Than you. This is why I will never again pay attention to anything Andrew Sullivan writes. After years of reading the Daily Dish and then the Weekly Dish, I turned away in disgust when he voted for Republicans in 2022 because of “woke”, dismissed the implications of overturning Roe v Wade (after all, it doesn’t affect him), and started writing positively about Ron DeSantis. He’s horrified now about the Trump regime, but it’s people like him who helped get us here. I’m waiting for the mea culpa.
If the right seriously tries to roll back gay marriage, he will be the perfect example of the “first they came for…” quote (in his case, first they came for the women, but who cares about them?).
Mike, you’re my #1 Substack author, and I promise I’ll convert to paid subscription in the near future. We’re probably peers (give or take few years) and you resonate with my journey in recent years so much! Similarly to you, I’ve been watching the States sleepwalking into this nighmare, albeit from Slovakia, a tiny EU country that turned from a staunch Ukraine supporter (until the fall of 23) to an Viktor Orban-like putinist traitor country after our last elections. We’ve been targeted by ruZZian congnitive warfare more than a decade, slowly eroding social contract, trust in institutions and the very notion of right and wrong. We’ve been ruZZian lab mice for everything that happened later in the US. Sometimes I joke, that we are/have been an avant-garde for the things that happened across the Big Pond. Just wanted to stress again how I love your strident essays you casually pull of every few days. A remarkable feat for an ex-tech exec! 😂 Keep on your brilliant work, please!
Once again, you’ve hit it right on the head. I see what YOU see. I watched it the whole time it was forming. I feel nearly helpless to do anything about it. I’m a bit afraid to speak out but know I must. These people hired a celebrity hypnotist as their front man. He is not stupid like people think. The man is brilliant and devious. He talks down to his base and treats them like the children they are. He is a sociopathic narcissist who is all too happy to play PT Barnum in THE CIRCUS we find ourselves in. We watch haplessly as the acrobats fall to their death, one by one.
This is the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen in my 73 years. Frank Zappa predicted it 50 years ago. He was the Nostradamus of our era.
I promise you I'm not making an anti-trans argument. But I do have critiques about how some of the more militant elements of trans rights activism walked straight into a right-wing trap, by focusing on strategies like "deplatforming" which many (even on the left—but too quickly dismissed as transphobes) were warning against. The right wanted nothing more than to portray trans people as authoritarian threats to free speech, and certain tactical choices played directly into that narrative. That doesn't make trans rights less valid or trans people less deserving of dignity and safety. It means the anti-woke commentariat successfully weaponized legitimate struggles into culture war ammunition.
He wasn’t doing that. Please open your eyes. The trans movement is legitimate but the extreme sensitivity and cancellation rhetoric in the collective groupthink of trans culture often obscures real questions that arise. Brock is discussing the sociological and media capture of TRANS FEAR to serve the machinations of a small group of fascists. In order to do that he has to say the quiet parts out loud. Yeah it’s a sensitive issue. But they are burning down the whole store with all our friends in it.
Tani, I have to say something here rather than be accused of being "woke" at an old age. Each of us has our proverbial cross or crosses to bear. Anything different in our so-called environment of "humanity" is attacked. We don't live in a context like the bar in Star Wars. Half of my mother's family died in death camps thanks to Nazi ideology. They believed in a different God, not the Christian god that was born and died Jewish. They were children, young people, and elders. I was lucky and was born in New York. If it had been my native country, Poland, I would have died at age 2 or 3.
The trans population in the United States represents 0.95 to 1% of the total population. The amount of focus on trans issues versus other existential issues is disproportionate. It's a harsh reality, and I am sure a statement subject to harsh criticism. But a person that is of color, or is gay, or is trans, or is Jewish or Moslem, or still a person that believes in freedom of speech, a free press, due process, as well as those who see the destruction of Earth through the excesses of consumerism and greed will have nothing to say if the trend in our government reaches FULL FACISM. We are halfway there.
What we have already lost:
• A corrupt Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) per the abuses of Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas.
• A DOJ that is Trump's attorneys, and reacts to his every whim, most of which is hell-bent on revenge.
• An immoral and power-thirsty GOP in both House and Senate. The rule of law has been tossed out the window.
• A POTUS & family using the presidency as a cash cow. Another violation of the Constitution regarding emoluments.
• Alienation of allies, and abandoning the democratic people of a sovereign Ukraine to be further destroyed by PUTIN (Poisonous Ugly Tyrannical Inhuman Nazi).
• A POTUS who is a morally disgusting anti-Christ that has revoked women's reproductive rights and brought a Nazi mentality to any person of color in the US, citizen or not.
I am, as I am sure others are too, looking at the big picture. I am not screaming my head off at the rising occurrences of anti-semitism in this country. I am concerned about the destruction of the pillars of democracy that will alter the nature of all life in the US, and which will have horrible global repercussions. I am sorry that I can't feel equally concerned about the trans community at this time. I am focused on 99% of the rest of my life, as are hundreds of millions. I contend that some of the electorate who normally would vote for a Democratic candidate are unhappy with the seeming disproportionate attention to trans issues. That in itself further hurts the chance that Democracy will survive in the US.
"First they came for the trans community, and even though I wasn't trans I immediately spoke out because I've read the rest of the poem."
In Weimar Germany, Jews made up less than one percent of the population, just as trans people in modern society. And even so the fascists of the day were able to scapegoat that community as the source of society's ills and unleash a horrifically destructive war while conducting a genocide not only of Jews but also of Romani, of homosexual men (included within which were transgender women), of persons with disabilities (go look up what Hans Asperger, yes, that Asperger, had to say about a doctor's responsibility to cull people with "diseased hereditary material"), and of anyone else they disliked.
Trans people might make up less than one percent of the population but we know from history that the hatred doesn't need to start with being aimed against a very large group--in fact, it is often better to aim it at a small group, and one already experiencing some amount of bigotry that leads many not to be public about their being in that group, because it means most people won't even know someone who is in it and are thus more susceptible to negative stereotypes and propaganda about them.
(Not only that, but Weimar Germany had a thriving trans community, and even so one of the first targets of the Nazis' book burnings was the Institute for Sexual Science in Berlin, so trans people were one of the earliest targets of the Nazis' own hatred, not just the hatred of the protofascists of today.)
There are many other issues, I agree with that, but the attacks on the trans community have been a large part of how the reactionaries have gotten as far into the room as they have.
Your last sentence is, for me, the most valid point. Of those that remain pro-Trump, their remaining loyalty to the ilk of Trump is often based on their views of Democrats as being fixated on gay, trans, and other issues that they find disquieting. I have no problem with homosexuality or with trans, but I do find it intrusive when it seems pushed on me by Hollywood in film and theatre. I admit to my bias, and at age almost 83, I probably am less Archie Bunkerish than many of my contemporaries. But for me, what I have written in book form is not about anti-Semitism, but about the rape of Democracy and the issues that our citizenry and our mainstream media failed to bring to the forefront prior to the 2020 and 2024 elections. And I believe this is a huge and significant reason for the blatant failure of the Democratic Party. When you have a patient with an arterial bleed, you don't focus on examining their toes. You triage or choose the most vital issue that can cause the death of a patient, or in this case, the death of Democracy. See what I mean by reading What We Must Demand For Our Democracy to Survive on Amazon. If you have Kindle Unlimited, it is $0.0.
Except that as long as you allow one group or another to be thrown under the bus, as long as you tell this group or that to "wait for a 'more convenient season'", as long as you "prefer[] a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice", you'll never actually be able to keep a liberal democracy.
"Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit:
There must be in-groups whom the law protectes [sic] but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."
"The core proposition of anti-conservatism requires no supplementation and no exegesis. It is as sufficient as it is necessary. What you see is what you get:
The law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone; and it cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone."
Problems in the trans movement (or any other LGBTQ+ movement) begin when, rather than simply demanding to be treated fairly and respectfully in the public sphere, they demand for people to truly accept them. Attempting to force a change of heart causes backlash. There was a reason why Bill Clinton settled, for a time, the issue of gays in the military with, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." It was not gratifying for all time, but it solved the immediate problem by making those who attached gays look foolish.
The people most benefiting from these movements would be better served by first seeking to change only behavior. That, in itself, would offer de facto relief, with, one could hope, more compassion and genuine respect evolving over time. Is that good enough? No, but it beats generating a backlash that worsens the situation by not moving it forward. It is hard to argue against the request to simply be respectful publicly, regardless of how one may actually feel.
“Just trying to survive” is what I understand and respect. I hope you do however, take issue with some of the violently militant individuals who have tainted your whole cause. We all know who they are.
Let’s remember the oligarchs, Christian nationalists, and Republicans supercharged anti woke campaigns to win popular support and hide their true intentions to prevent or even eliminate social programs and economic gains for those marginalized in their extremely rapacious economy. DeSantis was a perfect example accusing the woke left of closing schools and imposing masks, all a ruse to power his presidential campaign. Trump openly brags the anti trans approach helps the GOP. Democrats are reeling and unable to generate enough anger and disgust to make traction.
I'm waiting to see how long it will take before the US attempts an Anschluß with Canada. Hopefully Americans will not have been sufficiently propagandised to go along with it by the time it's attempted.
I'm also waiting to see how John Roberts will justify Trump v. United States somehow not applying to Barack Obama. (Anyone who thought the institutions would hold was delusional the moment that decision, and the earlier decision in Trump v. Anderson, came down.)
As a Canadian I’m watching everything. I know there are maga politicians stirring up anti-Canadian hatred in your northern border states, our most fervent allies due to decades long inter-dependent trade. There was a “christian” performer up here who preaches hate against gays and single moms, reporting daily to the WH during his tour. He was either cancelled or booed, providing propaganda that Canada is godless and heathen. Oh yes, we see what’s going on.
It's little better knowing we elected a conservative to keep out a worse conservative (if Poilievre can even be considered a small-c conservative). As The Beaverton put it: "Conservative man discovers secret trick to getting elected PM: running as Liberal".
Being among them, I can vouch that there are plenty of Americans who are appalled, humiliated, and deeply offended that our Moron in Chief and the idiots who follow him could ever mistreat Canadians. We are proud to live along the world's longest undefended border (may it remain so, if only the American government will allow it to be!), and are grateful to live alongside friends who have only ever treated us well. Not so long ago, it was a universal ethic to disdain anyone who mistreated Canadians. The good fortune to border Canada is part of the American success story. We owe you equally kind reciprocity. You have friends in the United States who share in your dispair.
And I realize I was busy, in my own minor way, engaging with people about the Right's weaponizing a word, viz. woke, while the whole language a la Orwell was being turned inside out. It's 'funny' how the Right is doing the very things it criticized the Left about: corrupting language, ignoring the rights of certain groups, weaponizing religion in the service of ideology, caving in to foreign powers, blowing up the national debt, favoring "elites' like the tech billionaires, following a charismatic leader like "sheeple," and on and on.
I’ve been on that train ride all along too. Didn’t know you were aboard, I would have looked. Actually we hadn’t met yet. We still haven’t, irrelevant. This train has turned into the slow-motion wreck from “The Greatest Show On Earth” right down to the predators being freed from their cages. Oddly fitting analogy. I too find it difficult to believe so many of us were there, crickets. And you simply nailed it, as per. https://youtu.be/K9ITp_xSaxE?si=LRVaMRi-sciSQXZF
If it wasn't "anti-wokeism", it would have been something else. These people wanted power and were willing to do anything to get it. They would have kept trying different issues until something stuck.
Liberals were in deep denial about the growing authoritarian movement and failed to take it seriously until it was too late. They believed in things like "the end of history", "the long arc of history bends towards justice", "the emerging Democratic majority", and "the post-racial society". In doing so, they lulled themselves to sleep.
What a shame. I warned everyone I knew and take no pleasure in being right about Trump going full dictator. So many people voted to make their lives worse, it boggles the mind.
The Great Exchange is well-written. It should be turned into a book, while reading a book is still a possibility. Perhaps, then, you might be asked to be a guest on Real Time with Bill Maher. But, I deviate from my point: you write very well and accurately. The Great Exchange reminds me of your other excellent piece about "Equivalence" and how pro-Trumpers equate Biden's corruption with Trump's. Yeah, both families have reasons to be labelled as "corrupt," but with Trump, it is his life-long story, and now it is flagrant, open to anyone to see, other than those needing a seeing-eye dog. Sadly, for the younger residents in the US, you are now on the short end of this "exhange." It's almost like lyrics from an Adele song. "We almost had it all."
This book is crucial reading for anyone who understands and appreciates what this Substack post is talking about. I’m going to be sharing it everywhere I can.
Read it! So much about recent history that I couldn’t think about clearly but knew to be true, suddenly makes sense to be now.
I remember one of the 2025ers declaring that there would be a “bloodless” coup if the democrats allowed it. They said it during Trump’s campaign before they started trying to hide their intentions.
I'm not sure if it's going to stay bloodless. I expect the Trump regime's knives to come out sooner or later. With all the military and armed ICE goons running around, it seems inevitable.
It’s surprising to read that you’re still going on about the left-center intellectuals. You took their criticism deeply to heart - isn’t it time you let go? After all, your subscribers and followers are here to listen to you. You’re still scolding those who didn’t, when your subscribers and followers who respect you need you to address them. After all many of us knew what was coming.
Do you remember my asking here months ago, when would you and other commentators stop speaking of a “Constitutional crisis” when a coup had taken place? The day the Supreme Court made Trump invincible was the signal to me that our democracy was lost. I figured that you were someone who wanted his facts in place before making strong statements so I waited. Ever since it’s been an agonizing period watching everything happen that I knew was coming. You’re a smart and articulate person who could help us in this dark and truly perilous time. It’s even worse than you’ve described here because of the consequences for the rest of the world. For that, please let go of the affront your former colleagues and friends gave you. Your audience is here waiting.
This is a good analysis of the issues. People who have been in favor of the spirit and goals of wokism but exasperated with its excesses and silliness have been warning for a long time that it was feeding ammunition to the far right. And as usual the left has now formed a circular firing squad of recrimination while the right consolidates. Same is true of the debate over whether to counter-gerrymander. Thanks, Mike.
Than you. This is why I will never again pay attention to anything Andrew Sullivan writes. After years of reading the Daily Dish and then the Weekly Dish, I turned away in disgust when he voted for Republicans in 2022 because of “woke”, dismissed the implications of overturning Roe v Wade (after all, it doesn’t affect him), and started writing positively about Ron DeSantis. He’s horrified now about the Trump regime, but it’s people like him who helped get us here. I’m waiting for the mea culpa.
If the right seriously tries to roll back gay marriage, he will be the perfect example of the “first they came for…” quote (in his case, first they came for the women, but who cares about them?).
Yes. I stopped subscribing around the same time as you. Will he mea-culpa? Doubt it.
I stopped subscribing to Sullivan around then as well. His anti-woke blather was so majorly beside the point, and also tiresomely personal to him.
Mike, you’re my #1 Substack author, and I promise I’ll convert to paid subscription in the near future. We’re probably peers (give or take few years) and you resonate with my journey in recent years so much! Similarly to you, I’ve been watching the States sleepwalking into this nighmare, albeit from Slovakia, a tiny EU country that turned from a staunch Ukraine supporter (until the fall of 23) to an Viktor Orban-like putinist traitor country after our last elections. We’ve been targeted by ruZZian congnitive warfare more than a decade, slowly eroding social contract, trust in institutions and the very notion of right and wrong. We’ve been ruZZian lab mice for everything that happened later in the US. Sometimes I joke, that we are/have been an avant-garde for the things that happened across the Big Pond. Just wanted to stress again how I love your strident essays you casually pull of every few days. A remarkable feat for an ex-tech exec! 😂 Keep on your brilliant work, please!
Heartbreaking. I had the great opportunity to connect with diabetes researchers from Slovakia not so long ago. Such a privilege.
Exactly right except that Bari Weiss wasn't a useful idiot. She was a propagandist from the start.
That term is better applied to the signatories of the famous Harpers' letter, very few of whom have come to terms with their role in this disaster.
Once again, you’ve hit it right on the head. I see what YOU see. I watched it the whole time it was forming. I feel nearly helpless to do anything about it. I’m a bit afraid to speak out but know I must. These people hired a celebrity hypnotist as their front man. He is not stupid like people think. The man is brilliant and devious. He talks down to his base and treats them like the children they are. He is a sociopathic narcissist who is all too happy to play PT Barnum in THE CIRCUS we find ourselves in. We watch haplessly as the acrobats fall to their death, one by one.
This is the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen in my 73 years. Frank Zappa predicted it 50 years ago. He was the Nostradamus of our era.
Can you maybe make your point without dismissing trans people as silly? We’re literally just trying to survive here.
I promise you I'm not making an anti-trans argument. But I do have critiques about how some of the more militant elements of trans rights activism walked straight into a right-wing trap, by focusing on strategies like "deplatforming" which many (even on the left—but too quickly dismissed as transphobes) were warning against. The right wanted nothing more than to portray trans people as authoritarian threats to free speech, and certain tactical choices played directly into that narrative. That doesn't make trans rights less valid or trans people less deserving of dignity and safety. It means the anti-woke commentariat successfully weaponized legitimate struggles into culture war ammunition.
He wasn’t doing that. Please open your eyes. The trans movement is legitimate but the extreme sensitivity and cancellation rhetoric in the collective groupthink of trans culture often obscures real questions that arise. Brock is discussing the sociological and media capture of TRANS FEAR to serve the machinations of a small group of fascists. In order to do that he has to say the quiet parts out loud. Yeah it’s a sensitive issue. But they are burning down the whole store with all our friends in it.
Tani, I have to say something here rather than be accused of being "woke" at an old age. Each of us has our proverbial cross or crosses to bear. Anything different in our so-called environment of "humanity" is attacked. We don't live in a context like the bar in Star Wars. Half of my mother's family died in death camps thanks to Nazi ideology. They believed in a different God, not the Christian god that was born and died Jewish. They were children, young people, and elders. I was lucky and was born in New York. If it had been my native country, Poland, I would have died at age 2 or 3.
The trans population in the United States represents 0.95 to 1% of the total population. The amount of focus on trans issues versus other existential issues is disproportionate. It's a harsh reality, and I am sure a statement subject to harsh criticism. But a person that is of color, or is gay, or is trans, or is Jewish or Moslem, or still a person that believes in freedom of speech, a free press, due process, as well as those who see the destruction of Earth through the excesses of consumerism and greed will have nothing to say if the trend in our government reaches FULL FACISM. We are halfway there.
What we have already lost:
• A corrupt Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) per the abuses of Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas.
• A DOJ that is Trump's attorneys, and reacts to his every whim, most of which is hell-bent on revenge.
• An immoral and power-thirsty GOP in both House and Senate. The rule of law has been tossed out the window.
• A POTUS & family using the presidency as a cash cow. Another violation of the Constitution regarding emoluments.
• Alienation of allies, and abandoning the democratic people of a sovereign Ukraine to be further destroyed by PUTIN (Poisonous Ugly Tyrannical Inhuman Nazi).
• A POTUS who is a morally disgusting anti-Christ that has revoked women's reproductive rights and brought a Nazi mentality to any person of color in the US, citizen or not.
I am, as I am sure others are too, looking at the big picture. I am not screaming my head off at the rising occurrences of anti-semitism in this country. I am concerned about the destruction of the pillars of democracy that will alter the nature of all life in the US, and which will have horrible global repercussions. I am sorry that I can't feel equally concerned about the trans community at this time. I am focused on 99% of the rest of my life, as are hundreds of millions. I contend that some of the electorate who normally would vote for a Democratic candidate are unhappy with the seeming disproportionate attention to trans issues. That in itself further hurts the chance that Democracy will survive in the US.
"First they came for the trans community, and even though I wasn't trans I immediately spoke out because I've read the rest of the poem."
In Weimar Germany, Jews made up less than one percent of the population, just as trans people in modern society. And even so the fascists of the day were able to scapegoat that community as the source of society's ills and unleash a horrifically destructive war while conducting a genocide not only of Jews but also of Romani, of homosexual men (included within which were transgender women), of persons with disabilities (go look up what Hans Asperger, yes, that Asperger, had to say about a doctor's responsibility to cull people with "diseased hereditary material"), and of anyone else they disliked.
Trans people might make up less than one percent of the population but we know from history that the hatred doesn't need to start with being aimed against a very large group--in fact, it is often better to aim it at a small group, and one already experiencing some amount of bigotry that leads many not to be public about their being in that group, because it means most people won't even know someone who is in it and are thus more susceptible to negative stereotypes and propaganda about them.
(Not only that, but Weimar Germany had a thriving trans community, and even so one of the first targets of the Nazis' book burnings was the Institute for Sexual Science in Berlin, so trans people were one of the earliest targets of the Nazis' own hatred, not just the hatred of the protofascists of today.)
There are many other issues, I agree with that, but the attacks on the trans community have been a large part of how the reactionaries have gotten as far into the room as they have.
Your last sentence is, for me, the most valid point. Of those that remain pro-Trump, their remaining loyalty to the ilk of Trump is often based on their views of Democrats as being fixated on gay, trans, and other issues that they find disquieting. I have no problem with homosexuality or with trans, but I do find it intrusive when it seems pushed on me by Hollywood in film and theatre. I admit to my bias, and at age almost 83, I probably am less Archie Bunkerish than many of my contemporaries. But for me, what I have written in book form is not about anti-Semitism, but about the rape of Democracy and the issues that our citizenry and our mainstream media failed to bring to the forefront prior to the 2020 and 2024 elections. And I believe this is a huge and significant reason for the blatant failure of the Democratic Party. When you have a patient with an arterial bleed, you don't focus on examining their toes. You triage or choose the most vital issue that can cause the death of a patient, or in this case, the death of Democracy. See what I mean by reading What We Must Demand For Our Democracy to Survive on Amazon. If you have Kindle Unlimited, it is $0.0.
Except that as long as you allow one group or another to be thrown under the bus, as long as you tell this group or that to "wait for a 'more convenient season'", as long as you "prefer[] a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice", you'll never actually be able to keep a liberal democracy.
"Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit:
There must be in-groups whom the law protectes [sic] but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."
"The core proposition of anti-conservatism requires no supplementation and no exegesis. It is as sufficient as it is necessary. What you see is what you get:
The law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone; and it cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone."
Problems in the trans movement (or any other LGBTQ+ movement) begin when, rather than simply demanding to be treated fairly and respectfully in the public sphere, they demand for people to truly accept them. Attempting to force a change of heart causes backlash. There was a reason why Bill Clinton settled, for a time, the issue of gays in the military with, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." It was not gratifying for all time, but it solved the immediate problem by making those who attached gays look foolish.
The people most benefiting from these movements would be better served by first seeking to change only behavior. That, in itself, would offer de facto relief, with, one could hope, more compassion and genuine respect evolving over time. Is that good enough? No, but it beats generating a backlash that worsens the situation by not moving it forward. It is hard to argue against the request to simply be respectful publicly, regardless of how one may actually feel.
“Just trying to survive” is what I understand and respect. I hope you do however, take issue with some of the violently militant individuals who have tainted your whole cause. We all know who they are.
Let’s remember the oligarchs, Christian nationalists, and Republicans supercharged anti woke campaigns to win popular support and hide their true intentions to prevent or even eliminate social programs and economic gains for those marginalized in their extremely rapacious economy. DeSantis was a perfect example accusing the woke left of closing schools and imposing masks, all a ruse to power his presidential campaign. Trump openly brags the anti trans approach helps the GOP. Democrats are reeling and unable to generate enough anger and disgust to make traction.
I'm waiting to see how long it will take before the US attempts an Anschluß with Canada. Hopefully Americans will not have been sufficiently propagandised to go along with it by the time it's attempted.
I'm also waiting to see how John Roberts will justify Trump v. United States somehow not applying to Barack Obama. (Anyone who thought the institutions would hold was delusional the moment that decision, and the earlier decision in Trump v. Anderson, came down.)
As a Canadian I’m watching everything. I know there are maga politicians stirring up anti-Canadian hatred in your northern border states, our most fervent allies due to decades long inter-dependent trade. There was a “christian” performer up here who preaches hate against gays and single moms, reporting daily to the WH during his tour. He was either cancelled or booed, providing propaganda that Canada is godless and heathen. Oh yes, we see what’s going on.
I know. I'm also Canadian.
Depressing, eh?
It's little better knowing we elected a conservative to keep out a worse conservative (if Poilievre can even be considered a small-c conservative). As The Beaverton put it: "Conservative man discovers secret trick to getting elected PM: running as Liberal".
Being among them, I can vouch that there are plenty of Americans who are appalled, humiliated, and deeply offended that our Moron in Chief and the idiots who follow him could ever mistreat Canadians. We are proud to live along the world's longest undefended border (may it remain so, if only the American government will allow it to be!), and are grateful to live alongside friends who have only ever treated us well. Not so long ago, it was a universal ethic to disdain anyone who mistreated Canadians. The good fortune to border Canada is part of the American success story. We owe you equally kind reciprocity. You have friends in the United States who share in your dispair.
And I realize I was busy, in my own minor way, engaging with people about the Right's weaponizing a word, viz. woke, while the whole language a la Orwell was being turned inside out. It's 'funny' how the Right is doing the very things it criticized the Left about: corrupting language, ignoring the rights of certain groups, weaponizing religion in the service of ideology, caving in to foreign powers, blowing up the national debt, favoring "elites' like the tech billionaires, following a charismatic leader like "sheeple," and on and on.
I’ve been on that train ride all along too. Didn’t know you were aboard, I would have looked. Actually we hadn’t met yet. We still haven’t, irrelevant. This train has turned into the slow-motion wreck from “The Greatest Show On Earth” right down to the predators being freed from their cages. Oddly fitting analogy. I too find it difficult to believe so many of us were there, crickets. And you simply nailed it, as per. https://youtu.be/K9ITp_xSaxE?si=LRVaMRi-sciSQXZF
If it wasn't "anti-wokeism", it would have been something else. These people wanted power and were willing to do anything to get it. They would have kept trying different issues until something stuck.
Liberals were in deep denial about the growing authoritarian movement and failed to take it seriously until it was too late. They believed in things like "the end of history", "the long arc of history bends towards justice", "the emerging Democratic majority", and "the post-racial society". In doing so, they lulled themselves to sleep.
What a shame. I warned everyone I knew and take no pleasure in being right about Trump going full dictator. So many people voted to make their lives worse, it boggles the mind.
The Great Exchange is well-written. It should be turned into a book, while reading a book is still a possibility. Perhaps, then, you might be asked to be a guest on Real Time with Bill Maher. But, I deviate from my point: you write very well and accurately. The Great Exchange reminds me of your other excellent piece about "Equivalence" and how pro-Trumpers equate Biden's corruption with Trump's. Yeah, both families have reasons to be labelled as "corrupt," but with Trump, it is his life-long story, and now it is flagrant, open to anyone to see, other than those needing a seeing-eye dog. Sadly, for the younger residents in the US, you are now on the short end of this "exhange." It's almost like lyrics from an Adele song. "We almost had it all."
Yesterday I read Robert Kagan’s book “Rebellion: How Anti-Liberalism is Tearing America Apart — Again” (https://kobo.com/en/ebook/rebellion-136).
This book is crucial reading for anyone who understands and appreciates what this Substack post is talking about. I’m going to be sharing it everywhere I can.
Read it! So much about recent history that I couldn’t think about clearly but knew to be true, suddenly makes sense to be now.
Thank you for that book suggestion. Just ordered it.
I remember one of the 2025ers declaring that there would be a “bloodless” coup if the democrats allowed it. They said it during Trump’s campaign before they started trying to hide their intentions.
I'm not sure if it's going to stay bloodless. I expect the Trump regime's knives to come out sooner or later. With all the military and armed ICE goons running around, it seems inevitable.
It was Miller.
It was Kevin Roberts (Heritage Foundation president) who said it on Bannon’s show, 7/2024:
He said country is in the midst of a “second American Revolution” that will be bloodless “if the left allows it to be.”
It’s surprising to read that you’re still going on about the left-center intellectuals. You took their criticism deeply to heart - isn’t it time you let go? After all, your subscribers and followers are here to listen to you. You’re still scolding those who didn’t, when your subscribers and followers who respect you need you to address them. After all many of us knew what was coming.
Do you remember my asking here months ago, when would you and other commentators stop speaking of a “Constitutional crisis” when a coup had taken place? The day the Supreme Court made Trump invincible was the signal to me that our democracy was lost. I figured that you were someone who wanted his facts in place before making strong statements so I waited. Ever since it’s been an agonizing period watching everything happen that I knew was coming. You’re a smart and articulate person who could help us in this dark and truly perilous time. It’s even worse than you’ve described here because of the consequences for the rest of the world. For that, please let go of the affront your former colleagues and friends gave you. Your audience is here waiting.
As I watch, among other things, certain people prepare to back Cuomo in the NYC mayoral election, I feel like certain things bear repeating.
This is a good analysis of the issues. People who have been in favor of the spirit and goals of wokism but exasperated with its excesses and silliness have been warning for a long time that it was feeding ammunition to the far right. And as usual the left has now formed a circular firing squad of recrimination while the right consolidates. Same is true of the debate over whether to counter-gerrymander. Thanks, Mike.