The greatest experiment in the history of mankind is crumbling under the unendurable weight of American cowardice, greed, selfishness, corruption, indifference and sloth.
Yes, Douthat’s “opinion” was pathetic, but no surprise. He has been falling in line for years. Boy, did he get a shitload of blowback. It made him look like the Appeaser fool that he is.
Ross is the arch-conservative Opus Dei fanboy of the NYT. He used to be an outlier, but the NYT has quietly caved to "let's not annoy Trump." Even Ezra Klein has written some whoppers.
If you go to cancel, they'll offer a hugely discounted rate. Instead of $28/ month plus more for Cooking, I now pay $29/ year, inclusive.
Great that you recognize the Opus Dei connection. Already in the ranks are Barr & Durham. Exactly why Barr had Durham “investigate” the 2020 election, to manufacture dirt. He couldn’t even do that without making a complete fool of himself, ruining his previous reputation, not to mention abusing the system & wasting money.
I already got myself a great deal with the NYT after bailing out. They cannot afford to lose us!!!!
I've been beating that anti-Opus Dei drum ever since I found out who they are. Pope John Paul II legitimized that criminal cult of slavery and ignorance. What was he thinking?!
It’s so funny Kristine, because I am a digital subscriber and pay $23/month and almost $50 for cooking ( I have thousands of recipes and haven’t cooked in 20 years) but they don’t stop hocking me every freaking day to upgrade or get a family membership (for me, myself and I). Must be getting desperate. I was watching Jim Acosta live the other day when he cxl’d his WAPO subscription he has had forever, but he had it with them after their coverage of the EW and when he went to cancel it they offered him deals to keep it too. He kept declining until he was finally rid of it. I’m also not Christian but I just bought a book on Opus Dei. Sounds beyond creepy.
Yes to NYT wanting us to recruit others? To read about Romance Stories 😝 or redecorating your Paris apartment but precious little about politics?
Good for you reading about Opus Dei 🫣. Very dark & scary. I'm reading American history-- also scary, and next up is a ray of hope: the National Popular Vote interstate compact, which will mean the the presidency goes to the winner of the popular vote! It will defang the Electoral College! Which is not a constitutional thing. The group doing it has 17 states + DC agreed, 209 electoral votes. 270 needed, so about 25 states total. I live in VA, which is lookin' good! Remaining: PA, MI, WI, AZ, and NV. Hugely popular with citizens--about 2:1 in favor. Most Dems on board, nowadays a plurality of Republicans favor keeping the EC. You can see where my head is: maxed out, no room for Opus Dei even though it is Halloween!
Indeed! I seem to be splitting my time between Substack and books. Substack is getting the lion's share. It's that life-life balance thing! (I'm retired.) Housework rarely enters into it, oops!
I already cancelled WaPo after Bezos refused to allow the editorial that was warning us NOT to vote for the crazed despot. I guess I’m going to have to cancel NYT too - it’s no longer worth reading it since they are willing to load up on the BS.
Under Marty Baron, Democracy Dies in Darkness meant a lot more. Still not perfect, but still more. Bezos, that low-rent low-class piece of shit, is a combo of white trash with money and overseer who bought the plantation.
Bezos is like Stephen Miller in that he was picked on in HS and then decided the rest of his life to get even. Miller is getting even by heading the tRump Gestapo organization and Bezos by taking all $500B of his tax refund to help tRump pay for his opulent extravagances and other operations against Amerika.
"Two hundred and fifty years’ time has finally revealed a generation of America’s soft enough, ignorant enough and stupid enough to participate in the euthanasia of their own liberty, opportunity and justice in the United States."
Yes, and while it is heartbreaking and infuriating to watch the destruction of the East Wing, the rule of law, and the principles and values that established this once great albeit imperfect country, it is the virtual silence from 350 million Americans, the apparent inability to respond appropriately to the unfolding crisis that has this Yankee choked up.
A tidal wave of voter participation in '26 and '28 is this democracy's last hope.
Even before Nov 2026 we can show them what we think of them & get their attention. We ALL must make a pact & refuse to give them our money for this entire Holiday Season starting right NOW. No buying & mailing cards, no buying & exchanging gifts, except for the 3-12 age group; & then only buy them gifts from small locally owned shops or small online retailers. We all know that all the giant corporations make a huge percentage of their total annual sales & profits over the next 60-80 days; do not give it to them.
Inform all your friends & family that’s what you will be doing & ask them to join you. Do pot luck meals at rotating homes, play board games, cards, dominoes. If it’s nice weather, play some outdoors games or go hiking. Use whatever decorations you already own, don’t buy anything new. Maybe regift things, make it hilarious. Let them get stuck with all the extra inventory they bought for this season.
Times are going to get worse, donate the money you would have spent on holiday food, gifts, travel, to a food pantry, or homeless shelter. People are going to go hungry, do whatever you can to help.
Yes 👏 that’s why I’m saying to donate any money we usually would have spent during this Holiday Season to food pantries & perhaps get a community pool going to assist those folks with rent & utilities. We must do whatever we can to help them. 💙💙💙
Excellent game plan! I am already buying just necessities! Started throwing out the Christmas gift catalogs the day they arrive. Did even to see what I am missing!
In my county we just formed a volunteer food donation group. Going to donate canned goods. I have paired down my shopping after that and asking family to do the same.
We need to boycott their companies as much as possible. Work up to a general strike with all the appropriate organizations involved. I think it will happen, but I don't know how long it will take. A lot of people will be hurt as time goes on and some (farmers) are feeling it now. Trump's erratic tariffs and economic policies, the crypto and AI bubble with no regs, the cruel treatment and deportations, and the rampant corruption will kill small businesses and people's budgets and security. It is so sad..
We need a parallel wave of resistance and non-violent civil disobedience. The Trump/MAGA despising majority MUST become an unstoppable force that refuses to give way. Resist, everyone. Every minute of every day, in every way possible.
Um, Yankee? I think we're only at 340 million, and subtract at least 7 million who turned out for No Kings Day, and we'll add another 3 million at least who were tooting on their horns, and it's only 330 million who are publicly silent.
Oh for Pete's sake. I should have avoided any possible critique by just saying millions.
Yes, Yankee. As in: walk it off, suck it up, Calvinist Quaker mother. Yankee. The point was, Yankees to tend to cry. I'm going to watch out for you Kristine! Yikes!
Whoa! I am very very fond of Yankees, being one myself by adoption. A culture that highly values education and self-governance, government as a good thing, with a high moral vision. Not just $$$$$$$$$.
I only meant my comment as a gentle nudge: We are not all silent. Not at all! Something like 2% of us made a great big noise 9 days ago, in well under a year of Trump's terrorism. That's huge! It's not enough yet, but it's definitely growing.
We don't actually need to mobilize even 1/3 of us in resistance to this authoritarian regime. The academics say: We need to about double our present numbers, in sustained non-violent opposition, by fracturing the regime's support. The regime is doing such a good job of bulldozing their support, but we'll need to keep at it because we also need to vanquish the Rollover Democrats.
These are horrifying times. The regime is perfectly okay with starving Americans to give about 400 billionaire families about half a billion more, each, of taxpayer funds.
The bastards *want* us to despair, and I refuse. I've got my shield and sword up, and I will not and cannot surrender. We can do this (and, as before, the madmen in this regime are doing half our organizing work for us).
I am sorry that a comment I meant as light-hearted landed the wrong way!
I have not been silent. Either have 7 million who went to the protests that I went to. Some of us have been doing that, phoning, writing postcards and emails and boycotting. I do acknowledge however that it is not enough! Too many are still asleep thinking someone else will rescue them. It’s not going to happen.
Hi, 7 out of 340 is virtual silence, and I include our elected officials in both parties in the comment. I doubt anyone reading this Substack post is silent.
A ballroom for the White House? Sure. After careful discussion with preservationists and architects, a site study, and with approval, a bigger and nicer venue could be a valued addition. THIS monstrosity attached to OUR White House? An abomination. And particularly so in these economically fraught times. Luckily no building is permanent. Like the schlocky gold stick-ons with which Trump has polluted our Oval Office, it can be removed, or modified in a way to make it useful rather than offensive. In the meantime it is just another big mistake by the Trumpists in Charge, one that may cost them leadership.
Steve - your words describe this so well - cowardice, greed, selfishness, corruption, indifference and sloth. No backbone whatsoever. The only way you stand up to a bully is to challenge the bully, not give in. We have a bunch of people who don’t care what happens to our country or democracy, as long as they get their piece of the pie. The question for Bezos is how much is enough before we don’t have a country anymore?
Stop buying from Amazon. Cancel all subscriptions that you possibly can. Please boycott the entire Holiday Season starting today & going through New Year’s
I read the editorial and was horrified. I scanned up to the author to make sure it really was a Post editorial. I canceled my subscription again. I did before and then weakened- no more!
Execrable people, execrable decisions in a country that seems determined to become excrement its own self while ignoring the smell that’s all around. Keep it up, Steve! And given your close proximity to some of them a few years back, what the hell is up with the Supreme Court? are they scared? are they fascists? Are they money-grubbing whores? So much of our government seems divorced from this horrified rabble that’s out here looking for sense or logic or compassion.Their decisions seem to have no relationship to the documents upon which they are supposedly based and I am as furious at them and at Mitch McConnell, as I am at Trump and MAGA.
Anyone naive enough to not recognize that the goal of MAGA is to create an authoritarian regime in our country in order to exploit us for the advantage of the already obscenely wealthy needs to read this and watch the video available on the internet:
SANCHEZ: You have called the district judge's ruling blocking the deployment of National Guard in Oregon legal insurrection. Does the administration still plan to abide by that ruling?
MILLER: Well, the administration filed an appeal this morning with the Ninth Circuit. I would note the administration won an identical case in the Ninth Circuit just a few months ago with respect to the federalizing of the California National Guard. Under Title 10 of the U.S. Code, the president has plenary authority. Has --
SANCHEZ: Stephen. Stephen. Hey, Stephen, can you hear me?
It seems, Stephen, I apologize. It seems like we're having a technical issue. We'll try to fix that and get back to you after a quick break.
A CNN transcript (archived) confirmed Miller said these words during an Oct. 6, 2025, live interview with host Boris Sanchez.
I watched him say it...plenary authority...then he froze like a deer-caught-in-the-headlights. It's the only time Stephen Miller ever shut up. CNN edited that embarrassment out. Too late. Plus some people posted both versions. They think we are all stupid...or have amnesia like his entire regime.
This was my response to Ross Douthat's article in the NYT yesterday that was picked as a "readers pick" on the NYT website.
Douthat’s essay is a master class in genteel capitulation — the kind of argument that dresses up moral cowardice in architectural theory. His whole premise depends on pretending Trump’s act of destruction is a conversation about aesthetics rather than about authoritarian impulse. That’s like reviewing the “craftsmanship” of the sledgehammer that tore through a national monument.
He calls the demolition “good to build,” as if the country were just a neglected homeowner finally putting in that long-overdue rec room. It’s astonishing: a sitting president razes a piece of living history to build a donor ballroom, and Douthat’s takeaway is that progressives don’t appreciate bold construction timelines. He romanticizes Trump’s “bull-in-a-china-shop approach,” ignoring that the bull is demolishing the china to sell the shards at auction. Even his comparison to Obama’s library reeks of false equivalence — a private foundation project versus a public desecration performed by the head of state, paid for with state power.
The whole thing reads like an apologia for surrender — the intellectual class rationalizing the strongman because he happens to like columns. Douthat mistakes motion for vision, marble for meaning, and expediency for courage. The real scandal isn’t that the East Wing came down fast; it’s that anyone with a platform could look at the ruins and call it “appropriate, pleasing, fine.”
Both the WAPO & NYT had editorials praising Trump’s demolition of the East Wing of the WH to construct his gaudy, Hitleresque ballroom. What a bunch of sniveling cowards. We are 90% of the way toward full authoritarianism now. I suppose these same “guardians” of the failed 4th Estate will be penning pandering paeans to Hair Fuehrer after we cross the 100% threshold.
The collapse isn’t coming—it’s here, and it’s polite. It smiles for the camera, posts a statement, and calls it virtue. Power no longer even hides; it just changes clothes and hires PR. In this theater of appearances, the men pulling the levers are not villains in the old sense—they’re decorators of decline, too soft to rule, too rich to care.
They’ve turned democracy into a showroom with mood lighting. The press curtsies, the public scrolls, and everyone tells themselves this is normal. It’s not. It’s the quiet part of the end, when outrage becomes a hobby and cowardice passes for moderation.
When the rubble of the White House became a photo op instead of a national alarm, the country crossed its final threshold. A republic that can watch its symbols of liberty torn down and call it renovation deserves what comes next. Not invasion. Not conquest. Just the long, slow silence of people who stopped believing in anything worth defending.
For Whom the Outrages Toll. Let us not forget the Epstein Files, first. I mean we know a pedophile when we see one dodge, duck, shuck, and jive. For some reason we need the files. I rather think we do not, and we already know what is there. The outrages toll for you as a distraction. https://hotbuttons.substack.com/p/too-much-two-buckets-to-sanity?r=3m1bs
Sometimes waking up on a Sunday and reading a post from STEVE Schmidt, the brand of shoes, the cold unvarnished truth, like he always promised on, and I was delivered on, can be a little jarring. I am trying to keep up with important events and milestones as we fall into madness and chaos, but I’d like to keep some sanity. It is ironic part of keeping a clear eye perspective is seeing the hard truths that come with this sort of reporting and also, knowing I have to keep myself immersed and outside interests and living to not fall into despair. Certainly, the scales from my eyes are falling away as this empire collapses. I had always suspected we were just too lazy, greedy and unworthy to pull it off.
It won’t be until we have suffered the pain and degradation that we have allowed to insinuate into itself into every level of our government play out and fall apart of its own corruption that we will have a chance to figure out how to rebuild. I’m 72 years old. That rebuilding process will not happen in my lifetime.
If you can, hang in there till 85, and you will be comforted! It won't look like it was before, but when you think about all the anti democratic practices that got baked into our Constitution, that's not a bad thing!
I'm just a little behind you, and I am not saying this just to cheer you up.
I too am 75 but if nothing other than pure determination, I plan on living to see the Rose Garden restoration and the ballroom bulldozed and dumped into the sea!
If it's any comfort at all, what we're going through is a process that has manifested in societies over history and across cultures.
It's cold comfort, but reading Peter Turchin's "End Times: Elites, counter-elites, and the path of political disintegration" (2023) has helped me keep my head on straight. Basically: when the elites of a society stop caring about everyone else, that society is going to come apart. It can be averted, but... I felt it like being told the operation I need has a 25% chance of success. I'd rather learn how to organize, resist, activate persuadables, register voters, and get them out to vote in 12 months than for-sure-die, soon.
I bought the last book you recommended (American Nations), and I'm going to start reading it later tonight. Now I'm looking at reviews of this Peter Turchin book. I'm interested in the concepts of cliodynamics and the wealth pump even though I presently know jack$hit about how either one works. Thanks for the tip!
You are welcome, Mike. I found Turchin's writing style comfortable. I frighten easily when someone starts talking about math, but Turchin knows how to communicate with the General Public.
The only word I struggled with was "immiseration"-- the process of things getting miserable, I know, but IMO it's so academic as to be clunky.
Overall, Turchin has taken a lot of the sting out of what's happening. Even empires fall. We're an empire. I just didn't expect it to happen this quickly! (Couldn't it have waited until I died? But... to act my age, this is the right time, because I still have the strength to fight.)
Enjoy your reading! I'd like to know some day what you think about what you read.
I was a bit shocked yesterday after reading that editorial. I’d only renewed my WAPO subscription the week before after dithering for 6 months. But I felt the need to have 2 internet news systems. I sort of wish I hadn’t renewed the paper because that editorial was shameless pandering.
I stopped my Post subscription when bezos essentially endorsed trump. It is painful to know that none of the men who contribute to his power do not possess decency. I stubbornly keep the complicit NYT for a couple of columnists, but even that is wearing thin as none have the gumption to call trump the fascist that he is. For that matter, they continue to treat trump as normal when he is clearly insane and systematically dismantling our democratic republic. They do not acknowledge the No Kings demonstrations or trump's malicious AI videos or other horrors he commits. If that video is not evidence of insanity I do not know what is. Journalistic integrity is a relic.
Andrew: a friendly tip that will save you a chunk of change! After the No Kings no-show I went to pull the plug on the Times. Just as I was about to... "How would you like to subscribe to everything for $29 a year?" Instead of $28 a month, with extra for Cooking? Sure thing!
WaPo is now down to a paid-subscriber level not seen since 1970! (Forbes, June) For Bezos, he doesn't own the Post to make money, but to do favors for the man handing out massive contracts. We do what we can.
and what about the NYT publishing Ross Douhat's disgraceful praise of the ballroom and comparing it to Obama's presidential library?
Absolutely right! The NYT has some good reporters but the editorial staff is horrendous.
Yes, Douthat’s “opinion” was pathetic, but no surprise. He has been falling in line for years. Boy, did he get a shitload of blowback. It made him look like the Appeaser fool that he is.
Ross is the arch-conservative Opus Dei fanboy of the NYT. He used to be an outlier, but the NYT has quietly caved to "let's not annoy Trump." Even Ezra Klein has written some whoppers.
If you go to cancel, they'll offer a hugely discounted rate. Instead of $28/ month plus more for Cooking, I now pay $29/ year, inclusive.
Great that you recognize the Opus Dei connection. Already in the ranks are Barr & Durham. Exactly why Barr had Durham “investigate” the 2020 election, to manufacture dirt. He couldn’t even do that without making a complete fool of himself, ruining his previous reputation, not to mention abusing the system & wasting money.
I already got myself a great deal with the NYT after bailing out. They cannot afford to lose us!!!!
I've been beating that anti-Opus Dei drum ever since I found out who they are. Pope John Paul II legitimized that criminal cult of slavery and ignorance. What was he thinking?!
And now let us pray that Pope Leo's moves will make their lives more difficult. I'm sure they'll go even further underground.
I think they'll keep doing what they're doing for now because it's working. Let's hope this new pope can throw a monkey wrench into OD's gears.
check your local library to see if they get the digital times edition and it's free.
It’s so funny Kristine, because I am a digital subscriber and pay $23/month and almost $50 for cooking ( I have thousands of recipes and haven’t cooked in 20 years) but they don’t stop hocking me every freaking day to upgrade or get a family membership (for me, myself and I). Must be getting desperate. I was watching Jim Acosta live the other day when he cxl’d his WAPO subscription he has had forever, but he had it with them after their coverage of the EW and when he went to cancel it they offered him deals to keep it too. He kept declining until he was finally rid of it. I’m also not Christian but I just bought a book on Opus Dei. Sounds beyond creepy.
I know! I agree-- all of it!
Yes to NYT wanting us to recruit others? To read about Romance Stories 😝 or redecorating your Paris apartment but precious little about politics?
Good for you reading about Opus Dei 🫣. Very dark & scary. I'm reading American history-- also scary, and next up is a ray of hope: the National Popular Vote interstate compact, which will mean the the presidency goes to the winner of the popular vote! It will defang the Electoral College! Which is not a constitutional thing. The group doing it has 17 states + DC agreed, 209 electoral votes. 270 needed, so about 25 states total. I live in VA, which is lookin' good! Remaining: PA, MI, WI, AZ, and NV. Hugely popular with citizens--about 2:1 in favor. Most Dems on board, nowadays a plurality of Republicans favor keeping the EC. You can see where my head is: maxed out, no room for Opus Dei even though it is Halloween!
Thanks for your lovely reply. If I got off Substack, I would be able to get to my stack of books. So much to read and learn about so many things! 🙏
Indeed! I seem to be splitting my time between Substack and books. Substack is getting the lion's share. It's that life-life balance thing! (I'm retired.) Housework rarely enters into it, oops!
Go to Cancel on NYT, and you'll get a hugely discounted offer. I now pay $29 /year all inclusive instead of $28/month plus.
We are sinking the Post. We can punish the Times as well.
I already cancelled WaPo after Bezos refused to allow the editorial that was warning us NOT to vote for the crazed despot. I guess I’m going to have to cancel NYT too - it’s no longer worth reading it since they are willing to load up on the BS.
Trump’s desecration of The White House is symbiotic with the self-abasement and self-immolation of both The New York Times and The Washington Post.
Under Marty Baron, Democracy Dies in Darkness meant a lot more. Still not perfect, but still more. Bezos, that low-rent low-class piece of shit, is a combo of white trash with money and overseer who bought the plantation.
What can one say about a man so pathetically insecure he posts photos of his genitalia on the internet and marries a "woman" made of silicone?
Bezos is like Stephen Miller in that he was picked on in HS and then decided the rest of his life to get even. Miller is getting even by heading the tRump Gestapo organization and Bezos by taking all $500B of his tax refund to help tRump pay for his opulent extravagances and other operations against Amerika.
Spot on.
"Two hundred and fifty years’ time has finally revealed a generation of America’s soft enough, ignorant enough and stupid enough to participate in the euthanasia of their own liberty, opportunity and justice in the United States."
Yes, and while it is heartbreaking and infuriating to watch the destruction of the East Wing, the rule of law, and the principles and values that established this once great albeit imperfect country, it is the virtual silence from 350 million Americans, the apparent inability to respond appropriately to the unfolding crisis that has this Yankee choked up.
A tidal wave of voter participation in '26 and '28 is this democracy's last hope.
Even before Nov 2026 we can show them what we think of them & get their attention. We ALL must make a pact & refuse to give them our money for this entire Holiday Season starting right NOW. No buying & mailing cards, no buying & exchanging gifts, except for the 3-12 age group; & then only buy them gifts from small locally owned shops or small online retailers. We all know that all the giant corporations make a huge percentage of their total annual sales & profits over the next 60-80 days; do not give it to them.
Inform all your friends & family that’s what you will be doing & ask them to join you. Do pot luck meals at rotating homes, play board games, cards, dominoes. If it’s nice weather, play some outdoors games or go hiking. Use whatever decorations you already own, don’t buy anything new. Maybe regift things, make it hilarious. Let them get stuck with all the extra inventory they bought for this season.
Times are going to get worse, donate the money you would have spent on holiday food, gifts, travel, to a food pantry, or homeless shelter. People are going to go hungry, do whatever you can to help.
Don't forget the families whose breadwinner was taken away by ICE.
Yes 👏 that’s why I’m saying to donate any money we usually would have spent during this Holiday Season to food pantries & perhaps get a community pool going to assist those folks with rent & utilities. We must do whatever we can to help them. 💙💙💙
"We ALL must make a pact & refuse to give them our money for this entire Holiday Season starting right NOW."
Should be easy to do. We're all gonna be broke by Christmas.
Jeff Bezos, now delivering fascism to your front door.
Excellent game plan! I am already buying just necessities! Started throwing out the Christmas gift catalogs the day they arrive. Did even to see what I am missing!
Great ideas!
There is a plan. Spread the word!
https://substack.com/@mikaanderson/note/c-170174061?r=cr6t
In my county we just formed a volunteer food donation group. Going to donate canned goods. I have paired down my shopping after that and asking family to do the same.
We need to boycott their companies as much as possible. Work up to a general strike with all the appropriate organizations involved. I think it will happen, but I don't know how long it will take. A lot of people will be hurt as time goes on and some (farmers) are feeling it now. Trump's erratic tariffs and economic policies, the crypto and AI bubble with no regs, the cruel treatment and deportations, and the rampant corruption will kill small businesses and people's budgets and security. It is so sad..
100%
We need a parallel wave of resistance and non-violent civil disobedience. The Trump/MAGA despising majority MUST become an unstoppable force that refuses to give way. Resist, everyone. Every minute of every day, in every way possible.
Um, Yankee? I think we're only at 340 million, and subtract at least 7 million who turned out for No Kings Day, and we'll add another 3 million at least who were tooting on their horns, and it's only 330 million who are publicly silent.
I hope you feel better now.
Oh for Pete's sake. I should have avoided any possible critique by just saying millions.
Yes, Yankee. As in: walk it off, suck it up, Calvinist Quaker mother. Yankee. The point was, Yankees to tend to cry. I'm going to watch out for you Kristine! Yikes!
Whoa! I am very very fond of Yankees, being one myself by adoption. A culture that highly values education and self-governance, government as a good thing, with a high moral vision. Not just $$$$$$$$$.
I only meant my comment as a gentle nudge: We are not all silent. Not at all! Something like 2% of us made a great big noise 9 days ago, in well under a year of Trump's terrorism. That's huge! It's not enough yet, but it's definitely growing.
We don't actually need to mobilize even 1/3 of us in resistance to this authoritarian regime. The academics say: We need to about double our present numbers, in sustained non-violent opposition, by fracturing the regime's support. The regime is doing such a good job of bulldozing their support, but we'll need to keep at it because we also need to vanquish the Rollover Democrats.
These are horrifying times. The regime is perfectly okay with starving Americans to give about 400 billionaire families about half a billion more, each, of taxpayer funds.
The bastards *want* us to despair, and I refuse. I've got my shield and sword up, and I will not and cannot surrender. We can do this (and, as before, the madmen in this regime are doing half our organizing work for us).
I am sorry that a comment I meant as light-hearted landed the wrong way!
And now I really really hope you feel better!
I have not been silent. Either have 7 million who went to the protests that I went to. Some of us have been doing that, phoning, writing postcards and emails and boycotting. I do acknowledge however that it is not enough! Too many are still asleep thinking someone else will rescue them. It’s not going to happen.
Hi, 7 out of 340 is virtual silence, and I include our elected officials in both parties in the comment. I doubt anyone reading this Substack post is silent.
That’s so correct, people have to stop waiting for Congress to do something, Rs won’t & Ds can’t do much. We have to save ourselves.
A ballroom for the White House? Sure. After careful discussion with preservationists and architects, a site study, and with approval, a bigger and nicer venue could be a valued addition. THIS monstrosity attached to OUR White House? An abomination. And particularly so in these economically fraught times. Luckily no building is permanent. Like the schlocky gold stick-ons with which Trump has polluted our Oval Office, it can be removed, or modified in a way to make it useful rather than offensive. In the meantime it is just another big mistake by the Trumpists in Charge, one that may cost them leadership.
Steve - your words describe this so well - cowardice, greed, selfishness, corruption, indifference and sloth. No backbone whatsoever. The only way you stand up to a bully is to challenge the bully, not give in. We have a bunch of people who don’t care what happens to our country or democracy, as long as they get their piece of the pie. The question for Bezos is how much is enough before we don’t have a country anymore?
Stop buying from Amazon. Cancel all subscriptions that you possibly can. Please boycott the entire Holiday Season starting today & going through New Year’s
Another option, buy Canadian or European goods only…..
I read the editorial and was horrified. I scanned up to the author to make sure it really was a Post editorial. I canceled my subscription again. I did before and then weakened- no more!
Execrable people, execrable decisions in a country that seems determined to become excrement its own self while ignoring the smell that’s all around. Keep it up, Steve! And given your close proximity to some of them a few years back, what the hell is up with the Supreme Court? are they scared? are they fascists? Are they money-grubbing whores? So much of our government seems divorced from this horrified rabble that’s out here looking for sense or logic or compassion.Their decisions seem to have no relationship to the documents upon which they are supposedly based and I am as furious at them and at Mitch McConnell, as I am at Trump and MAGA.
Anyone naive enough to not recognize that the goal of MAGA is to create an authoritarian regime in our country in order to exploit us for the advantage of the already obscenely wealthy needs to read this and watch the video available on the internet:
SANCHEZ: You have called the district judge's ruling blocking the deployment of National Guard in Oregon legal insurrection. Does the administration still plan to abide by that ruling?
MILLER: Well, the administration filed an appeal this morning with the Ninth Circuit. I would note the administration won an identical case in the Ninth Circuit just a few months ago with respect to the federalizing of the California National Guard. Under Title 10 of the U.S. Code, the president has plenary authority. Has --
SANCHEZ: Stephen. Stephen. Hey, Stephen, can you hear me?
It seems, Stephen, I apologize. It seems like we're having a technical issue. We'll try to fix that and get back to you after a quick break.
A CNN transcript (archived) confirmed Miller said these words during an Oct. 6, 2025, live interview with host Boris Sanchez.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/stephen-miller-plenary-authority/
I watched him say it...plenary authority...then he froze like a deer-caught-in-the-headlights. It's the only time Stephen Miller ever shut up. CNN edited that embarrassment out. Too late. Plus some people posted both versions. They think we are all stupid...or have amnesia like his entire regime.
This was my response to Ross Douthat's article in the NYT yesterday that was picked as a "readers pick" on the NYT website.
Douthat’s essay is a master class in genteel capitulation — the kind of argument that dresses up moral cowardice in architectural theory. His whole premise depends on pretending Trump’s act of destruction is a conversation about aesthetics rather than about authoritarian impulse. That’s like reviewing the “craftsmanship” of the sledgehammer that tore through a national monument.
He calls the demolition “good to build,” as if the country were just a neglected homeowner finally putting in that long-overdue rec room. It’s astonishing: a sitting president razes a piece of living history to build a donor ballroom, and Douthat’s takeaway is that progressives don’t appreciate bold construction timelines. He romanticizes Trump’s “bull-in-a-china-shop approach,” ignoring that the bull is demolishing the china to sell the shards at auction. Even his comparison to Obama’s library reeks of false equivalence — a private foundation project versus a public desecration performed by the head of state, paid for with state power.
The whole thing reads like an apologia for surrender — the intellectual class rationalizing the strongman because he happens to like columns. Douthat mistakes motion for vision, marble for meaning, and expediency for courage. The real scandal isn’t that the East Wing came down fast; it’s that anyone with a platform could look at the ruins and call it “appropriate, pleasing, fine.”
Both the WAPO & NYT had editorials praising Trump’s demolition of the East Wing of the WH to construct his gaudy, Hitleresque ballroom. What a bunch of sniveling cowards. We are 90% of the way toward full authoritarianism now. I suppose these same “guardians” of the failed 4th Estate will be penning pandering paeans to Hair Fuehrer after we cross the 100% threshold.
🎯👍👍
Well said.
The collapse isn’t coming—it’s here, and it’s polite. It smiles for the camera, posts a statement, and calls it virtue. Power no longer even hides; it just changes clothes and hires PR. In this theater of appearances, the men pulling the levers are not villains in the old sense—they’re decorators of decline, too soft to rule, too rich to care.
They’ve turned democracy into a showroom with mood lighting. The press curtsies, the public scrolls, and everyone tells themselves this is normal. It’s not. It’s the quiet part of the end, when outrage becomes a hobby and cowardice passes for moderation.
When the rubble of the White House became a photo op instead of a national alarm, the country crossed its final threshold. A republic that can watch its symbols of liberty torn down and call it renovation deserves what comes next. Not invasion. Not conquest. Just the long, slow silence of people who stopped believing in anything worth defending.
The cameras kept rolling.
For Whom the Outrages Toll. Let us not forget the Epstein Files, first. I mean we know a pedophile when we see one dodge, duck, shuck, and jive. For some reason we need the files. I rather think we do not, and we already know what is there. The outrages toll for you as a distraction. https://hotbuttons.substack.com/p/too-much-two-buckets-to-sanity?r=3m1bs
I smashed the like button based on the subject line alone.
What a bunch a whiny snowflakes have crawled out from under their rocks. Do the world a favor and crawl back. The world is a saner place without them.
Sometimes waking up on a Sunday and reading a post from STEVE Schmidt, the brand of shoes, the cold unvarnished truth, like he always promised on, and I was delivered on, can be a little jarring. I am trying to keep up with important events and milestones as we fall into madness and chaos, but I’d like to keep some sanity. It is ironic part of keeping a clear eye perspective is seeing the hard truths that come with this sort of reporting and also, knowing I have to keep myself immersed and outside interests and living to not fall into despair. Certainly, the scales from my eyes are falling away as this empire collapses. I had always suspected we were just too lazy, greedy and unworthy to pull it off.
It won’t be until we have suffered the pain and degradation that we have allowed to insinuate into itself into every level of our government play out and fall apart of its own corruption that we will have a chance to figure out how to rebuild. I’m 72 years old. That rebuilding process will not happen in my lifetime.
At 75, I know I will not see the resurrection of our democracy either; but I will plant the seeds as long as I’m able.
If you can, hang in there till 85, and you will be comforted! It won't look like it was before, but when you think about all the anti democratic practices that got baked into our Constitution, that's not a bad thing!
I'm just a little behind you, and I am not saying this just to cheer you up.
Well, thank you Charlie, I certainly plan on hanging in there as long as I can!
I too am 75 but if nothing other than pure determination, I plan on living to see the Rose Garden restoration and the ballroom bulldozed and dumped into the sea!
Sorry for the plethora of typos. especially the brand of shoes! I laughed at that not even remembering what I said.
If it's any comfort at all, what we're going through is a process that has manifested in societies over history and across cultures.
It's cold comfort, but reading Peter Turchin's "End Times: Elites, counter-elites, and the path of political disintegration" (2023) has helped me keep my head on straight. Basically: when the elites of a society stop caring about everyone else, that society is going to come apart. It can be averted, but... I felt it like being told the operation I need has a 25% chance of success. I'd rather learn how to organize, resist, activate persuadables, register voters, and get them out to vote in 12 months than for-sure-die, soon.
I bought the last book you recommended (American Nations), and I'm going to start reading it later tonight. Now I'm looking at reviews of this Peter Turchin book. I'm interested in the concepts of cliodynamics and the wealth pump even though I presently know jack$hit about how either one works. Thanks for the tip!
You are welcome, Mike. I found Turchin's writing style comfortable. I frighten easily when someone starts talking about math, but Turchin knows how to communicate with the General Public.
The only word I struggled with was "immiseration"-- the process of things getting miserable, I know, but IMO it's so academic as to be clunky.
Overall, Turchin has taken a lot of the sting out of what's happening. Even empires fall. We're an empire. I just didn't expect it to happen this quickly! (Couldn't it have waited until I died? But... to act my age, this is the right time, because I still have the strength to fight.)
Enjoy your reading! I'd like to know some day what you think about what you read.
Kristine, very interesting; that is a book I'll be reading. Thank you
That is what I love about Steve Schmidt how he writes and speaks the truth. I look forward to his posts every day.
I was a bit shocked yesterday after reading that editorial. I’d only renewed my WAPO subscription the week before after dithering for 6 months. But I felt the need to have 2 internet news systems. I sort of wish I hadn’t renewed the paper because that editorial was shameless pandering.
Subscribe to the Guardian if you havenʻt already.
"Subscribe to the Guardian"
This.
Yes, I do subscribe to the Guardian, have for at least 2 yrs now.
Cancel WAPO & subscribe to an English foreign newspaper instead; you’ll get much more truth.
I stopped my Post subscription when bezos essentially endorsed trump. It is painful to know that none of the men who contribute to his power do not possess decency. I stubbornly keep the complicit NYT for a couple of columnists, but even that is wearing thin as none have the gumption to call trump the fascist that he is. For that matter, they continue to treat trump as normal when he is clearly insane and systematically dismantling our democratic republic. They do not acknowledge the No Kings demonstrations or trump's malicious AI videos or other horrors he commits. If that video is not evidence of insanity I do not know what is. Journalistic integrity is a relic.
Andrew: a friendly tip that will save you a chunk of change! After the No Kings no-show I went to pull the plug on the Times. Just as I was about to... "How would you like to subscribe to everything for $29 a year?" Instead of $28 a month, with extra for Cooking? Sure thing!
WaPo is now down to a paid-subscriber level not seen since 1970! (Forbes, June) For Bezos, he doesn't own the Post to make money, but to do favors for the man handing out massive contracts. We do what we can.
The Washington Post editorial defending Trump’s East Wing demolition fails on multiple fronts:
1. It illegally erased over a century of historic preservation without public consent.
2. Private corporate funding creates blatant conflicts of interest.
3. The enormous ballroom is disproportionate and unnecessary.
4. Trump broke promises not to alter the White House structure.
5. Exploiting legal loopholes undermines rules protecting national heritage.
6. Dismissing critics as “NIMBYs” ignores valid public concern.
7. Equating lawbreaking and ignoring public input with leadership is reckless.
8. The project damages the White House’s symbolic and cultural integrity.
The editorial prioritizes political showmanship over legal, ethical, and historic responsibility.