The Washington Post opted against publishing a cartoon critical of Trump and other billionaires, signaling that fear of Trump has officially taken over our media.
(This is the text of my op-ed published by the Arizona Daily Star on Thurs., January 2, 2025
On Monday, January 20, 2025, at noon Eastern time, President-elect Donald J. Trump will stand with Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on a platform now being constructed for the inauguration ceremony.
It overlooks the Capitol steps where on January 6, 2021, a bloody battle was fought between outnumbered Capitol police and a violent mob of Trump supporters—armed with concealed guns, bear spray, Tasers, and flags, the staffs of which they used like medieval pikes to thrust and stab at police— intent on carrying out Trump’s hair-brained plot to overturn his loss of the election to Joe Biden and reclaim the Presidency. It almost succeeded.
In just 14 days he will again stand on the inaugural platform and repeat the Oath of Office after the Chief Justice:
“I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter; So help me God.”
He will be lying with every word.
The whole world will be watching our shame as we transfer the awesome power of the Presidency of the United States—for the second time—into the hands of a man who is uniquely unfit to hold it. But he will feel no shame. He is the cynical narcissist who regards those who made the ultimate sacrifice as “suckers and losers”; the bully who terrorizes desperate immigrants with the threat of mass deportations, detention camps and family separations; the man who brags about taking away women’s rights to control their own bodies.
But perhaps, after all, the onus belongs to us—we ordinary citizens . We have forgotten that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. In re-electing Trump, we have become the first Americans in history to have failed in our duty to protect and defend this precious nearly 250-year-old experiment in self governance, with our lives if necessary. The sad truth is that we Democrats have given in to despair even though nothing extraordinary is required of us.
We don’t have to die for this country; we just have to be willing to fight for it…to speak up, step out, protest, resist. Democratic voters, even in deep red states like Georgia, have in recent years sent excellent people to Washington to serve as our senators and representatives —serious people who love democracy and are prepared to fight for it. We must let them know we have their backs.
The bench is deep: Adam Schiff, Jamie Raskin, Hakim Jeffries, Eric Swalwell, AOC, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, Sheldon Whitehouse, Chris Murphy, Jon Ossoff, Raphael Warnock, Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego. These are a few of the seasoned ones, treasures all. And there are many more. If you don’t know about their character and contributions, google them. You will be inspired. Check out the newcomers like lawyer Jasmine Crockett, a whip-smart little (5ft 3in) spitfire from Texas who has Margery Taylor Green’s number. And Maxwell Frost, first member of Gen Z to be elected to Congress at 25, a serious, thoughtful young man with an easy, approachable style and a future in politics if he wants it.
The fate of democracy rests on their shoulders. Take heart, their shoulders are broad. Support your state’s candidates of course, but also pick a few candidates from other states who will be running in the mid-terms and send them a modest contribution, preferably monthly. That will open the floodgates and your candidates will deluge you with requests for additional contributions. Be patient; they are competing for funding with the likes of Elon Musk and the other 850 U.S billionaires whom the GOP relies on. Give them a few dollars more as often as you can afford it; ignore their pleas when you can’t. Gazillions of small-dollar donors have been able to beat back the tidal wave of dark money from right-wing plutocrats like Elon Musk in the past. If enough of us employ the strategy ahead of the mid-terms, we can do it again! Excelsior!
Beautiful just beautiful Ann!! WTG!!! That's so impressive. That's what I've said all along during the Trump era.. Too many were asleep at the wheel including me. Democracies must be nourished and protected and we let ours down. Very much so. No more right?!! #RiseResistRepeat #Persist #NeverSurrender. ❤️🇺🇸💙
Honesty, or lack of, is the reason we are not inaugurating a Democrat for President in two short weeks? Maybe you are right but it is behind us now!
Kamala Harris was not elected due to two reasons: gender and race.
Call it what you might! Honesty? Economy? You be honest!
White men and the evangelical world did not vote for Harris but the felon Trump! Trump conned voters into his trash talk and phony ideas. 54% of the Trump voters were WOMEN! Now watch how little Trump will even care! Watch closely Trump supporters! Wait for the Women’s Rights!
Trump cares about money and power! His oligarchs, who supported him, care strongly for the same things plus a huge TAX CUT! Trump wants that himself for himself, his family and cronies! It will happen on the backs of his voters! How will MAGAs like that?
The MAGGOTS are too stupid to realize that Trump is betraying them. They will say that it takes time to affect his changes, that things were too fucked up by Biden and cannot be fixed, etc. etc.
I would like to add to your comment, that the lie about the "stolen election of 2016" was a far more dangerous lie than Biden's assertion that he was capable of a second term. Also, Biden, albeit too late, did step aside in recognition of his incapacities. Trump never backed down.
Finally, there are far more civic minded and honest people in the Democratic party than in Trump's party, or should I say Musk's?
Steve, you have gone overboard in laying primary blame for Trump's victory on Biden and the Democratic party.
My sentiments exactly, but here's how I would put it:
You think you're pissed, Steve. I subscribe to your sub-stack Steve and I am finding your rants getting to be sanctimonious, themselves. Yes, I'm more than disappointed in Biden and the passing Democratic party. Yes, it was Biden touting Bidenomics that was stupid --but it was a play on the word "economy", Steve. And yes, I know you were John McCain's campaign manager.
It's just that I have been watching ordinary people drinking from the Reganomics chalice for 50 years, and I find them to be orders of magnitude more sanctimonious than people who believed in Joe Biden. As much as you want to believe in the goodness of the American Mind, I find it hard to do so -- I think too deeply to participate in American life to the extend that you do Steve. I've witnessed the American voter let themselves be victimized by the promises of the Great Communicator. Why don't you watch Robert Reich's video "The 10 Biggest Myths About Our Economy" -- then continue to lecture subscribers about the failure of the Dems.
I think the Christian Nationalists, with their long history of refined scriptural bigotry is a thousand-billion times more sanctimonious than the political plays the Democratic party have been required to adopt in order, to somehow make themselves palatable to a people who are at heart bigoted and blood thirsty.
The destruction of the middle class started with Ronald Reagan. The Eisenhower era tax code contributed to things like building and actually paying for the Interstate Highway System. We had a middle class.
Then Reagan was elected and destroyed the tax code and began deficit spending like never before. Dick Cheney once said that Ronald Reagan proved that deficits do not matter. He was right.
Thus we have one percent with 90 percent of the wealth — and still growing to where it will be one percent having 99 percent of the wealth, thanks to Reagan. Thus we have a populist liar soon to be in charge again.
I look forward to the day you redirect your anger toward the Republicans instead of holding the Democrats as your only scapegoats. Yes, President Biden made some mistakes by not letting Kamala have a longer campaign but his accomplishments far out his lapse in judgement to not run for reelection. Your hateful posts directed at him will never change my opinion. President Biden will continue to have my respect as do other columnists on Substack.
If we don't recognize, address, and fix the problems within, WTF does it matter where our anger is directed? Biden had many, many great accomplishments for which I and so many are thankful and appreciate. That said, trump's successful candidacy and the coming hell just over the horizon of his 2nd presidency was clearly made possible IN THE FIRST PLACE by Biden not keeping his promise to be a one term transitional president, along with his wife, and his inept and deceitful campaign staff, and many in the media who turned away from these lies and his obvious failings. This resulted in no actual primary and Kamala being forced upon us as the nominee - with 107 days to campaign against a gut running for 2 years. I like her and she got my vote, money, and support, but for far too many, the whole way this was handled was a failure of D leadership - starting with, but not ending with, Biden.
Both things can be true at the same time. You not liking that doesn't make it any less true.
Sorry, but that does NOT address the issues within our party. If those aren't resolved, the rest cannot be addressed. I agree that Joe had many accomplishments and Kamala did the best she could given the circumstances forced upon her and the American people by Biden's and the DNC's lies about his ability to run.
"Kamala and Joe stood by America and our values for freedom." they sure did and over 77 million voters didn't give a damn. So that didn't work.
The best opportunity to thwart the threat was November 5th. We failed to do so because of the way we mishandled from within, starting but not ending with Biden, along with many other reasons that have been addressed many times here and elsewhere.
Fix our house first, which must include an honest appraisal of our failures, then we can better focus on the threat. Until then, all the bluster and false hopes of countering the MAGA and Elonald Mump nightmare and attacks on our country are moot.
This piece was really great! I wish it could be shown on FOX or any right wing.. so called news outlet. I have to say maybe a hundred years from now some of the things Joe did will be looked at as a positive. Not his insisting on runnng but some of his policies. My biggest worries right now is that the Republicans in the Senate will approve his cabinet picks. If that happens there may not be another election . Or if there is one it may be a sham similar to what Putin does.
I am not going to watch Joe give his last two big speeches. I haven't watched him forever. I am not going to watch the inauguration .. I am going to NY and spending the day at the movies. I wish there was something I could do ..The one thing Steve you always say Trump lied and they believed him.. You never seem to look at his voters and say what kind of person votes for someone who grabs women's pussies and if your famous they let you ?...What kind of person votes for a guy is convicted of 34 felonies ? I can say that person would never get my vote.
I appreciate your comments and mostly agree, but want to respond to this: "What kind of person votes for a guy is convicted of 34 felonies?"
The kind of person who has been told hundreds if not thousands of times every hour of every day for 8 or 9 years that this was a "witch hunt" and "if they can come after me, imagine what they can do to you." All lies, of course, but effective at brain washing. And we're not even addressing the actually more serious crimes he committed that never went to trial because of delays and the DOJ dragging their feet and SCOTUS giving him every benefit of every doubt that no one - no one - deserves.
Mike I agree with you that some are brain washed but way too many haven't been.
I know someone who voted for Trump in 16 20 24 ...In his first term she would say," I wish he would just stop tweeting." As though if he did that no one would be upset. Yes I believe that neighbors and people I know from other walks of life are not brain washed. Not like the insurrectionists .. they would never break the law. But they applaud his disgusting behavior. Yes they believe a lot of what he says because they want too. On some level they know he was responsible for 1/6. It's ludicrous that they would believe he offered Nancy 10,000 National Guard troops. These people have comfortable lives. They didn't hear him when everyday he called the people to take back there country but they did hear him when he offered Nancy the National Guard. They thought it was funny that they were called deplorable..
Very well said Steve as always. It took a long time to realize I'd been deceived by my own Party and nominee even when many told me I was wrong. I defended him up and until that debate, even afterwards getting blasted by people for asking him to step down.
I wrote letters to his Campaign and the White House asking them to please put more focus on food prices etc, because I saw firsthand how much people were hurting. Crickets.
I believe it now. Thanks to you and others who never stop speaking truth to power. Thank you for always putting Country first. We WILL recover. It's just going to be a hard, nasty road getting there. I will never forget January 6th. Ever. 💔🇺🇸💙
We will turn this around by building something for which people will vote: a solid, broadly beneficial platform that is sold by a charismatic candidate. We have approached it as candidate only. The platform became a meaningless afterthought. I would leave it there for 2024. Talk about sucks. We had a charismatic candidate sans platform. We must turn this around. We must build a platform that lifts, fires up, and arms the strongest movement of our lives. Otherwise YOU bequeath your children and grandchildren their inherited, voiceless servitude to a dictatorship. https://hotbuttons.substack.com/p/start-our-movement?r=3m1bs
And who better to control the narrative than trump supporters and oligarchs who own most major media outlets and all or nearly all SM platforms. Lies in media repeated over and over and algorithms on SM force feeding this narrative down people's throats. musk and his over $277 million and his hundreds of millions of followers on X are just the most obvious example. Zuckerberg and Bezos and many others who are now bending the knee are two additional examples. I could go on, but the point is clear.
Those hundreds of millions on X may be in for a huge surprise, not one to their liking. One does not know what they have lost until they have lost it. Then, it is too late. The elites are out of control, what with Musk and the like inserting himself into German and British politics. (And, ours.) Musk is Trump's brain, in some fashion as Cheney was Bush's brain. The people will pay for the "sins of the fathers". After all, what's to lose except for an entire nation? They don’t care because they will have corralled the golden calf.
Thanks Steve, I hope you are right about the re-emergence of the Democratic party at some point in the future. I am afraid there are going to be innumerable challenges between now and then. My sincere hope is that Trump and team burn it down so badly so quickly that people realize the con that has been perpetrated on them. At the same time, sane voices in the Democratic party construct a platform that addresses the inequality in the US. Eventually, there needs to be massive redistribution of wealth from the oligarchs to the people. You are correct, no one can fathom a personal fortune of a billion let alone a trillion but you can surely recognize the evil of such wealth.
Well, Steve, to your point, the political class has failed and thus we have 45 years of wealth inequality that gave us a feudal system. But we were also lied to about Iraq, which left 5,000 young Americans dead and thousands more permanently maimed. Who voted to start that war? Well, Joe Biden did, for example. You know, many lost everything. Which might explain that blowing up the republic has their unqualified support. And who can say they are wrong to feel as they do? I do not.
No. Not right. Never was right that censorship began at such and such a time, since it ALWAS HERE.
It began here in the 1600's with a dissembling about the benefits of sharing the wealth and loving one another. We never bonded as brothers here. The INDIVIDUAL hoarded, and did not share with his brothers in need.
We inmorally believed in INDIVIDUALISM and never were truthful about the glories of the Collecive Good....
We are a shameless land of individual greed,;;we worship wealthy tycoons ---.not Truth. We censored the truth about the evils of Capitalism for 248 years, and now is no differfent.
OUR CENSORSHIP of the glories of Collectivism led to the FASCISM we have now
Right on Tracy. And we are no more of an exceptional nation than any other. Our bloody and divided past, our coddling of billionaires, our disdain for our natural environment, our history of prejudice and discrimination, are all testimony to that. And that's the truth.
Yes, we pay lip service to important values. But that is where it ends, lip service.
Anthony, This reply better than any I ever got. It was fulsome, explicit, and as you say-ALL TRUEI
Censorship? We have had nothing but, since the 1600's. Yet, as you say, all nations have been as guilty as us.
We are NOT EXCEPTIONAL nor a Shining City on a Hill.
Could we ever HAVE been those things? NO! Our species cannot do it, and I think the whole universe of sentience beings ( there must be countless numbers of our fellow sentient beings out there) will also fail, because sentience already is doomed to fail.
The ancients in India have always known that truth.
I have known since 14 that we were doomed here. I was 14 in 1956 and I saw the evils of McCarthyism, an evil sickness here, based on fear, from which we have never recovered: The terribly uneducated Americans are still scared of anything that may look like it is for the Collective Good, because McCarthyism won!
Interesting. I once read an article that hypothesized that we will never make contact with higher intelligence in the universe because it is a law of evolution that technological progress occurs more quickly than emotional and common sense intelligence; therefore intelligent species with the physical ability to develop technology always destroy themselves through war or their adverse effects on the natural environment they depend on due to greed and misguided belief in their ultimate ability to solve all problems.
I don't know much about Hinduism, but I do know they believe there are continuing cycles of creation and destruction.
The universe is obviously the home of innumerable species of sorts unimaginable to us. My only spiritual belief is that a life force makes the energy and matter of the universe possible through awareness in the multituide of species inhabiting the universe(s).
Weird - I've been accessing the National Archives for weeks via my home internet. Today I discovered access to the site is blocked by my cable router (Optimum.net). Aside from this block, everything else is working fine.
I'm a software developer and have run independent checks. I can (DNS) lookup whitehouse.gov, congress.gov, but not archives.gov. Using CURL I can download the homepage for the White House, but archives.gov always fails address lookup.
NB - the response by Optimum support tech was the site is a security risk. The ticket has been escalated and is to be resolved in 24 hours.
It is possible that it is not the cable providers 'doing' but this issue is oddly specific.
Thanks, I am in contact with Optimum, but confirmed access on same computer using the same computer. That confirms that there is no issue with my computer. With Optimum, I can access everything EXCEPT archives.gov. The support ticket has been escalated to engineering.
This looks like censorship; someone had to have added this 'block' - it is TOO SPECIFIC to be anything else. Keeping all other parameters the same and just changing networks solves the issue.
This quite literally nauseates me. I wish I could call up some sense of hope, but just can't get there yet. Maybe it's my age, which brings a certain perspective. I don't see recovery of the country that was. Perhaps that's even the right outcome, but getting to a new version will be a massive effort impeded by many obstacles.
(This is the text of my op-ed published by the Arizona Daily Star on Thurs., January 2, 2025
On Monday, January 20, 2025, at noon Eastern time, President-elect Donald J. Trump will stand with Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on a platform now being constructed for the inauguration ceremony.
It overlooks the Capitol steps where on January 6, 2021, a bloody battle was fought between outnumbered Capitol police and a violent mob of Trump supporters—armed with concealed guns, bear spray, Tasers, and flags, the staffs of which they used like medieval pikes to thrust and stab at police— intent on carrying out Trump’s hair-brained plot to overturn his loss of the election to Joe Biden and reclaim the Presidency. It almost succeeded.
In just 14 days he will again stand on the inaugural platform and repeat the Oath of Office after the Chief Justice:
“I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter; So help me God.”
He will be lying with every word.
The whole world will be watching our shame as we transfer the awesome power of the Presidency of the United States—for the second time—into the hands of a man who is uniquely unfit to hold it. But he will feel no shame. He is the cynical narcissist who regards those who made the ultimate sacrifice as “suckers and losers”; the bully who terrorizes desperate immigrants with the threat of mass deportations, detention camps and family separations; the man who brags about taking away women’s rights to control their own bodies.
But perhaps, after all, the onus belongs to us—we ordinary citizens . We have forgotten that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. In re-electing Trump, we have become the first Americans in history to have failed in our duty to protect and defend this precious nearly 250-year-old experiment in self governance, with our lives if necessary. The sad truth is that we Democrats have given in to despair even though nothing extraordinary is required of us.
We don’t have to die for this country; we just have to be willing to fight for it…to speak up, step out, protest, resist. Democratic voters, even in deep red states like Georgia, have in recent years sent excellent people to Washington to serve as our senators and representatives —serious people who love democracy and are prepared to fight for it. We must let them know we have their backs.
The bench is deep: Adam Schiff, Jamie Raskin, Hakim Jeffries, Eric Swalwell, AOC, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, Sheldon Whitehouse, Chris Murphy, Jon Ossoff, Raphael Warnock, Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego. These are a few of the seasoned ones, treasures all. And there are many more. If you don’t know about their character and contributions, google them. You will be inspired. Check out the newcomers like lawyer Jasmine Crockett, a whip-smart little (5ft 3in) spitfire from Texas who has Margery Taylor Green’s number. And Maxwell Frost, first member of Gen Z to be elected to Congress at 25, a serious, thoughtful young man with an easy, approachable style and a future in politics if he wants it.
The fate of democracy rests on their shoulders. Take heart, their shoulders are broad. Support your state’s candidates of course, but also pick a few candidates from other states who will be running in the mid-terms and send them a modest contribution, preferably monthly. That will open the floodgates and your candidates will deluge you with requests for additional contributions. Be patient; they are competing for funding with the likes of Elon Musk and the other 850 U.S billionaires whom the GOP relies on. Give them a few dollars more as often as you can afford it; ignore their pleas when you can’t. Gazillions of small-dollar donors have been able to beat back the tidal wave of dark money from right-wing plutocrats like Elon Musk in the past. If enough of us employ the strategy ahead of the mid-terms, we can do it again! Excelsior!
Beautiful just beautiful Ann!! WTG!!! That's so impressive. That's what I've said all along during the Trump era.. Too many were asleep at the wheel including me. Democracies must be nourished and protected and we let ours down. Very much so. No more right?!! #RiseResistRepeat #Persist #NeverSurrender. ❤️🇺🇸💙
Great letter!
Honesty, or lack of, is the reason we are not inaugurating a Democrat for President in two short weeks? Maybe you are right but it is behind us now!
Kamala Harris was not elected due to two reasons: gender and race.
Call it what you might! Honesty? Economy? You be honest!
White men and the evangelical world did not vote for Harris but the felon Trump! Trump conned voters into his trash talk and phony ideas. 54% of the Trump voters were WOMEN! Now watch how little Trump will even care! Watch closely Trump supporters! Wait for the Women’s Rights!
Trump cares about money and power! His oligarchs, who supported him, care strongly for the same things plus a huge TAX CUT! Trump wants that himself for himself, his family and cronies! It will happen on the backs of his voters! How will MAGAs like that?
The MAGGOTS are too stupid to realize that Trump is betraying them. They will say that it takes time to affect his changes, that things were too fucked up by Biden and cannot be fixed, etc. etc.
I would like to add to your comment, that the lie about the "stolen election of 2016" was a far more dangerous lie than Biden's assertion that he was capable of a second term. Also, Biden, albeit too late, did step aside in recognition of his incapacities. Trump never backed down.
Finally, there are far more civic minded and honest people in the Democratic party than in Trump's party, or should I say Musk's?
Steve, you have gone overboard in laying primary blame for Trump's victory on Biden and the Democratic party.
I assume you meant “the stolen election of 2020?“
You assume correctly!
My sentiments exactly, but here's how I would put it:
You think you're pissed, Steve. I subscribe to your sub-stack Steve and I am finding your rants getting to be sanctimonious, themselves. Yes, I'm more than disappointed in Biden and the passing Democratic party. Yes, it was Biden touting Bidenomics that was stupid --but it was a play on the word "economy", Steve. And yes, I know you were John McCain's campaign manager.
It's just that I have been watching ordinary people drinking from the Reganomics chalice for 50 years, and I find them to be orders of magnitude more sanctimonious than people who believed in Joe Biden. As much as you want to believe in the goodness of the American Mind, I find it hard to do so -- I think too deeply to participate in American life to the extend that you do Steve. I've witnessed the American voter let themselves be victimized by the promises of the Great Communicator. Why don't you watch Robert Reich's video "The 10 Biggest Myths About Our Economy" -- then continue to lecture subscribers about the failure of the Dems.
I think the Christian Nationalists, with their long history of refined scriptural bigotry is a thousand-billion times more sanctimonious than the political plays the Democratic party have been required to adopt in order, to somehow make themselves palatable to a people who are at heart bigoted and blood thirsty.
Maybe there are more Dems who need to hear your m
The destruction of the middle class started with Ronald Reagan. The Eisenhower era tax code contributed to things like building and actually paying for the Interstate Highway System. We had a middle class.
Then Reagan was elected and destroyed the tax code and began deficit spending like never before. Dick Cheney once said that Ronald Reagan proved that deficits do not matter. He was right.
Thus we have one percent with 90 percent of the wealth — and still growing to where it will be one percent having 99 percent of the wealth, thanks to Reagan. Thus we have a populist liar soon to be in charge again.
SAD. VERY SAD.
Amen.
I look forward to the day you redirect your anger toward the Republicans instead of holding the Democrats as your only scapegoats. Yes, President Biden made some mistakes by not letting Kamala have a longer campaign but his accomplishments far out his lapse in judgement to not run for reelection. Your hateful posts directed at him will never change my opinion. President Biden will continue to have my respect as do other columnists on Substack.
I agree. Kamala did a great job.
Why blame Biden who had a great presidency?
Republicans made Trump their nominee in 2016 with all they knew about him.
The GOP chose Trump. Willingly.
Then they did it again in 2024.
The problem is the GOP and its followers.
They have trashed women, gay people, the public education system, science, and now democracy itself.
They lack values.
There is none so blind...
If we don't recognize, address, and fix the problems within, WTF does it matter where our anger is directed? Biden had many, many great accomplishments for which I and so many are thankful and appreciate. That said, trump's successful candidacy and the coming hell just over the horizon of his 2nd presidency was clearly made possible IN THE FIRST PLACE by Biden not keeping his promise to be a one term transitional president, along with his wife, and his inept and deceitful campaign staff, and many in the media who turned away from these lies and his obvious failings. This resulted in no actual primary and Kamala being forced upon us as the nominee - with 107 days to campaign against a gut running for 2 years. I like her and she got my vote, money, and support, but for far too many, the whole way this was handled was a failure of D leadership - starting with, but not ending with, Biden.
Both things can be true at the same time. You not liking that doesn't make it any less true.
Kamala and Joe stood by America and our values for freedom.
The GOP rejects these values and has knowingly put Americans in danger.
Let's focus on the threat. Perhaps then we can break apart the cult of personality that has infected the GOP.
Sorry, but that does NOT address the issues within our party. If those aren't resolved, the rest cannot be addressed. I agree that Joe had many accomplishments and Kamala did the best she could given the circumstances forced upon her and the American people by Biden's and the DNC's lies about his ability to run.
"Kamala and Joe stood by America and our values for freedom." they sure did and over 77 million voters didn't give a damn. So that didn't work.
The best opportunity to thwart the threat was November 5th. We failed to do so because of the way we mishandled from within, starting but not ending with Biden, along with many other reasons that have been addressed many times here and elsewhere.
Fix our house first, which must include an honest appraisal of our failures, then we can better focus on the threat. Until then, all the bluster and false hopes of countering the MAGA and Elonald Mump nightmare and attacks on our country are moot.
Total BS. The fault lies *solely* with that 49.8% of the electorate that voted for that scumbag Trump. Period.
Right on!
This piece was really great! I wish it could be shown on FOX or any right wing.. so called news outlet. I have to say maybe a hundred years from now some of the things Joe did will be looked at as a positive. Not his insisting on runnng but some of his policies. My biggest worries right now is that the Republicans in the Senate will approve his cabinet picks. If that happens there may not be another election . Or if there is one it may be a sham similar to what Putin does.
I am not going to watch Joe give his last two big speeches. I haven't watched him forever. I am not going to watch the inauguration .. I am going to NY and spending the day at the movies. I wish there was something I could do ..The one thing Steve you always say Trump lied and they believed him.. You never seem to look at his voters and say what kind of person votes for someone who grabs women's pussies and if your famous they let you ?...What kind of person votes for a guy is convicted of 34 felonies ? I can say that person would never get my vote.
Yes! More condemnation of the voters, Steve!
I appreciate your comments and mostly agree, but want to respond to this: "What kind of person votes for a guy is convicted of 34 felonies?"
The kind of person who has been told hundreds if not thousands of times every hour of every day for 8 or 9 years that this was a "witch hunt" and "if they can come after me, imagine what they can do to you." All lies, of course, but effective at brain washing. And we're not even addressing the actually more serious crimes he committed that never went to trial because of delays and the DOJ dragging their feet and SCOTUS giving him every benefit of every doubt that no one - no one - deserves.
Mike I agree with you that some are brain washed but way too many haven't been.
I know someone who voted for Trump in 16 20 24 ...In his first term she would say," I wish he would just stop tweeting." As though if he did that no one would be upset. Yes I believe that neighbors and people I know from other walks of life are not brain washed. Not like the insurrectionists .. they would never break the law. But they applaud his disgusting behavior. Yes they believe a lot of what he says because they want too. On some level they know he was responsible for 1/6. It's ludicrous that they would believe he offered Nancy 10,000 National Guard troops. These people have comfortable lives. They didn't hear him when everyday he called the people to take back there country but they did hear him when he offered Nancy the National Guard. They thought it was funny that they were called deplorable..
I’d pick the sticks & stones of one party’s scantimony over the physical harm of the other’s treachery, all day long.
Very well said Steve as always. It took a long time to realize I'd been deceived by my own Party and nominee even when many told me I was wrong. I defended him up and until that debate, even afterwards getting blasted by people for asking him to step down.
I wrote letters to his Campaign and the White House asking them to please put more focus on food prices etc, because I saw firsthand how much people were hurting. Crickets.
I believe it now. Thanks to you and others who never stop speaking truth to power. Thank you for always putting Country first. We WILL recover. It's just going to be a hard, nasty road getting there. I will never forget January 6th. Ever. 💔🇺🇸💙
We will turn this around by building something for which people will vote: a solid, broadly beneficial platform that is sold by a charismatic candidate. We have approached it as candidate only. The platform became a meaningless afterthought. I would leave it there for 2024. Talk about sucks. We had a charismatic candidate sans platform. We must turn this around. We must build a platform that lifts, fires up, and arms the strongest movement of our lives. Otherwise YOU bequeath your children and grandchildren their inherited, voiceless servitude to a dictatorship. https://hotbuttons.substack.com/p/start-our-movement?r=3m1bs
The one who controls the narrative controls the outcome.
And who better to control the narrative than trump supporters and oligarchs who own most major media outlets and all or nearly all SM platforms. Lies in media repeated over and over and algorithms on SM force feeding this narrative down people's throats. musk and his over $277 million and his hundreds of millions of followers on X are just the most obvious example. Zuckerberg and Bezos and many others who are now bending the knee are two additional examples. I could go on, but the point is clear.
Those hundreds of millions on X may be in for a huge surprise, not one to their liking. One does not know what they have lost until they have lost it. Then, it is too late. The elites are out of control, what with Musk and the like inserting himself into German and British politics. (And, ours.) Musk is Trump's brain, in some fashion as Cheney was Bush's brain. The people will pay for the "sins of the fathers". After all, what's to lose except for an entire nation? They don’t care because they will have corralled the golden calf.
Thanks Steve, I hope you are right about the re-emergence of the Democratic party at some point in the future. I am afraid there are going to be innumerable challenges between now and then. My sincere hope is that Trump and team burn it down so badly so quickly that people realize the con that has been perpetrated on them. At the same time, sane voices in the Democratic party construct a platform that addresses the inequality in the US. Eventually, there needs to be massive redistribution of wealth from the oligarchs to the people. You are correct, no one can fathom a personal fortune of a billion let alone a trillion but you can surely recognize the evil of such wealth.
Trump is the antichrist.
Well, Steve, to your point, the political class has failed and thus we have 45 years of wealth inequality that gave us a feudal system. But we were also lied to about Iraq, which left 5,000 young Americans dead and thousands more permanently maimed. Who voted to start that war? Well, Joe Biden did, for example. You know, many lost everything. Which might explain that blowing up the republic has their unqualified support. And who can say they are wrong to feel as they do? I do not.
Eminem just release, “Fall Of Putin; The Death of a Dictator”. Glad he made it out of the gate before the censorship besiegement. https://youtu.be/tSw1AGFKF1o?si=MrAu8sXOk4ZBPW8J
Censorship,! STEVE, you say it began NOW????
No. Not right. Never was right that censorship began at such and such a time, since it ALWAS HERE.
It began here in the 1600's with a dissembling about the benefits of sharing the wealth and loving one another. We never bonded as brothers here. The INDIVIDUAL hoarded, and did not share with his brothers in need.
We inmorally believed in INDIVIDUALISM and never were truthful about the glories of the Collecive Good....
We are a shameless land of individual greed,;;we worship wealthy tycoons ---.not Truth. We censored the truth about the evils of Capitalism for 248 years, and now is no differfent.
OUR CENSORSHIP of the glories of Collectivism led to the FASCISM we have now
Right on Tracy. And we are no more of an exceptional nation than any other. Our bloody and divided past, our coddling of billionaires, our disdain for our natural environment, our history of prejudice and discrimination, are all testimony to that. And that's the truth.
Yes, we pay lip service to important values. But that is where it ends, lip service.
Anthony, This reply better than any I ever got. It was fulsome, explicit, and as you say-ALL TRUEI
Censorship? We have had nothing but, since the 1600's. Yet, as you say, all nations have been as guilty as us.
We are NOT EXCEPTIONAL nor a Shining City on a Hill.
Could we ever HAVE been those things? NO! Our species cannot do it, and I think the whole universe of sentience beings ( there must be countless numbers of our fellow sentient beings out there) will also fail, because sentience already is doomed to fail.
The ancients in India have always known that truth.
I have known since 14 that we were doomed here. I was 14 in 1956 and I saw the evils of McCarthyism, an evil sickness here, based on fear, from which we have never recovered: The terribly uneducated Americans are still scared of anything that may look like it is for the Collective Good, because McCarthyism won!
Collectivism and Individualism are enemies.
Interesting. I once read an article that hypothesized that we will never make contact with higher intelligence in the universe because it is a law of evolution that technological progress occurs more quickly than emotional and common sense intelligence; therefore intelligent species with the physical ability to develop technology always destroy themselves through war or their adverse effects on the natural environment they depend on due to greed and misguided belief in their ultimate ability to solve all problems.
I don't know much about Hinduism, but I do know they believe there are continuing cycles of creation and destruction.
The universe is obviously the home of innumerable species of sorts unimaginable to us. My only spiritual belief is that a life force makes the energy and matter of the universe possible through awareness in the multituide of species inhabiting the universe(s).
We need to begin working toward the 2026 midterms right now! There will be much damage done until then and we can't let those fools get away with it.
It's too late, The snake has all the reins in his hands and will trample and decapitate anyone who stands in his way.
So, uh, what? Give up and do nothing? That's exactly what the hell they want.
Of course not. I speak out whenever I think it will change anyone's mind. THAT NEVER HAPPENS, uh...
Weird - I've been accessing the National Archives for weeks via my home internet. Today I discovered access to the site is blocked by my cable router (Optimum.net). Aside from this block, everything else is working fine.
I'm a software developer and have run independent checks. I can (DNS) lookup whitehouse.gov, congress.gov, but not archives.gov. Using CURL I can download the homepage for the White House, but archives.gov always fails address lookup.
NB - the response by Optimum support tech was the site is a security risk. The ticket has been escalated and is to be resolved in 24 hours.
It is possible that it is not the cable providers 'doing' but this issue is oddly specific.
I can get to archives.gov just fine, but am not on optimum.net.
Thanks, I am in contact with Optimum, but confirmed access on same computer using the same computer. That confirms that there is no issue with my computer. With Optimum, I can access everything EXCEPT archives.gov. The support ticket has been escalated to engineering.
This looks like censorship; someone had to have added this 'block' - it is TOO SPECIFIC to be anything else. Keeping all other parameters the same and just changing networks solves the issue.
This quite literally nauseates me. I wish I could call up some sense of hope, but just can't get there yet. Maybe it's my age, which brings a certain perspective. I don't see recovery of the country that was. Perhaps that's even the right outcome, but getting to a new version will be a massive effort impeded by many obstacles.