I've often said that if American politics were a Hollywood movie, everyone would clearly recognize the behavior of the Republicans as the villains. The fact that tens of millions of Americans want the villains to win is discouraging, but we will persevere.
This is spot on. As someone involved in political activism for a very long time, I can attest that I was called hyperbolic for predicting LESS than what he is actually doing.
"The anti-anti-Trump intellectuals. The contrarians and self-appointed heterodox thinkers who could not bring themselves to support Trump, but who found the alarm of his critics unseemly. The real threat, they insisted, was the overreaction itself. They positioned themselves as the adults in the room while the rest of us succumbed to panic.
Here is what I maintained for years, and what I will now state plainly: the obsessive fixation on leftist excess functioned as a form of cognitive capture. It rendered an entire class of otherwise intelligent people incapable of perceiving threats originating in their own ideological vicinity. They became so convinced that the republic faced imminent danger from campus speech codes and diversity initiatives that they looked upon an actual authoritarian—a man who had already attempted to overturn an election—and concluded he represented the lesser evil."
"That part of the Star Wars mythos where the incompetent elites who failed to stop the system from sliding into fascism simply go into hiding and do nothing, waiting for a bunch of kids to grow up and fix the problem themselves hits pretty hard right now."
SS: Maybe it is because I am a diagnostician (MD). But since 2016, it was clear we were dealing with a nut-job, someone that cannot think beyond himself. Some of you probably consider me to be paranoid, perhaps even non-patriotic, but I would tell you that if there is anyone that can end this Earth as we know it, this piece of shit POTUS is the prime candidate. I used the term Tyrantosaurus Rex. It was not meant to be a joke. We know that T. Rex became extinct. In the case of DJT, we must expedite his extinction. At the least, I pray for his impeachment and conviction; at the most, I pray he drops dead. What really galls me is his obsession with the Peace Prize. Trump has murdered millions-between 400,000 deaths due to COVID-19 in the US, to the hundreds of thousands in Ukraine, Gaza and who knows where else.
MB reasonably has typed out a litany of Trump's criminality. It goes back to his younger years in NY committing fraud with his father. Wayne Barrett, reporter for the Village Voice and book author, warned us of Trump, but we ignored this. We did a shit job in vetting Trump. We do a shit job in vetting so many of the people that affect human life and the life of the Earth.
⇢ How can we be this stupid? You don't shit where you eat. You protect and you honor a milieu as wondrous as planet Earth.
What Trump is doing now with NATO is part of the Putin playbook. Cannot you see this? Trump wants to destroy the US, and to destroy NATO. He is a Putin devotee. He loves Kim Jong-un, he admires anyone that rules with the iron hand or heel of a tyrant.
MB: "Mike Johnson, John Thune, and dare I say Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer continue to undersign the notion that this is a regular constitutional government, in form adequate to any reasonable understanding of lawful government within the confines of said laws and constitution."
SS: Absolutely; it is shocking. I would NOT want Jeffries or Schumer to be part of the government if we end the tyranny of Trump and his ass-kissing GOP Congress. I will support the younger, more aggressive, more visionary candidates as my representatives in government.
SS: I keep thinking about Forrest Gump. I am 83, have heart failure and kidney failure but I would consider walking from Oregon to Washington DC, if I could hope for a mass group joining me. But sadly, I see the citizenry in America more committed to traveling to a football game then saving the Country. Do not get me wrong. I watch college and NFL football, but it is not a priority over how this country is ruled. Would a stadium full of screaming and full committed fans also follow a Vietnam veteran, MD, former diplomat, writer, mountain climber, ocean sailor and scuba diver-- I doubt it. Perhaps if I was a 25-year old Hollywood actor it would, but not a gray-haired old man who cannot believe the legacy we are leaving future generations.
This is such a difficult pill to swallow. Realizing the people meant to uphold the law in congress could allow themselves to be bulldozed into keeping the status quo for someone who is, in no uncertain terms, the personification of evil, is so heartbreaking.
You’re right, of course, Mike. And you explain it perfectly. I hope you forgive me for linking a post I made in October on this very subject. I opened it with some words from a song. If you have time, please take a look and tell me if you think I’m on the right track.
I liked your song but I feel citizens need direction, not solely venom. My son and I took the words of the great song by Leonard Cohen, "Halleluyah" and turned those lyrics to this. I wanted Bruce Springsteen to see it, but despite my connections, accessibility is near impossible any more:
"[T]he excessive fixation on leftist excess function[ing] as a form of cognitive capture..." YES, thank you for saying this out loud. I've lost track of the number of times, in an otherwise thoughtful & intelligent piece by a small-c, anti-Trump conservative or centrist Democrat, I've had to wade through an aside of woke-bashing that has nothing to do with their main argument whatsoever. As if it's somehow a necessary & standard clause inserted to preserve their "rational" status. A statistically tiny number of incidents of over-zealousness in small, hothouse environments used to discredit all those who want "too much" change, whether that be racial, economic, or, to your point, political.
Cf Mark Carney’s speech at Davos today and, following Vaclev Havel’s metaphor: take the sign out of your windows, folks. Looking at you Politico and NYT — just for starters.
For some time I have seen our President as the human embodiment of banality. His very aura seems to either be a total deterrent that sickens people or it causes people to forgo every virtue they proposed to embody. They turn to their basest instincts and a blind eye to the evil as long as their rewards are in place. I don't believe in the bible, but this man has made me reconsider the preposition of an anti-Christ..
Thank you, thank you - excellent piece that articulates so much of what I've been feeling. With the absolute crises occurring everywhere, domestically and with foreign "policy" - I feel like someone has me on mute. Our representation has failed us with their silence, inaction, lack of urgency and business as usual actions. On both sides of the aisle. We are still standing though, and not as powerless as I might feel in this moment.
While I agree with the reality that we are in a Constitutional crisis, a bit of a reality check. Those consultants you’re so quick to demonize understand something online activists more interested in social media cred do not. Political power requires convincing those on the sidelines, many of whom pay little attention to politics or policy. All that polling data and message crafting is for those people, not the highly engaged people who already agree with them.
This is one of your best pieces of work, Mike.
I've often said that if American politics were a Hollywood movie, everyone would clearly recognize the behavior of the Republicans as the villains. The fact that tens of millions of Americans want the villains to win is discouraging, but we will persevere.
Very kind words! Thank you!
This is spot on. As someone involved in political activism for a very long time, I can attest that I was called hyperbolic for predicting LESS than what he is actually doing.
"The anti-anti-Trump intellectuals. The contrarians and self-appointed heterodox thinkers who could not bring themselves to support Trump, but who found the alarm of his critics unseemly. The real threat, they insisted, was the overreaction itself. They positioned themselves as the adults in the room while the rest of us succumbed to panic.
Here is what I maintained for years, and what I will now state plainly: the obsessive fixation on leftist excess functioned as a form of cognitive capture. It rendered an entire class of otherwise intelligent people incapable of perceiving threats originating in their own ideological vicinity. They became so convinced that the republic faced imminent danger from campus speech codes and diversity initiatives that they looked upon an actual authoritarian—a man who had already attempted to overturn an election—and concluded he represented the lesser evil."
"That part of the Star Wars mythos where the incompetent elites who failed to stop the system from sliding into fascism simply go into hiding and do nothing, waiting for a bunch of kids to grow up and fix the problem themselves hits pretty hard right now."
Then I saw the armies march, saw him raise his power high
He preached: "Obey!" He practiced: "Rule!" and fattened on the ancient lie
His wheedling words, his mystic might, his ultimately iron hand
This promised hell- I know them well. Finally, I understand
MB: Donald Trump is evil.
SS: Maybe it is because I am a diagnostician (MD). But since 2016, it was clear we were dealing with a nut-job, someone that cannot think beyond himself. Some of you probably consider me to be paranoid, perhaps even non-patriotic, but I would tell you that if there is anyone that can end this Earth as we know it, this piece of shit POTUS is the prime candidate. I used the term Tyrantosaurus Rex. It was not meant to be a joke. We know that T. Rex became extinct. In the case of DJT, we must expedite his extinction. At the least, I pray for his impeachment and conviction; at the most, I pray he drops dead. What really galls me is his obsession with the Peace Prize. Trump has murdered millions-between 400,000 deaths due to COVID-19 in the US, to the hundreds of thousands in Ukraine, Gaza and who knows where else.
MB reasonably has typed out a litany of Trump's criminality. It goes back to his younger years in NY committing fraud with his father. Wayne Barrett, reporter for the Village Voice and book author, warned us of Trump, but we ignored this. We did a shit job in vetting Trump. We do a shit job in vetting so many of the people that affect human life and the life of the Earth.
⇢ How can we be this stupid? You don't shit where you eat. You protect and you honor a milieu as wondrous as planet Earth.
What Trump is doing now with NATO is part of the Putin playbook. Cannot you see this? Trump wants to destroy the US, and to destroy NATO. He is a Putin devotee. He loves Kim Jong-un, he admires anyone that rules with the iron hand or heel of a tyrant.
MB: "Mike Johnson, John Thune, and dare I say Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer continue to undersign the notion that this is a regular constitutional government, in form adequate to any reasonable understanding of lawful government within the confines of said laws and constitution."
SS: Absolutely; it is shocking. I would NOT want Jeffries or Schumer to be part of the government if we end the tyranny of Trump and his ass-kissing GOP Congress. I will support the younger, more aggressive, more visionary candidates as my representatives in government.
SS: I keep thinking about Forrest Gump. I am 83, have heart failure and kidney failure but I would consider walking from Oregon to Washington DC, if I could hope for a mass group joining me. But sadly, I see the citizenry in America more committed to traveling to a football game then saving the Country. Do not get me wrong. I watch college and NFL football, but it is not a priority over how this country is ruled. Would a stadium full of screaming and full committed fans also follow a Vietnam veteran, MD, former diplomat, writer, mountain climber, ocean sailor and scuba diver-- I doubt it. Perhaps if I was a 25-year old Hollywood actor it would, but not a gray-haired old man who cannot believe the legacy we are leaving future generations.
This is such a difficult pill to swallow. Realizing the people meant to uphold the law in congress could allow themselves to be bulldozed into keeping the status quo for someone who is, in no uncertain terms, the personification of evil, is so heartbreaking.
Excellent
You’re right, of course, Mike. And you explain it perfectly. I hope you forgive me for linking a post I made in October on this very subject. I opened it with some words from a song. If you have time, please take a look and tell me if you think I’m on the right track.
https://citizen99.substack.com/p/stare-into-the-vacuum-of-his-eyes?r=2sauq
I liked your song but I feel citizens need direction, not solely venom. My son and I took the words of the great song by Leonard Cohen, "Halleluyah" and turned those lyrics to this. I wanted Bruce Springsteen to see it, but despite my connections, accessibility is near impossible any more:
Hallelujah
by Stephen & Adam Strum
Apologies to Leonard Cohen
2025
A nation sowed in moral ground
aspiring equality, our principle sound
We had so much, I tell ya.
We toiled as one to fight our foes
embraced hard work despite our woes,
Our ethics strong, with truth’s song
we showed the world right from wrong.
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
These recent times have dimmed our light
power, greed did steal our might.
So much we lost to darkest night, I tell ya.
We let a devil in our abode
an ego sick, no moral code.
Tyrants beloved, avarice his creed
Revenge and chaos his wanton need.
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
He abhors the law and loves the lie
craves to see Democracy die.
Destroy, Deride and Divide
no Dr. Jekyll, he's clearly Hyde.
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Now's the time, time we rise
Work together to turn the tide,
Leave this course, find new roads,
With truth restore our moral code.
Yes, take this path with truth our staff
to leave this world a better place.
This unity and vision in our mind,
Brings us back to humankind.
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Damn. This is good. Excellent. Reality. Thank you. 🙏🏽
"[T]he excessive fixation on leftist excess function[ing] as a form of cognitive capture..." YES, thank you for saying this out loud. I've lost track of the number of times, in an otherwise thoughtful & intelligent piece by a small-c, anti-Trump conservative or centrist Democrat, I've had to wade through an aside of woke-bashing that has nothing to do with their main argument whatsoever. As if it's somehow a necessary & standard clause inserted to preserve their "rational" status. A statistically tiny number of incidents of over-zealousness in small, hothouse environments used to discredit all those who want "too much" change, whether that be racial, economic, or, to your point, political.
Exactly!
Cf Mark Carney’s speech at Davos today and, following Vaclev Havel’s metaphor: take the sign out of your windows, folks. Looking at you Politico and NYT — just for starters.
For some time I have seen our President as the human embodiment of banality. His very aura seems to either be a total deterrent that sickens people or it causes people to forgo every virtue they proposed to embody. They turn to their basest instincts and a blind eye to the evil as long as their rewards are in place. I don't believe in the bible, but this man has made me reconsider the preposition of an anti-Christ..
Agree 💯 with this essay. Evil to his marrow.
Yes. He is objectively evil. This is not a "value judgment" nor a political stance. And (dare I say here) we can all get a lot of OUGHTS from this IS.
"We all" includes our European cousins, as Gavin Newsom clearly explains: https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/newsom-in-davos-this-is-code-red
Thank you, thank you - excellent piece that articulates so much of what I've been feeling. With the absolute crises occurring everywhere, domestically and with foreign "policy" - I feel like someone has me on mute. Our representation has failed us with their silence, inaction, lack of urgency and business as usual actions. On both sides of the aisle. We are still standing though, and not as powerless as I might feel in this moment.
While I agree with the reality that we are in a Constitutional crisis, a bit of a reality check. Those consultants you’re so quick to demonize understand something online activists more interested in social media cred do not. Political power requires convincing those on the sidelines, many of whom pay little attention to politics or policy. All that polling data and message crafting is for those people, not the highly engaged people who already agree with them.
Are you saying I'm... out of touch?