Having lived in flyover country and observing the rigged game up close while not exactly being a victim of it, there is ZERO coming from the centrist right that will save people/voters from the economic abyss that the the center/right has built and in their arrogance continue to insist is the only right way to conduct business.
Unfortunately being fundamentally dishonest brokers, the right wing power base will continue to employ trollish mouthpieces to point at everyone but themselves, to stoke outrage, to build boogeymen to be burnt in useless effigy to distract attention from the real sources of misery and as long as voters keep falling for this distraction over and over again and as long as the contingent of centrist corporate D shills block or waffle on real progress we will ride this thing down to total collapse.
Today a line held and in a way the SCOTUS saved trump from himself, though the chaos of tariff rebates will be something to behold. I just want to live my retirement in peace without being on some damn list for my dissent, without it being harder and harder for my neighbors, community to live in this world.
I hope I am not just a part of the choir, but your analysis of our current situation and what too many “conservatives” will make of it instead seems true to my eyes and thinking. I hope those conservatives who call themselves neoliberals will see the accuracy of your analysis also.
Thank you for the continuing attention to the subtext of modern life in the USA.
Mike - from what I can tell - and I am still learning/reading - there is at least some alignment between your analysis and that of Brink Lindsey (author of Permanent Problem, The Uncertain Transition from Mass Plenty to Mass Flourishing (2026)) who is wrestling with the question posed by John Maynard Keynes in 1930: in a world of decreasing material scarcity - will humanity be able to "live agreeably, and wisely, and well." Lindsey has also focused on the post-industrial information economy has led to the economic, social, and political marginalization of people outside the elite (https://brinklindsey.substack.com/p/superhuman-ai-would-bring-the-permanent). Thank you for another helpful essay.
Thank you. Insightful.
Having lived in flyover country and observing the rigged game up close while not exactly being a victim of it, there is ZERO coming from the centrist right that will save people/voters from the economic abyss that the the center/right has built and in their arrogance continue to insist is the only right way to conduct business.
Unfortunately being fundamentally dishonest brokers, the right wing power base will continue to employ trollish mouthpieces to point at everyone but themselves, to stoke outrage, to build boogeymen to be burnt in useless effigy to distract attention from the real sources of misery and as long as voters keep falling for this distraction over and over again and as long as the contingent of centrist corporate D shills block or waffle on real progress we will ride this thing down to total collapse.
Today a line held and in a way the SCOTUS saved trump from himself, though the chaos of tariff rebates will be something to behold. I just want to live my retirement in peace without being on some damn list for my dissent, without it being harder and harder for my neighbors, community to live in this world.
I hope I am not just a part of the choir, but your analysis of our current situation and what too many “conservatives” will make of it instead seems true to my eyes and thinking. I hope those conservatives who call themselves neoliberals will see the accuracy of your analysis also.
Thank you for the continuing attention to the subtext of modern life in the USA.
Tarriffs raised prices for consumers in some cases, correct? Will consumers receive rebates as well?
"the tent is on fire and they sold the matches" brilliant, thx mike.
Mike - from what I can tell - and I am still learning/reading - there is at least some alignment between your analysis and that of Brink Lindsey (author of Permanent Problem, The Uncertain Transition from Mass Plenty to Mass Flourishing (2026)) who is wrestling with the question posed by John Maynard Keynes in 1930: in a world of decreasing material scarcity - will humanity be able to "live agreeably, and wisely, and well." Lindsey has also focused on the post-industrial information economy has led to the economic, social, and political marginalization of people outside the elite (https://brinklindsey.substack.com/p/superhuman-ai-would-bring-the-permanent). Thank you for another helpful essay.
This all lies on what this writer calls, strucural deceit... https://open.substack.com/pub/meridianvox/p/the-architecture-of-structural-deceit