ever change their minds. Then there are the covering Zombie’s; J Jordon, J Cormer, Gates, Green, McCarthy and the trail of sort of human detritus that use the cover of the Constitution as part of their ruse to gain power. There are so many others: Trump, DeSantis, Tuberville and on and on. They are playing us, and there are so many Americans who are allowing and encouraging this tsunami.
Rome had the coliseum, we have every sport imaginable to occupy the front of our minds, while our country is falling apart while we wave flags and tailgate ourselves into a dark spot in history.
Sadly, you are right on target with your observations and analysis. I pray the spirits of Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Kennedy will somehow rise into our consciousness, unless their names are banned in TX and FL, and shake is out of our destructive collective stupor.
Last PM I saw our Newsmax friends had some MAGA people claiming the whole Mendez indictment was to keep up from paying attention to Hunter Biden I think these MAGA trolls are better contortionists than Cirq de Soliel ! Yes Mendez needs to go as his state is asking him to leave. I have not heard what Sen Booker has said. Mendez has to resign. He may set the date after the FY24 budget is passed but he needs to end his Senate career. The NJ Governor needs to have his successor selected and ready to step in
DC has always been awash in $$ but now it is much more open. I am most angry over the Supreme Court ‘s behavior. I hope the Senate will take action and work with Justice Roberts to set the ethical standard needed for a trustworthy SCOTUS
Right now the focus is on the 2024 election. Be prepared for the crazies between now and 1/20/2025
Steve is there any way you could distill the MAGA 2025 plans into readable commentary? I think if people knew what is envisioned they would be shocked.
Maggot 2025 is basically a plan to gut the civil service of anyone that isn’t a fascist and dismantle all of those branches of our government. Think Environmental Protection Agency, Interior Department etc, any government agency that had political appointees at their heads with career civil servants that implement directives from the political leadership. What we saw under the inspired leadership of the insipid clown was malfeasance that was resisted by the civil corps, they want to eliminate that resistance by basically dismantling the federal government. Pick virtually any federal agency and this is the plan, they hated the resistance that they got in the past, so they have been developing a strategy to eliminate it. They plan to start on Jan 20th if the insipid one is reelected with wholesale firings directed from the president, they start by removing protections that civil servants enjoy from being arbitrarily fired. That’s the plan anyhow as I remember reading about it. It’s a repugnantkin dream to gut the federal government, and they have been planning how to do that ever since he lost to President Biden. Those we don’t put in prison need to be looking for jobs that involve using a broom and dust pan.
Before I retired from the Feds in 2022, I read through parts of the proposed Schedule F which focused on the replacement of career civil service with MAGA-cohorts. This would cover the financial and law enforcement/ judicial aspects. However, I have not reviewed a recent version and would appreciate if the time was take to review all 900 pages (I've heard 900) and distill to a workable set of factual bullet points.
For those not familiar with the Civil Service, they carry out the legal aspects of their agency's responsibility. When the law changes, their role changes. But they are in effect separated/ protected from the Legislative Branch deliberations until the law changes.
IMO - anger at the SCOTUS bench is misplaced. With lifetime appointments and no adherence to ethics requirements they are the puppets of a deep, decades long con and grift to legislate from the bench.
The Federalist Society, identifies and grooms candidates to further their specific anti-democracy ideology. It is our President and elected Senate representatives who abdicate the people's power to the Federalist Society with lifetime appointments of unqualified and corrupt individuals to the bench.
The Senate deserves the fullness of public outrage.
"It is not lost on me how quickly some are rushing to judge a Latino and push him out of his seat. I am not going anywhere," he said in a statement late Friday.
Correct. Thanks for flagging. I’ve updated the essay to include Schumer’s comment, which was as follows:
“Bob Menendez has been a dedicated public servant and is always fighting hard for the people of New Jersey. He has a right to due process and a fair trial.”
No one is trying to get rid of Menendez because of his ethnicity. His pattern of criminality is the problem. Steve, maybe you should speak to Menendez in Jersey language he would understand.
Made me laugh Jenn. We have a family ‘neighbors’from Jersey, moved here many years ago. Retired here. The son couldn’t deliver a sentence w/o F bombs before any noun. Hurts my ears🤦♀️😵💫
All contained in this morning's missive is poignant and not easy at all, Sunday morning notwithstanding.
Thia is our sink-or-swim moment, the time in which we select utter dissolution or constitutional (double entendre intended) integrity
May we, amongst ourselves in this space, make a promise to ourselves, to one another, that we fully emerge from twilight, from hesitation, from mincemanship, and, at every opportunity, call It all out, be the truth we wish to read, the echoing voice in the room full of the early suggestible, the unfortunate targets of the firehose of falsehood.
May we emerge from the page and the screen and be defenders IRL (as the parlance goes), may we lean into genuine patriotism, may we model those tenets we seek to uphold.
Imagine, if all of us who participate in these and similar discussions were to step under one awning and lend our voices in unison, and, as Andra Day projects so powerfully, rise up, well, fascism would wither.
I read it in its entirety; and it terrifies me. That they are so confident in their plans to be recruiting and training people for it ahead of 1/21/2025 says to me they feel like the "fix' is in.
I hate that Democrats are so splintered by things that will eventually mean nothing if/ when we lose our precious rule of law. Fascists are counting on that division. Until or unless people realize how serious this is, we will never unite sufficiently to defeat this "cancer." I look to the media to enlighten and educate people , but unlike Fox News, who has cornered the market on instilling fear in its viewers, democrats are not sufficiently informed to be fearful enough. I don't sense that there is adequate warning to the danger ahead.
I believe, we need to dissect the Project 2025 manifesto into bite sized subjects and teach Americans what each could mean for certain segments of our society as well as the nation as a whole. For example , they want to "privatize" as much as possible. ( page 83) What will that mean if/when things we currently take for granted are "owned" by oligarchs or corporations? What happens if they own our drinking water?
When they write," Every threat to family stability must be confronted. This resolve should color each of our policies." ( page 5) What does that mean? What "policies" will they put in place to force our families to comply with "their" standards?
Child labor ( in dangerous jobs)? "DOL should amend its hazard-order regulations to permit teenage workers access to work...." ( page 595) Do we want to go back to an unregulated society where profits are more important than protections?
Amidst a lot of benign sounding plans written within their 1000 page manifesto , there are some very frightening changes planned for this country; and it all begins on 1/21/2025.
God help anyone who is or loves people in the LGBTQ community. "Goal #3: Promoting Stable and Flourishing Married Families (Page 451) " ... policies should be repealed and replaced by policies that support the formation of stable, married, nuclear families." How do they plan to accomplish this?
The current disdain for the LGBTQ community will be buttressed by new laws that would make their life choices illegal (or worse!) Under a fascist regime, can we envision what might occur to a loving family unit that currently has the right to parent their adopted kids? Will the kids be ripped away?
The media is failing to educate us sufficiently. I am glad to see reporting on Project 2025 ; however, the few articles I read have given a nugget of "reassurance" that it won't happen here. Example in the AP article referenced in your piece: “Some of these visions, they do start to just bleed into some kind of authoritarian fantasies where the president won the election, so he’s in charge, so everyone has to do what he says — and that’s just not the system the government we live under,” he said.
I read the entire article; but when I get to this paragraph: "Whew!" okay it is just a "fantasy" according to Philip Wallach (a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute). Because he is a respected person in "the know" and he minimizes it as a "fantasy," I don't need to worry about the danger of this well thought out manual and plan called Project 2025. That one little paragraph undermined the seriousness and danger that should have screamed out to readers! He is correct: it is not "the government we live under." But it is the government that is planned when we lose this one in 2024!
I read truths here and I read them elsewhere; but we need a way to reach more people so that there is a general understanding of what is at stake.
I don't have the answer; but I am hoping that some in the national media with a wide audience can pound the table: We are about to lose our precious democracy! All hands must be on board to fight for it.
And have top creative minds and deep-pocketed patriots pull back the curtain on the radical right’s wicked agenda targeting impressionable low-information voters who are falling for their Jedi mind tricks.
And don’t stop till this large and looming threat is exposed as the hostile takeover that it is—a future these millions of good American citizens would never want for their children.
There’s little doubt in my mind, Steve. Whether there’s a sufficient WE going to the polls to make this ‘the turn’ afore mentioned vs the one feared ....
Yes, I am , it’s a pittance but I’m on a fixed income, need I say more? I do however share these eloquent writers to many, and my consortium of friends are subscribers too and also share. I’m in blood red, second poorest state , first state in sad statistics and have fought for them wonderful and gutsy in their own ways for 40+ years.
This is at this moment I feel the most critical stage I’ve ever seen of our UNION.I worked professionally in ‘the system’ and know its weakening slide.Know the apethic. Know the uneducated. Know the odds.
Equal justice is a two word phrase. It does not discuss ethnic, gender, or other characteristics so Menendez gets a fair trial by his peers as the first step. Under the justice part, if guilty according to those peers, he pays the same penalty would any other person convicted of that crime. Being a Senator, being Latin, being male, or being married does not affect that aspect. Rule of law means rule OF law for all. Pretty straightforward. Same for Anyone else.
we all have a right to innocent until proven guilty, but given the preponderance of evidence, we don't all have a right to be in the Senate when there is this much being charged against you.
he must resign now.
Or be removed.
He should resign asap, as it an example that Democrats don't support possible corruption in office. For other reasons, McConnell and Feinstein should also resign. If your cognitive faculties are failing, the U.S. taxpayers deserve your replacement.
Al Franken resigned over much less.
These persons are not able to accept reality. Being Older or Old does not cancel you out of life if you are still capable of reason, clear judgements, conclusion, etc.
Because McConnell has a deep voice and they have no one else to replace him, this does not cancel out the fact that dementia is occurring, this is quite obvious. To be able to think occasionally is no longer a concrete position. McConnell & Feinstein, it is time to let go. And Corruption must be dealt with quickly.
I think everyone forgets Santos because he represents a vote yet is unfit as many are. Trump in 2025 will have no justice for all. His will be justice for his foes. I don’t want to die thinking our Constitution meant nothing and I’ll be imprisoned for who I am. Yeah, you’re absolutely right. Look at Wisconsin. Look everywhere. This next year is about accountability not being afraid of a former moron who believes in not one of the institutions or the constitution and shits on it. He’s hoaxed himself into the emperor with no clothes or a defense other than cry me another deep state hoax, witch hunt...A DOJ and 91 indictments is not some made up BS. Good fraud would be a couple. Truth is 91 plus all else.
Well stated. Listening Mr Schumer....America?
I fear the majority will wake up when it has become too late.
I’m still rooting for the lesson to sink in. I’ve seen the American People rally up amazingly. How well are you insulated if not? Prepare best possible .For those who can spread the word and talk about real losses , the poor and disenfranchised have the greatest loss always , we sure don’t need more of that. Read The Great Depression? And most everyone those days knew a helluva lot more about survival.
Luv yer name🫶
What is so disconcerting and concerning for me is the vast numbers supporting the anti-American politic. The in-your-face belligerence coupled with defiant ignorance without any shame is demoralizing. One must hope and pray that the people will "rally up". We are being overrun by scoundrels and miscreants. Thank you for the thumbs up on my nom de plume! We are Celts going way back. Years ago a colleague remarked how I looked like one of the ten thousand brave hearts marching atop the heath! 😂
Two words - I’m scared.
While I agree with this take overall, I think you need 1. to check your privilege; and 2. To think more about the brutal cowboy capitalism behind what has caused what you describe here:
“Fascism is rising in 2020s America because our democracy has grown weak, corrupted and rotten. A decaying society is vulnerable to a great danger: a strongman with a promise that they alone can fix everything. Sound familiar?”
1. What you experience as moral decay, others far less privileged experience very differently. I won’t try to capture all of it here, but, depending on the community, demographics, etc., that experience includes extreme economic deprivation -- and the resulting extreme sense of insecurity, the stripping away of personal and political agency, unending police brutality, homelessness and/or housing insecurity, a reaming-out and privatizing of the once phenomenal “public goods/commons” -- including education at all levels, our vastly unequal health care “system,” and virtually all public-facing public services. I could go on but I said I wouldn’t.
And do you know what caused all of this: our brutal cowboy capitalism which was for a time, following FDR and WWII, finally pulled kicking a screaming into some sort of real relationship to the welfare of the people and not just the shareholders, but then unleashed by the very GOP led by Ronald Reaganthat is still revered by even the most avid “Never-Trump” former republicans. Forty years of brutal “Trickle-down” economics driven by the “imperative” of Globalization, eviscerated enough of the “Grand bargain” between workers (and their unions) and the underserved that had been literally fought for for generations. The white working class finanlly experienced the indifference and stripping away of dignity that had become part of ancient history in this country.
Our capitalism was unleashed and freed to freest itself on the extraordinary bounties of wealth that it is possible to accumulate when you are freed from any obligation to society.
And so, yes, what we privileged people call “morals” began to erode across the board in middle/working class. Resentment grew and a reach a boiling point by the time of the 2008 meltdown where millions lost the only economic safety-net left to them: the equity in their homes. The desperation and then turned to outrage as the bankers were bailed-out but not the people. All of this made for what you describe above: a Union torn apart at the seams by forty-plus years of bi-partisan public policy focused almost exclusively on enabling a capitalist feeding frenzy.
Moral decay is not a free-floating phenomenon. It is tied to real circumstances. In history, most of those circumstances involve elites on an avaricious rampage that savages the lives of ordinary people. Our “Democracy” was designed to be better than that. After a Civil War and economic reform era, two world wars and a renewed civil/womens’ rights movement, we were on a decent track towards being better when it was all redirected back onto the exploitative fast track. ANd here we are, left fighting the morally depraved Trump and his legions of resentful, revengeful followers.
Biden and the Dem Party gets much of this and the huge investments in “Heartland” projects, jobs, and a sustainable future are the basis of a way forward through this mess. It is far past time for so-call “normie” republicans to renounce their false Reaganite Idol and join with “democrats”everywhere in this country to bring us back onto the tracks that lead to a more equitable and prosperous future that “centers”the wellbeing of all.
“Biden and the Dem Party gets much of this and the huge investments in “Heartland” projects, jobs, and a sustainable future are the basis of a way forward through this mess. It is far past time for so-call “normie” republicans to renounce their false Reaganite Idol and join with “democrats”everywhere in this country to bring us back onto the tracks that lead to a more equitable and prosperous future that “centers”the wellbeing of all.”--John Saxton
Agreed, and excellent points. However, if you think that heartland investments will win over republicans in the Confederate States of America, I want what you’re smoking. These people are indoctrinated and get their news from a right-wing ecosystem.
Republican politicians who voted against Build back better, the Infrastructure and CHIP bills are the same politicians who voted against the bills and now are claiming credit in their congressional districts and succeeding.
Talk to any Trump voter and the crimes of Hunter, who never held public office are greater than a man who committed treason and stole top secret documents and lied in affidavits about giving them back.
Everything you said is correct, but the root cause of these problems (republicans) is irrelevant. In order to convince these low information voters would be in the war of public opinion. And so far, it’s a losing battle.
Just some thoughts.
I agree with you totally. The heartland investments are just a start, but I do believe an important one. Wrestling with the morass of dangerous and delusional fantasies that are now firmly rooted in the heartland is a major issue. This will take a lot of time and so, my default position is the need to assemble an overwhelming majority coalition that can beat back the authoritarian juggernaut in election after election, until new/saner leadership can emerge. What that leadership will look like and will stand for -- I have no idea. But I think we have to work towards this possibility with everything we’ve got. Thanks.
Wholeheartedly agree. And as far as I’m concerned, you win the comment of the day...:)
If you are interested, I have just further elaborated on this comment in a post of my own: https://open.substack.com/pub/jonthinks/p/an-answer-to-steve-schmidts-post?r=mrvx1&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Just read your newsletter. Well said.
I’d add a few comments which support your conclusions.
Churchill one said, “democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the rest.”
The same can be said for capitalism. It’s the worst form of economic stimulus, except for all the rest.
From 2001 to 2007 alone (Pew Research), more than 700 million people globally moved out of severe poverty. So capitalism does work when regulated properly.
However, unfettered free market capitalism is nothing more than the Wild West: survival of the fittest with little to no rules; making it difficult to prosecute the villains of any economic demise.
Under Reagan, we started the deregulation and outsourcing of our manufacturing and in some cases service sectors, to China and India and elsewhere. Both republican and democratic policies gave companies incentives to do so. This continued with Bush, Clinton and Bush Jr., until the Great Recession.
Yet, we haven’t learned our lessons. Even after Dodd Frank, financial companies paid lobbyists to neuter much of the laws regulatory aspects over the years, and this year alone, more than six banks failed when interest rates were increased to combat inflation.
And the type of capitalism we practice is debatable. Greenspan and Friedman believed that there shouldn’t be regulations in free markets because the markets themselves would rid itself of bad actors, yet that never materialized.
Instead, we bailed out banks after they destroyed the economy, and to add insult to injury, these same bankers after pleading for a bailout, paid themselves record bonuses when millions were losing their jobs monthly.
Even Trump’s COVID bailout was a scam. A trillion dollars that went straight to corporations who used the money to give special dividends to shareholders while employees were either fired or furloughed.
My point, we need stipulations when giving these companies any bailouts, and we need dark money out of politics. Otherwise, all is lost. And we can’t count on the Supreme Court for help. The majority of them are bought and paid for by corporations and billionaires.
Just some thoughts to add to your excellent column...:)
Again, totally agree. I wish I had a better sense of where “corporate” America is on all of this. I know it’s not a monolith, but there are definitely thought leaders in every industry. Some, like Koch Industries, are sponsors of all of this. But some/most must realize that authoritarians don’t believe in free markets. They operate on patronage, intimidation, and chaos.
I wrote an earlier piece about the issue that elites are buffered from a lot of the impacts of Trump and MAGA so far and so tend still to just look away from it all and hope it will go away. But what about corporate America? They know as well as anyone that things don’t just go away, especially at this level of a “Dire Moment.”
I do think that more of these corporate leaders would come forward if the sort of new coalition I talked about were to form. I think that would “work” for them, at least to get past this moment. Down the road, of course, looking towards incentivizing more corporate social responsibility, etc., things would undoubtedly get contentious!
Love Steve's simple clear takes. He has, I think, the big pen and brain that can include these key facts into his brief pieces about our nation's painful past 50 years or so.
I believe THIS is what brought us here. People are angry for a reason, the reasons you stated. And feel powerless, and power has been taken away. That is the truth. Thank you for saying this so clearly.
Excellent writing, Steve. Fascism scares the hell out of me. I'm going to share your article everywhere. These words you wrote are important.
we need people like Steve to bravely come forward.
i am spreading the truth.
Liberally.
It's ALL, So Tiring. Staggering is an Understatement.
It's sort of unreal that here, at the end of my life, we're at this point.
I could never conceive of so many people either actively embracing fascism or being ignorant or indifferent to it.
We at least have to make the case for the American people, and the American people need to wake up.
I stay optimistic . I’ve been told my Rose Colored Glasses are old ...also! The long list of how we got here /how it got there, has been written at least three times to my knowledge and is currently in it’s forth revision . Hope is necessary , ‘be not a quitter’ was a drilled topic. However, also at my EOL (maybe another 20 with good practices followed) I hope it’s not my biggest fight yet...it’s not for me ...it’s for my children, my grand and great grands and the millions of YOU.
That in a nutshell is the key.
Because ME is all the others promulgating -this 2025 either in essence or action is about.
That doesn’t fly, never has, but....
I don’t want to see America suffer 12 years of having to claw back what’s going to be lost ....
💙💙VOTE💙💙
If the people understand the stakes, we will win.
True. Then there’s gerrymandering, brainwashing, and just plain apathy.There’s many people I know who have more than half a brain and they’re on the fence leaning right.
It’s a fight any road taken.
But, the Democrats saw this taking place in real time. Where were THEY?
Getting elected so that they could stop it, and impeaching a fascist and lawless president.
Seems that they will keep anyone with a D behind his/her name simply to retain the ‘majority’ in the Senate.
IF is one operative word.
Do I wish we were focused on something else, yes. I would rather be learning how to throw pots. However our skills and strength are needed in this fight We cannot tire and we can see this through to the end.
I recently had a discussion on fascism with a few friends. I said the MAGA party led by Trump epitomizes fascism to its core.
Some agreed, other friends who weren’t ardent Trumpists but several voted for him twice, said not so fast. Their justification; the democrats are more corrupt than republicans.
I laughed of course. However, now with Menendez’s indictment and the plethora of envelopes stuffed with cash in suits, that bore his name on them, in his home, along with several gold bars, how can I argue differently, when the senate majority leader, Schumer, continues to give this man political cover?
Democrats always have a disadvantage in elections. Democrats need at least a 3% margin to win the electoral college every four years. Democrats won 5 of the last 6 popular election vote counts, yet only 3 of the presidential elections. Extreme gerrymandering in every red state and purple state gives republicans even a greater advantage: In WI, democrats won 53% of the votes, yet received 36% of the state legislative chamber.
As for fascism, few of my friends truly understand what it means. As far as Hitler is concerned, Nazism and Hitler are misused so frequently, that the name and “ism” have lost all meaning. Therefore, I’ve included the definition below.
“Fascism (/ˈfæʃɪzəm/ FASH-iz-əm) is a far-right, authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement, characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived ...”--Webster’s dictionary
Steve is 100% correct. In 2020, the US came close to a fascist state. We take for granted just how close the US military came to becoming a cudgel for the MAGA movement and turning the country into a fascist state.
Milley and several other military leaders are true hero’s, but let’s remember, the Joint Chiefs have NO command authority. That lies in two people; the President and the Secretary of Defense. Imagine if Flynn was appointed Secretary of Defense after Trump lost the election? And mid level officers control the troops. Technically, while Milley is their boss, he actually isn’t. And we’ve seen that a lot of mid-level officers are in bed with Trump. Think of Gallagher, the SEAL officer who Trump pardoned or the Army Lieutenant Clint Lorance, also pardoned for heinous crimes that their own platoons turned them in.
The military has estimated that about 30-35% of the military are filled with white supremicists or sympathizers. Flynn’s brother is an army four star general and a white supremicist in his brother’s mold.
And if Trump is reelected and republicans take back the senate, it’s not impossible to imagine that Michael Flynn could be the next Secretary of Defense and his brother Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
So back to fascism. If you read the definition, it’s not hard to imagine how close we are to achieving the end of democracy and the country being reduced to a true authoritarian kakistocracy.
Vote blue and kick Menendez out of office. The stakes are too high to give republicans another whataboutism moment. We saw how easily these charlatans can twist the truth and claim Hunters crimes are worse than Trump!
We were very close to fascism in 2020. Trump has 91 indictments in four jurisdictions pending, and he’s still the republican frontrunner by a mile. Anyone else would have been kicked to the curb by either party, and have no more than 1% support, yet here we are? Let that sink in!,
Well stated Robert, it has been sinking in for a while now, and I hate how it makes me feel.
You’re in good company...:)
You can disagree with your friends because Menendez is and outlier within the Democratic Party. Unlike Trump, Steve Mnuchin, Ryan Zinke, Rick Scott, just to name a few, and all of the MAGA thugs, corruption is their goal. It is their operating system.
Agreed, and if only logic could possibly win an argument these days, I’d agree. Unfortunately, many believe Hunter’s crimes (never held office) are greater than the former president’s, soooo there’s that!...:)
You are correct. It won't win an argument.
I believe that the comment about being pushed out of his seat because he was Latino was not said by Schumer, as you wrote in your piece. That was Melendez's comment.
Correct. Thanks for flagging. I’ve updated the essay to include Schumer’s comment, which was as follows:
“Bob Menendez has been a dedicated public servant and is always fighting hard for the people of New Jersey. He has a right to due process and a fair trial.”
Steve
Thanks Steve. I read Schumer's comment in the piece you wrote yesterday. I was so disgusted I emailed him my criticism in no uncertain terms. I'm encouraged to see that Andy Kim stepped forward immediately and, hours later, announced he'll run against Menendez in the primary.
Great news about Andy Kim!
Menendez
Well I should hope, thanks Elizabeth .
Outstanding column. Extremely important. I am sharing with as many people as possible. This information and grave alert somehow needs to be distributed to a much wider audience than just the folks who read “The Warning.”
Total agreement. My own small community of people(125?) very few of whom are not like thinkers are pretty well convinced of the danger. The other pretty well convinced 2025ers.
I shared Steve extensively this morning.
Would ...I..WE pose ....would he run for President.
Hey Steve...🤷♀️?
This is perhaps your greatest among your great posts. When you watch, as I do, Jordon Klemper, from the Daily Show, question the MAGA zombies at their public functions, they state outright that they do not care about facts..
If their Dear Leader says night is day and day is night they are onboard. I cannot believe these people will ever change their minds. Then there are the covering Zombie’s; J Jordon, J Cormer, Gates, Green, McCarthy and the trail of sort of human detritus that use the cover of the Constitution as part of their ruse to gain power. There are so many others: Trump, DeSantis, Tuberville and on and on. They are playing us, and there are so many Americans who are allowing and encouraging this tsunami.
Rome had the coliseum, we have every sport imaginable to occupy the front of our minds, while our country is falling apart while we wave flags and tailgate ourselves into a dark spot in history.
Sadly, you are right on target with your observations and analysis. I pray the spirits of Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Kennedy will somehow rise into our consciousness, unless their names are banned in TX and FL, and shake is out of our destructive collective stupor.
Last PM I saw our Newsmax friends had some MAGA people claiming the whole Mendez indictment was to keep up from paying attention to Hunter Biden I think these MAGA trolls are better contortionists than Cirq de Soliel ! Yes Mendez needs to go as his state is asking him to leave. I have not heard what Sen Booker has said. Mendez has to resign. He may set the date after the FY24 budget is passed but he needs to end his Senate career. The NJ Governor needs to have his successor selected and ready to step in
DC has always been awash in $$ but now it is much more open. I am most angry over the Supreme Court ‘s behavior. I hope the Senate will take action and work with Justice Roberts to set the ethical standard needed for a trustworthy SCOTUS
Right now the focus is on the 2024 election. Be prepared for the crazies between now and 1/20/2025
Steve is there any way you could distill the MAGA 2025 plans into readable commentary? I think if people knew what is envisioned they would be shocked.
Maggot 2025 is basically a plan to gut the civil service of anyone that isn’t a fascist and dismantle all of those branches of our government. Think Environmental Protection Agency, Interior Department etc, any government agency that had political appointees at their heads with career civil servants that implement directives from the political leadership. What we saw under the inspired leadership of the insipid clown was malfeasance that was resisted by the civil corps, they want to eliminate that resistance by basically dismantling the federal government. Pick virtually any federal agency and this is the plan, they hated the resistance that they got in the past, so they have been developing a strategy to eliminate it. They plan to start on Jan 20th if the insipid one is reelected with wholesale firings directed from the president, they start by removing protections that civil servants enjoy from being arbitrarily fired. That’s the plan anyhow as I remember reading about it. It’s a repugnantkin dream to gut the federal government, and they have been planning how to do that ever since he lost to President Biden. Those we don’t put in prison need to be looking for jobs that involve using a broom and dust pan.
Before I retired from the Feds in 2022, I read through parts of the proposed Schedule F which focused on the replacement of career civil service with MAGA-cohorts. This would cover the financial and law enforcement/ judicial aspects. However, I have not reviewed a recent version and would appreciate if the time was take to review all 900 pages (I've heard 900) and distill to a workable set of factual bullet points.
For those not familiar with the Civil Service, they carry out the legal aspects of their agency's responsibility. When the law changes, their role changes. But they are in effect separated/ protected from the Legislative Branch deliberations until the law changes.
IMO - anger at the SCOTUS bench is misplaced. With lifetime appointments and no adherence to ethics requirements they are the puppets of a deep, decades long con and grift to legislate from the bench.
The Federalist Society, identifies and grooms candidates to further their specific anti-democracy ideology. It is our President and elected Senate representatives who abdicate the people's power to the Federalist Society with lifetime appointments of unqualified and corrupt individuals to the bench.
The Senate deserves the fullness of public outrage.
Would agree with the core comment. Would also recommend looking at Prof Kermit Roosevelt ‘s recent recommendation to limit court terms.
Also every other Fed in all three branches has an enforceable code of ethics except SCOTUS. They need one now.
Not Schumer. From Reuters:
However, Menendez said he had no plan to resign.
"It is not lost on me how quickly some are rushing to judge a Latino and push him out of his seat. I am not going anywhere," he said in a statement late Friday.
Correct. Thanks for flagging. I’ve updated the essay to include Schumer’s comment, which was as follows:
“Bob Menendez has been a dedicated public servant and is always fighting hard for the people of New Jersey. He has a right to due process and a fair trial.”
Steve
🫶
No one is trying to get rid of Menendez because of his ethnicity. His pattern of criminality is the problem. Steve, maybe you should speak to Menendez in Jersey language he would understand.
Made me laugh Jenn. We have a family ‘neighbors’from Jersey, moved here many years ago. Retired here. The son couldn’t deliver a sentence w/o F bombs before any noun. Hurts my ears🤦♀️😵💫
I assumed ...😉
I'm sharing this everywhere.
The nation is blessed to have a patriot like you on the front lines right now.
thank you for your service.
All contained in this morning's missive is poignant and not easy at all, Sunday morning notwithstanding.
Thia is our sink-or-swim moment, the time in which we select utter dissolution or constitutional (double entendre intended) integrity
May we, amongst ourselves in this space, make a promise to ourselves, to one another, that we fully emerge from twilight, from hesitation, from mincemanship, and, at every opportunity, call It all out, be the truth we wish to read, the echoing voice in the room full of the early suggestible, the unfortunate targets of the firehose of falsehood.
May we emerge from the page and the screen and be defenders IRL (as the parlance goes), may we lean into genuine patriotism, may we model those tenets we seek to uphold.
Imagine, if all of us who participate in these and similar discussions were to step under one awning and lend our voices in unison, and, as Andra Day projects so powerfully, rise up, well, fascism would wither.
#dayofrisingup
This we shall defend.
Mincemenship…what a perfect word.
Thank you for mentioning Project 2025. https://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/project2025/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf
I read it in its entirety; and it terrifies me. That they are so confident in their plans to be recruiting and training people for it ahead of 1/21/2025 says to me they feel like the "fix' is in.
I hate that Democrats are so splintered by things that will eventually mean nothing if/ when we lose our precious rule of law. Fascists are counting on that division. Until or unless people realize how serious this is, we will never unite sufficiently to defeat this "cancer." I look to the media to enlighten and educate people , but unlike Fox News, who has cornered the market on instilling fear in its viewers, democrats are not sufficiently informed to be fearful enough. I don't sense that there is adequate warning to the danger ahead.
I believe, we need to dissect the Project 2025 manifesto into bite sized subjects and teach Americans what each could mean for certain segments of our society as well as the nation as a whole. For example , they want to "privatize" as much as possible. ( page 83) What will that mean if/when things we currently take for granted are "owned" by oligarchs or corporations? What happens if they own our drinking water?
When they write," Every threat to family stability must be confronted. This resolve should color each of our policies." ( page 5) What does that mean? What "policies" will they put in place to force our families to comply with "their" standards?
Child labor ( in dangerous jobs)? "DOL should amend its hazard-order regulations to permit teenage workers access to work...." ( page 595) Do we want to go back to an unregulated society where profits are more important than protections?
Amidst a lot of benign sounding plans written within their 1000 page manifesto , there are some very frightening changes planned for this country; and it all begins on 1/21/2025.
God help anyone who is or loves people in the LGBTQ community. "Goal #3: Promoting Stable and Flourishing Married Families (Page 451) " ... policies should be repealed and replaced by policies that support the formation of stable, married, nuclear families." How do they plan to accomplish this?
The current disdain for the LGBTQ community will be buttressed by new laws that would make their life choices illegal (or worse!) Under a fascist regime, can we envision what might occur to a loving family unit that currently has the right to parent their adopted kids? Will the kids be ripped away?
The media is failing to educate us sufficiently. I am glad to see reporting on Project 2025 ; however, the few articles I read have given a nugget of "reassurance" that it won't happen here. Example in the AP article referenced in your piece: “Some of these visions, they do start to just bleed into some kind of authoritarian fantasies where the president won the election, so he’s in charge, so everyone has to do what he says — and that’s just not the system the government we live under,” he said.
I read the entire article; but when I get to this paragraph: "Whew!" okay it is just a "fantasy" according to Philip Wallach (a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute). Because he is a respected person in "the know" and he minimizes it as a "fantasy," I don't need to worry about the danger of this well thought out manual and plan called Project 2025. That one little paragraph undermined the seriousness and danger that should have screamed out to readers! He is correct: it is not "the government we live under." But it is the government that is planned when we lose this one in 2024!
I read truths here and I read them elsewhere; but we need a way to reach more people so that there is a general understanding of what is at stake.
I don't have the answer; but I am hoping that some in the national media with a wide audience can pound the table: We are about to lose our precious democracy! All hands must be on board to fight for it.
The fear we’re all facing after this reading?
Boil it down.
And have top creative minds and deep-pocketed patriots pull back the curtain on the radical right’s wicked agenda targeting impressionable low-information voters who are falling for their Jedi mind tricks.
And don’t stop till this large and looming threat is exposed as the hostile takeover that it is—a future these millions of good American citizens would never want for their children.
Or we’re all just pissing into an ill wind.
.
There’s little doubt in my mind, Steve. Whether there’s a sufficient WE going to the polls to make this ‘the turn’ afore mentioned vs the one feared ....
is up to US.
This is your best Steve.
💙💙VOTE OUT ALL THE COMPLICIT💙💙
Tall Order😬
We can do it. Help the states that are having 2023 elections. Virginia and Ohio
Yes, I am , it’s a pittance but I’m on a fixed income, need I say more? I do however share these eloquent writers to many, and my consortium of friends are subscribers too and also share. I’m in blood red, second poorest state , first state in sad statistics and have fought for them wonderful and gutsy in their own ways for 40+ years.
This is at this moment I feel the most critical stage I’ve ever seen of our UNION.I worked professionally in ‘the system’ and know its weakening slide.Know the apethic. Know the uneducated. Know the odds.
Still fighting.
Thanks, glad you’re on board🫶
Menendez should step down. Like, yesterday.
Reality in America
Corruption at many levels, with tentacles that ensure that the absence of its reporting maintain the coercion based upon the greed of those entangled
Honorable men do exist, but the riptide of propagandistic media taxes their strength
Swim parallel to shore ye men of conscience, then survive and conquer the beasts