This is brilliant but off on one point, I think: When one moves the rock to free the vermin, it is not the vermin who are new. They were always there. Lying in wait, perhaps, but there nonetheless. Toqueville wrote that the American experiment would fail because the untrammelled accumulation of wealth would undermine the better angels of democratic liberalism -- a scathing and bitter indictment.
I hope that's true. Will Americans awaken before it's too late to the fact that we have willingly given up so much for the sake of a lunatic? Or, as the song says, '"don't it always seem to go / that you don't know what you've got till it's gone..."?
Trump didn't change America; he's just a mirror image of it. He is the voice, the heart, the soul, the mind, the complete embodiment of what this country has become. And after he brings on its gotterdamerung most of his MAGA base will suddenly develop amnesia and claim they never supported him (just as no Nazi's could be found in Germany after its WW2 defeat)
Trump’s base wider and deeper? My sense is that it has become narrower and shallower - and more desperate. But I do agree that the institutional changes under Trump will be very difficult to undo. Everybody in the federal bureaucracy will have to be fired all over again. And what we do about the supreme court is quite beyond me.
Business School values (BS values) took hold long before Trump (see T. Wolfe, Bonfire of the Vanities, 1987). Their spread was what got Trump elected. If Trump had been even just a marginally successful president these values would have been cemented. Trump, however, has monumentally put his foot into it and I think a lot of people are recalculating. How to take advantage of this? It’s certainly not by hoping for some mythical, charismatic Democrat on a white horse to come and save us. We have to work with, and support, what we have got. Because it’s all we have got. We have to stop carping about this and that flaw in this and that candidate. We need to stop wishing for perfect and learn to appreciate good enough. And we need to start talking with our neighbors again, the ones we stopped talking to because they were Trump supporters.
I think so too. I see it everyday. And while John Cornyn only got 36% of the Republican vote in this runoff and that feels depressing, there IS going to be a portion of that Cornyn vote, that will not vote for Paxton. Some will, but some won't, and the only question is how many will either stay at home, or feel like Talarico is a Democrat they can vote for this time, and that's what Talarico has to do here, he has to give some of those Cornyn voters permission to just this once... back the Democrat in the race, which means he needs to talk about the economic strain Trump is putting on the state.
I think the national Dems should focus elsewhere too. Let Texas fend for ourselves. We’re big enough. And I understand why folks harbor that sentiment if they haven’t seen, firsthand, really for themselves, the way the Democrats have engaged in so much magical thinking around winning elections in this state for basically my whole adulthood, and I ain’t no spring chicken anymore.
I remember meeting Ann Richards when I was a kid. My Dad pulled me out of school so I could go, and she lit up the room up in that little community center. Democrats don’t do that anymore. They’ve abandoned retail politics for “national starpower”.
So I get the cynicism. To quote the late, great Molly Ivins: "It's hard to argue against cynics—they always sound smarter than optimists because they have so much evidence on their side."
But this is the second largest state in America. It’s majority-minority. And it’s not the MAGA cesspool it looks like on paper. At least I don’t think it is.
And Talarico has a real opportunity to make inroads in the places Democrats don’t need to win outright, but they do need to boost their numbers in, because Trump’s policies have been pretty catastrophic to a lot of places in this state where the Republicans have traditionally been pretty solid. This is the best chance they've had in a generation. Let's hope they can close the deal this time. We'll just have to wait and see.
It really is a horror show here in DC for historic preservation and architectural history. The two commissions that are now filled with Trump sycophants were never partisan before now. Recently, the president announced that he was sending the Chairman of the Commission of Fine Arts to St. Petersburg for Putin's annual economic forum. Follow the money? Very weird. Plans for the arch also include a ticket office (entrance to the cemetery is already free); an elevator to the top for visitors (wait! maybe the ticket office is where one buys a ticket to the elevator); event spaces (for what?). Even more fuel for the veterans to protest this blatant disregard for Arlington National Cemetery). I know this isn't really germane to this terrific article. It's just another sickening example of this administration's flagrant disregard for laws - this time, historic preservation regulations and laws.
Such dire predictions lack value when they omit key facts. Paxton won with the support of just 4.7% of registered Texas voters, and the May turnout dropped by over a third compared to March. See you in November.
You read my mind. How clueless can Democrats be? To think Paxton's win is somehow good for Democrats is delusional. Once again, Democrats cannot read the room. They are playing politics like it is the 90's. After more than a year, Democrats have no strategy. Democrats, I beg you, forget trying to be morally superior, you are not ("I did not have sexual relations with that woman"), ring any bells Democrats? The only thing people seem to care about, sadly, is the price of gas, the price of eggs, so make this about how this corruption is literally costing you. Backroom deals, crypto profits, proud boys slush funds, voters you are paying for all of it. Make that your overall point. Democrats, hire a Madison Ave. ad agency to show you how to communicate, use YouTube, and TikTok, this is now what it takes. Just look at the LA mayor's race. Reality TV star (from the long ago 90's) is mopping the floor with Karen Bass with ads that are going viral because he comes from reality TV, like Trump. Yes, it is awful, but this is now what it takes. Democrats, stop being so smug with your bike lanes and get a clue!!!!
You are absolutely right that Dems are not connecting the Trump corruption to what they lose out on because of it. People see it as a separate issue to the price of eggs but its all connected.
Hi Tina, Thank you for reading my response. I find it astonishing that the big shots in the Democratic party, or Washington elite can be so dense. I live in California (San Francisco) and we are going through this in our governors race. Democrats are not breaking through and not one of our candidates has any charisma. Sure enough, Matthew Hilton (an election denier and endorsed by Trump) has been ahead in every poll, slightly, but still ahead. I am bracing to see how this will turn out. Thank you again for such great writing and content!!! I greatly appreciate what you do!
I revile Trump. I measure my words to say: He’s evil incarnate. However, It goes too far to say that he’s “refashioned” the nation in his own corrupt image, when the nation’s illnesses made it easy mowing for this reaper. Greed has become too good. And even the have-nots — me included — have swallowed the tripe of self-centered-ness slung at us since the yore days of Esalen and its self-potential stirrings. We’re all about me being all I can be. I’m a bright blue Democrat who receives dozens of texts and emails asking for money from every Dem running — redolent of the hemlock of our politics. Sigh. You’re British, so maybe you can find some parallels between your former Empire and what looks like Xi’s characterization of America as a has-been.
Agreed. At least you can rest assured that Sir Harold is in a better place. I can only assume he'd be even more outraged than you. BTW, I have enjoyed the times you've recounted his colorful life.
You’re so right about the liberal commentators. The chicken counting has been proceeding apace and the “fowl” (presumed sweeping midterm victory to include a Senate seat in Texas) is now ready for the oven. To mangle another avian metaphor this happy crowing may lead to a cooking of the goose I.e. brutal disappointment. Serious emotional deflation is possible in November unless the Dems become deadly serious with their messaging.
As someone who has just moved back to rural Texas after living in DC for 20 years, I can personally attest that the Trump flags are gone out here, and things are tough. My mother just sold her family land that was in our family for over a century (the land I grew up on and worked with my grandfather feeding and hurding cattle), because Trump has destroyed agriculture. Even when you make a crop, or produce a good herd, you can barely sell it.
Just about every farmer and rancher out here is trying to figure out how to make it through another disasterous year of tarriffs and sky-high fertilizer and fuel costs. And out here in rural Texas, agriculture is king. It's the center of local economies. When the farmers and ranchers do poorly, so do a lot of other businesses.
Talarico can actually win. He can actually win if he shows up in the parts of Texas that Democrats have barely shown up in for decades, especially in places like the Rio Grande Valley. And if he does something else really revolutionary: he makes the election about the voters and not about how toxic Paxton is, because we all know that already.
If he makes this race about my cousins who saw employees rounded up from their dairy by ICE who were like family to them, he can win. If he makes this race about the farmers and truck drivers who are being crushed by regressive Trump economic policies, he can win. There’s an opportunity for him to expand outside of the usual big 5 counties that Democrats carry, if he makes the focus Trump’s regressive economic agenda and corruption. He gets rich… you go bankrupt.
Fascinating to read this. What i keep hearing in vox pop discussions is great disappointment with the way the country is going but not to the point Trump's fans blame him for it personally.
Trump clearly doesn’t understand how commodoties markets work (oil, ag products, etc). But I think some of these Project 2025 weirdos operating behind the scenes do understand, that when you start trade wars and take away key markets you drive down prices and hurt farmers.
I just think they don’t care. I think they want all of that farmland and water to build data centers on, and pepole are starting to put it together. The Rupert Murdoch spin machine just can’t spin some of this, because it’s too dystopian. I don’t know about Texas, but I think they’ll be some suprising wins for Democrats this fall.
Start a blog, or a podcast. Your insights are wonderful! As to how the commodities markets work, Secretary of Commerce Coward Lunick knows them well, as does our treasury secretary, and all of their well-connected wealthy friends. In case you forgot when Wilbur Ross was commerce secretary in the first DT administration he lobbied for steel tariffs, got them, and made a ton of dough short period of time.
This hellion suspects the same is going on now.
The reason for going after Iran, has nothing to do with uranium, just as going into Iraq had nothing to do with WMD, it's all about the oil.
Lest we have forgotten, in the run up to the 2024 election the current occupant of the White House got together with big oil and made big promises. He is now fulfilling those promises, in grand profits in a short period of time. The grand comb-over queen in the oval office is also doing a back door appeasement to Vlad the Lad, to compensate for all the sanctions, by lifting hundreds of billions of dollars in new profits into the Vlad's bank account with higher oil prices. Once a Russki mafia lacky, always a Russki mafia lacky
Don't forget, this is an election year, all of the above will ring true when gasoline prices are back down around $3 a gallon nationwide just in time for the election.
Why thank you! I have talked extensively with a dear friend who is a former head of the FAA (he was in a very awesome Netflix doc called Downfall), about doing a podcast on what’s wrong with the airlines, but I would never do a politics one, because there are folks like Tina Brown, who do it much better than I could, and do it right. Plus I think I’ll always do much better crunching data and training AI models than anything to do with politics at this point.
Now there was a time in my life when I was somebody that really worked as a flywheel in politics— tech, communications, research, etc. But I worked for old Boomer pols like Hillary Clinton and Martin Frost, who just wanted the numbers and the facts. They didn’t want to be surrounded by people who made them feel like the smartest person in the room all of the time. And they didn’t care how young you were, so long as you had something to offer. Those days are mostly gone now. Not totally, but a lot.
Too many politicians anymore would rather be flattered and funded by a billionaire than do the grinding work of politics.
Another searing and straight to the point take on the sorry state of affairs, Tina. You mentioned earlier that the necessary intervention won’t come from within the US but from outside. How do you see this happening? Charles’ speech was more of the same ie just talk. I’m looking for tangible action but I’m not seeing it.
You may be right. But Trump is unique. I have hope that things change for the better when he is no longer president. He doesn't care about the midterms; he also has no interest in what happens to MAGA when he is gone, no interest in legacy, which he would say is for "losers."
In fact, I think Trump will want any successor to MAGA leadership to fail so that Trump looks more powerful in contrast.
Totally right. He has zero interest in the mid terms as he has made abidingly clear and he's done with Maga too. Its all about the crypto hoarding now - and revenge T
What Helena Bonham Carter is to British fashion, you are to the English language; one of a kind! That said, another digression, America has changed, and the current occupant of the White House is the manifestation to that part of the American collective that has always been this way, and finally found their way to a slight majority of those who vote elections. It's all been right in front of our eyes day after day, year after year in the form of that must watch binge TV program, blockbuster movie, or must have piece of new technology, that has seduced us, and distracted us to the point the vanishing line between reality and fantasy became a commercial on prime time television long ago.
The idea that we can get back to what we once had, is as realistic as telling the Genie to get back into the lamp. Anyone paying attention to the direction of our governing path in this nation over the last couple decades is completely aware that we've been slowly sauntering down Authoritarian Avenue, many in total bliss because how much the value of their home has risen over the last decade, along with their stock portfolio, not to mention the hybrid, or the new EV they're driving, all along the way listening to Billie Eilish remind us of what a bad guy we are, and Morgan Wallen reminding us our prejudices and biases are but a barley pop sip away.
And if one mistakenly thinks that the Grand Comb-Over Queen in the oval office, The Donna, is immune to the miscalculations and missteps of those who hired him, history has a surprise for them.
When the PolyMarkets start running odds against the burning flame and desire for freedom and liberty surviving this current onslaught, this hellion will be first in line to bet the ranch on freedom and liberty.
Lady Liberty--like the survivor after years of physical, psychological and emotional battery and abuse--may yet find the means to "leave" and rebuild a national and communal life. Though it may take time, Americans are fair and resilient and have common sense and may be able shake off the pall of the last 16 years.
Bike lanes indeed. As a lifelong liberal, the Democrats began to lose me when I heard an NPR story talking about "pregnant people". That was 2 years pre trump 2.0. The virtue signaling has got to stop. They need to get a clue and get rid of the virtual septum piercings and compost buckets. America is not the old New Yorker cartoon map of New York, nothing in the middle 3,000 miles, and then California. Wake up to the fact that a Swiss Army knife is not protection against a Republican Uzi, and for heaven's sake, take a page from trump's not so secret verbal weapon tic: repetition, repetition, repetition - until it's an alternative truth worm wriggled into the national consciousness.
Exhibit #1 of the Democratic failure was the jaw dropping timidity and lack of aggressive action around showing - repeatedly- the feces smeared on the walls in the Capitol on January 6, 2021, the gruesome wounds to the police protecting it, the cowardice and hideous photographic reality, pre- AI manipulation. It should have been shown on a network, cable, social media loop for months until it became the de facto reality of truth about trump and maga crushing their narrative. That was the chance, the time to rally the U.S around patriotic democracy. The thread was lost, and we can have all the No Kings rallies for the next decade to our peril. Funny posters, the Obama " We go high" is a losing proposition now.
This is brilliant but off on one point, I think: When one moves the rock to free the vermin, it is not the vermin who are new. They were always there. Lying in wait, perhaps, but there nonetheless. Toqueville wrote that the American experiment would fail because the untrammelled accumulation of wealth would undermine the better angels of democratic liberalism -- a scathing and bitter indictment.
Thanks, Jeremy. The better angels need to work fast to save us from being buried in fool's gold. T
depressing but true.
Except we must remember how fast America CAN rebound. It's just getting late.....
I hope that's true. Will Americans awaken before it's too late to the fact that we have willingly given up so much for the sake of a lunatic? Or, as the song says, '"don't it always seem to go / that you don't know what you've got till it's gone..."?
And allowing that wealth to influence elections (Citizens United case).
CU was one of the curses of our age.
Trump didn't change America; he's just a mirror image of it. He is the voice, the heart, the soul, the mind, the complete embodiment of what this country has become. And after he brings on its gotterdamerung most of his MAGA base will suddenly develop amnesia and claim they never supported him (just as no Nazi's could be found in Germany after its WW2 defeat)
I think that's true but he's the accelerant to the bonfire of American values. And yes, the Maga worm will ultimately turn, of course. T
Sad but true.
Trump’s base wider and deeper? My sense is that it has become narrower and shallower - and more desperate. But I do agree that the institutional changes under Trump will be very difficult to undo. Everybody in the federal bureaucracy will have to be fired all over again. And what we do about the supreme court is quite beyond me.
Politically yes, shrinking in appeal. but somehow his values have spread and taken hold and are hard to shed.
Business School values (BS values) took hold long before Trump (see T. Wolfe, Bonfire of the Vanities, 1987). Their spread was what got Trump elected. If Trump had been even just a marginally successful president these values would have been cemented. Trump, however, has monumentally put his foot into it and I think a lot of people are recalculating. How to take advantage of this? It’s certainly not by hoping for some mythical, charismatic Democrat on a white horse to come and save us. We have to work with, and support, what we have got. Because it’s all we have got. We have to stop carping about this and that flaw in this and that candidate. We need to stop wishing for perfect and learn to appreciate good enough. And we need to start talking with our neighbors again, the ones we stopped talking to because they were Trump supporters.
I read the WSJ every day. They have a lot of conservative readers. Judging by the reader comments, there are still plenty of Trump supporters.
But there is a growing contingent who are disgusted with Trump. Big arguments break out in the comments.
The anti-Trump faction (sometimes calling themselves “real Republicans”) link to the numerous stories of Trump’s corruption.
The pro-Trump faction will list some accomplishments (closing the border is the most popular) but are increasingly just insulting Dems.
Sometimes you see “why didn’t the Dems run a better candidate, I had to vote for Trump!”
Some of the anti-Trumpers say they will vote Dem to stop him.
I am not sure what to predict.
Yes and the critical thing is for Dems to present the alternative instead of just saying we are better than him.
I think so too. I see it everyday. And while John Cornyn only got 36% of the Republican vote in this runoff and that feels depressing, there IS going to be a portion of that Cornyn vote, that will not vote for Paxton. Some will, but some won't, and the only question is how many will either stay at home, or feel like Talarico is a Democrat they can vote for this time, and that's what Talarico has to do here, he has to give some of those Cornyn voters permission to just this once... back the Democrat in the race, which means he needs to talk about the economic strain Trump is putting on the state.
I feel Talarico is a another Beto magic pony and Dems should focus elsewhere.
I think the national Dems should focus elsewhere too. Let Texas fend for ourselves. We’re big enough. And I understand why folks harbor that sentiment if they haven’t seen, firsthand, really for themselves, the way the Democrats have engaged in so much magical thinking around winning elections in this state for basically my whole adulthood, and I ain’t no spring chicken anymore.
I remember meeting Ann Richards when I was a kid. My Dad pulled me out of school so I could go, and she lit up the room up in that little community center. Democrats don’t do that anymore. They’ve abandoned retail politics for “national starpower”.
So I get the cynicism. To quote the late, great Molly Ivins: "It's hard to argue against cynics—they always sound smarter than optimists because they have so much evidence on their side."
But this is the second largest state in America. It’s majority-minority. And it’s not the MAGA cesspool it looks like on paper. At least I don’t think it is.
And Talarico has a real opportunity to make inroads in the places Democrats don’t need to win outright, but they do need to boost their numbers in, because Trump’s policies have been pretty catastrophic to a lot of places in this state where the Republicans have traditionally been pretty solid. This is the best chance they've had in a generation. Let's hope they can close the deal this time. We'll just have to wait and see.
It really is a horror show here in DC for historic preservation and architectural history. The two commissions that are now filled with Trump sycophants were never partisan before now. Recently, the president announced that he was sending the Chairman of the Commission of Fine Arts to St. Petersburg for Putin's annual economic forum. Follow the money? Very weird. Plans for the arch also include a ticket office (entrance to the cemetery is already free); an elevator to the top for visitors (wait! maybe the ticket office is where one buys a ticket to the elevator); event spaces (for what?). Even more fuel for the veterans to protest this blatant disregard for Arlington National Cemetery). I know this isn't really germane to this terrific article. It's just another sickening example of this administration's flagrant disregard for laws - this time, historic preservation regulations and laws.
I had not seen that story. There’s so much happening it’s hard to keep up. Dreadful.
Such dire predictions lack value when they omit key facts. Paxton won with the support of just 4.7% of registered Texas voters, and the May turnout dropped by over a third compared to March. See you in November.
we can revisit this post then!
You read my mind. How clueless can Democrats be? To think Paxton's win is somehow good for Democrats is delusional. Once again, Democrats cannot read the room. They are playing politics like it is the 90's. After more than a year, Democrats have no strategy. Democrats, I beg you, forget trying to be morally superior, you are not ("I did not have sexual relations with that woman"), ring any bells Democrats? The only thing people seem to care about, sadly, is the price of gas, the price of eggs, so make this about how this corruption is literally costing you. Backroom deals, crypto profits, proud boys slush funds, voters you are paying for all of it. Make that your overall point. Democrats, hire a Madison Ave. ad agency to show you how to communicate, use YouTube, and TikTok, this is now what it takes. Just look at the LA mayor's race. Reality TV star (from the long ago 90's) is mopping the floor with Karen Bass with ads that are going viral because he comes from reality TV, like Trump. Yes, it is awful, but this is now what it takes. Democrats, stop being so smug with your bike lanes and get a clue!!!!
You are absolutely right that Dems are not connecting the Trump corruption to what they lose out on because of it. People see it as a separate issue to the price of eggs but its all connected.
Hi Tina, Thank you for reading my response. I find it astonishing that the big shots in the Democratic party, or Washington elite can be so dense. I live in California (San Francisco) and we are going through this in our governors race. Democrats are not breaking through and not one of our candidates has any charisma. Sure enough, Matthew Hilton (an election denier and endorsed by Trump) has been ahead in every poll, slightly, but still ahead. I am bracing to see how this will turn out. Thank you again for such great writing and content!!! I greatly appreciate what you do!
YES!
I revile Trump. I measure my words to say: He’s evil incarnate. However, It goes too far to say that he’s “refashioned” the nation in his own corrupt image, when the nation’s illnesses made it easy mowing for this reaper. Greed has become too good. And even the have-nots — me included — have swallowed the tripe of self-centered-ness slung at us since the yore days of Esalen and its self-potential stirrings. We’re all about me being all I can be. I’m a bright blue Democrat who receives dozens of texts and emails asking for money from every Dem running — redolent of the hemlock of our politics. Sigh. You’re British, so maybe you can find some parallels between your former Empire and what looks like Xi’s characterization of America as a has-been.
The money madness is the bane of our times. He may not have refashioned America but he has certainly helped incubate its worst tendencies..
Agreed. At least you can rest assured that Sir Harold is in a better place. I can only assume he'd be even more outraged than you. BTW, I have enjoyed the times you've recounted his colorful life.
You’re so right about the liberal commentators. The chicken counting has been proceeding apace and the “fowl” (presumed sweeping midterm victory to include a Senate seat in Texas) is now ready for the oven. To mangle another avian metaphor this happy crowing may lead to a cooking of the goose I.e. brutal disappointment. Serious emotional deflation is possible in November unless the Dems become deadly serious with their messaging.
The hope is that Trump may still be able to kill off primary candidates but in November he's not on the ticket and his awful choices are....
I’m not really seeing those predictions. Depends who you read I guess.
As someone who has just moved back to rural Texas after living in DC for 20 years, I can personally attest that the Trump flags are gone out here, and things are tough. My mother just sold her family land that was in our family for over a century (the land I grew up on and worked with my grandfather feeding and hurding cattle), because Trump has destroyed agriculture. Even when you make a crop, or produce a good herd, you can barely sell it.
Just about every farmer and rancher out here is trying to figure out how to make it through another disasterous year of tarriffs and sky-high fertilizer and fuel costs. And out here in rural Texas, agriculture is king. It's the center of local economies. When the farmers and ranchers do poorly, so do a lot of other businesses.
Talarico can actually win. He can actually win if he shows up in the parts of Texas that Democrats have barely shown up in for decades, especially in places like the Rio Grande Valley. And if he does something else really revolutionary: he makes the election about the voters and not about how toxic Paxton is, because we all know that already.
If he makes this race about my cousins who saw employees rounded up from their dairy by ICE who were like family to them, he can win. If he makes this race about the farmers and truck drivers who are being crushed by regressive Trump economic policies, he can win. There’s an opportunity for him to expand outside of the usual big 5 counties that Democrats carry, if he makes the focus Trump’s regressive economic agenda and corruption. He gets rich… you go bankrupt.
Fascinating to read this. What i keep hearing in vox pop discussions is great disappointment with the way the country is going but not to the point Trump's fans blame him for it personally.
Trump clearly doesn’t understand how commodoties markets work (oil, ag products, etc). But I think some of these Project 2025 weirdos operating behind the scenes do understand, that when you start trade wars and take away key markets you drive down prices and hurt farmers.
I just think they don’t care. I think they want all of that farmland and water to build data centers on, and pepole are starting to put it together. The Rupert Murdoch spin machine just can’t spin some of this, because it’s too dystopian. I don’t know about Texas, but I think they’ll be some suprising wins for Democrats this fall.
Kidron,
Start a blog, or a podcast. Your insights are wonderful! As to how the commodities markets work, Secretary of Commerce Coward Lunick knows them well, as does our treasury secretary, and all of their well-connected wealthy friends. In case you forgot when Wilbur Ross was commerce secretary in the first DT administration he lobbied for steel tariffs, got them, and made a ton of dough short period of time.
This hellion suspects the same is going on now.
The reason for going after Iran, has nothing to do with uranium, just as going into Iraq had nothing to do with WMD, it's all about the oil.
Lest we have forgotten, in the run up to the 2024 election the current occupant of the White House got together with big oil and made big promises. He is now fulfilling those promises, in grand profits in a short period of time. The grand comb-over queen in the oval office is also doing a back door appeasement to Vlad the Lad, to compensate for all the sanctions, by lifting hundreds of billions of dollars in new profits into the Vlad's bank account with higher oil prices. Once a Russki mafia lacky, always a Russki mafia lacky
Don't forget, this is an election year, all of the above will ring true when gasoline prices are back down around $3 a gallon nationwide just in time for the election.
Why thank you! I have talked extensively with a dear friend who is a former head of the FAA (he was in a very awesome Netflix doc called Downfall), about doing a podcast on what’s wrong with the airlines, but I would never do a politics one, because there are folks like Tina Brown, who do it much better than I could, and do it right. Plus I think I’ll always do much better crunching data and training AI models than anything to do with politics at this point.
Now there was a time in my life when I was somebody that really worked as a flywheel in politics— tech, communications, research, etc. But I worked for old Boomer pols like Hillary Clinton and Martin Frost, who just wanted the numbers and the facts. They didn’t want to be surrounded by people who made them feel like the smartest person in the room all of the time. And they didn’t care how young you were, so long as you had something to offer. Those days are mostly gone now. Not totally, but a lot.
Too many politicians anymore would rather be flattered and funded by a billionaire than do the grinding work of politics.
You're welcome. In the very least keep offering your wonderful perspective on Fresh Hell
I'm so afraid that you are right and so hope that you are wrong
Moi aussi
I’m somewhat more optimistic but not by much.
Another searing and straight to the point take on the sorry state of affairs, Tina. You mentioned earlier that the necessary intervention won’t come from within the US but from outside. How do you see this happening? Charles’ speech was more of the same ie just talk. I’m looking for tangible action but I’m not seeing it.
I think the November election will see huge turn out and high energy. Right now everyone is feeling broke and apathetic/
You may be right. But Trump is unique. I have hope that things change for the better when he is no longer president. He doesn't care about the midterms; he also has no interest in what happens to MAGA when he is gone, no interest in legacy, which he would say is for "losers."
In fact, I think Trump will want any successor to MAGA leadership to fail so that Trump looks more powerful in contrast.
Totally right. He has zero interest in the mid terms as he has made abidingly clear and he's done with Maga too. Its all about the crypto hoarding now - and revenge T
I really like "the disappearing ink of Biden's lame tenure."
Thank you!
Dame T,
What Helena Bonham Carter is to British fashion, you are to the English language; one of a kind! That said, another digression, America has changed, and the current occupant of the White House is the manifestation to that part of the American collective that has always been this way, and finally found their way to a slight majority of those who vote elections. It's all been right in front of our eyes day after day, year after year in the form of that must watch binge TV program, blockbuster movie, or must have piece of new technology, that has seduced us, and distracted us to the point the vanishing line between reality and fantasy became a commercial on prime time television long ago.
The idea that we can get back to what we once had, is as realistic as telling the Genie to get back into the lamp. Anyone paying attention to the direction of our governing path in this nation over the last couple decades is completely aware that we've been slowly sauntering down Authoritarian Avenue, many in total bliss because how much the value of their home has risen over the last decade, along with their stock portfolio, not to mention the hybrid, or the new EV they're driving, all along the way listening to Billie Eilish remind us of what a bad guy we are, and Morgan Wallen reminding us our prejudices and biases are but a barley pop sip away.
And if one mistakenly thinks that the Grand Comb-Over Queen in the oval office, The Donna, is immune to the miscalculations and missteps of those who hired him, history has a surprise for them.
When the PolyMarkets start running odds against the burning flame and desire for freedom and liberty surviving this current onslaught, this hellion will be first in line to bet the ranch on freedom and liberty.
Hip Hip Hooray as we say in the UK! An inspiring riff from Trumpel!
Dame T,
You fire this hellion's imagination and brain every time. So easy to riff off your writing. Like being back in improv class, or jamming with friends.
terrific writing and intelllgent point of view. thank you,
I second that
Thank you for the kind words.
Lady Liberty--like the survivor after years of physical, psychological and emotional battery and abuse--may yet find the means to "leave" and rebuild a national and communal life. Though it may take time, Americans are fair and resilient and have common sense and may be able shake off the pall of the last 16 years.
I would never bet against America!
Your word in God’s ear!
Remember Eleanor Rossevelt's words: “We are the free and unconquerable people of the United States of America”
Bike lanes indeed. As a lifelong liberal, the Democrats began to lose me when I heard an NPR story talking about "pregnant people". That was 2 years pre trump 2.0. The virtue signaling has got to stop. They need to get a clue and get rid of the virtual septum piercings and compost buckets. America is not the old New Yorker cartoon map of New York, nothing in the middle 3,000 miles, and then California. Wake up to the fact that a Swiss Army knife is not protection against a Republican Uzi, and for heaven's sake, take a page from trump's not so secret verbal weapon tic: repetition, repetition, repetition - until it's an alternative truth worm wriggled into the national consciousness.
Exhibit #1 of the Democratic failure was the jaw dropping timidity and lack of aggressive action around showing - repeatedly- the feces smeared on the walls in the Capitol on January 6, 2021, the gruesome wounds to the police protecting it, the cowardice and hideous photographic reality, pre- AI manipulation. It should have been shown on a network, cable, social media loop for months until it became the de facto reality of truth about trump and maga crushing their narrative. That was the chance, the time to rally the U.S around patriotic democracy. The thread was lost, and we can have all the No Kings rallies for the next decade to our peril. Funny posters, the Obama " We go high" is a losing proposition now.
Agree!