After watching the sad charade yesterday of House Speaker Mike Johnson in Mar-a-Lago— gaslighting about the need for “election integrity”—I thought about asking the question Army lawyer Joseph Welch asked Wisconsin Sen Joseph McCarthy in 1954: “Have you no sense of decency, sir?” Tragically, I think we know the answer. Like red-baiting McCarthy then, Johnson—standing beside Donald Trump—makes clear he is immune to shame.
Yes, Johnson went to Florida to help save his job, amid growing pressure from the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene for him to vacate the speakership. This in the face of his possible decision to finally hold a vote on aid to Ukraine, an act that Putin propagandist Greene hideously condemns.
But after years of supporting Trump’s despicable and dangerous lie of election fraud—never forget election-denier Johnson recruited House Republicans to support a lawsuit aiming to overturn the 2020 results—he is now mouthing the nonsense that a federal law is needed because of all the undocumented migrants (non-citizens) who are voting in U.S. elections. It’s a flat lie, debunked over and over, but it hasn’t stopped the pathological Trump and his enablers from repeating it over and over. Just days after occupying the White House in 2017, Trump told GOP Congressional leaders that millions of migrants had illegally entered the country to vote for Hillary Clinton and deny him the popular vote.
The issue is not just that Johnson and Trump are lying, but that they are gaslighting low-information voters who are inclined to believe what they say, further exacerbating public mistrust of our democratic system of elections. That’s what Trump wants—to destroy any remaining shreds of trust and strengthen his eventual claims that the election was rigged and he was cheated. And, of course, to scapegoat immigrants as the reason why.
I try to imagine how our body politic can begin to repair itself when the leaders of one of its two major parties have abandoned factual reality and remain wedded to spreading poisonous lies. I am increasingly convinced that it will require their total defeat before another wave of leaders decides it’s time to return to the known world and begin treating the public with respect.
What do you think? Is repair possible with leaders who have abandoned factual reality? How many years or decades might it take to fix the damage?
As always, I look forward to reading your observations and the opportunity for this thoughtful community to learn from each other. Please do be respectful. Trolling will not be tolerated.
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*Photo: House Speaker Mike Johnson and criminal defendant Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago on April 12, 2024. Photo by Joe Raedle via Getty Images.
Even if he loses, it’s going to be a long, long time before Trump voters get over what he’s done to them, and the rest of us will have a very hard time forgiving them for putting our country through this nightmare.
I’d love to remake our world. The first two things would entail getting rid of Citizens United. The second would be to create a press that was not dependent on advertising or stocks. It’s basically the same old story about how money corrupts. Our ability to discover the “truth” depends on getting representatives and information that are ethical—by that I mean working for the greater good. We are a long way from that. Jamie Raskin has some great ideas about how our elections and representation (presidential and congressional) could be improved through ranked voting.
For MAGA, there will be no sudden realization they have taken the wrong path. They have abandoned any allegiance to facts or common sense. Power is their sole North Star and they believe Trump provides the path.
We must defeat them soundly and repeatedly until sensible people are once again willing to run for office. Those of us who care for democracy, must protect honest people willing to serve on either side of the aisle. There are no easy fixes, much damage has already been done. Many have lost the ability to discern lies from fact. It will take determination and patience to correct course. And the clock is ticking.
War clouds are gathering and climate change threatens everything. There is no time to dither and get stuck in stalemate. Democrats need to take control while Republicans reform their caucus.
A great many of us will never trust them again, even if in some post-Trump world they mouthed the right words. If they had any integrity they have lost it and would always be prone to sell us out for whatever they thought would benefit them. It would be like trying to re-integrate Putin’s or Hitler’s upper staff into the ranks of decent citizens. Never!
There’s another reason they will continue to lie and gaslight and scapegoat. They can’t win any other way. Their disastrous positions on abortion alone are wildly unpopular. They need chaos to have any chance at all.
I’m afraid we can’t go back to what we all long for, which for me is a just a simple peaceful existence . When tRump unleashed his vitriol and hate, he, in his position as president 🤮(NEVER mine), gave the green light for all the haters to crawl out from under the rocks they were lurking under. It gave them a voice, that before, was totally unacceptable. Respect, honor, trust. Those words mean nothing to them, hate, greed and control is all they are after. Not the good of our fellow man, not the good of the country. Until we make that unacceptable again, we are doomed. However! I am an optimist and still believe in we the people..we just have to annihilate republicans up and down the ballot in Roevember!
It's just maddening to see a major political party spreading lies and disinformation. This is both unethical and immoral. The U.S. needs a better mechanism, similar to slander and libel laws, that citizens can use to call out those in elected position who lie to the public.
A quote from Heather Cox Richardson’ April 12 LFAA.
“Both parties deprecated war but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish.” Abraham Lincoln
What Trump and his fascist freedom caucus have done to this country over the past 8 or 9 years just boggles my 84 year old mind! A huge Biden victory in November, along with some major convictions with prison time for the "Orange Haired Deity", will be an excellent start on returning the country to some sense of democratic normalcy.
Journalists have been covering Donald for decades. Many of them wonder "Does he really believe what he's saying?" Maggie Haberman knows him best and she answers, "No. He's a conman."
Cassidy Hutchinson reports in her book "Enough" a conversation between Trump and his communications director Alyssa Farah, when he was asking her to lie to the Press. "It doesn't matter what you say. Just repeat it and they will believe you." This is the key for hard news journalists and for voters. Be skeptical. Push back. Dig for the reasons behind the words. Don't be fooled.
Donald doesn't hide his deceptions. He doubles and triples down. Every word is chosen to achieve his goal. No scruples or shame. His life of fraud was validated by Roy Cohn, Roger Stone and Steve Bannon. "He's just going to say he won!" Donald is stupid and self destructive. But just smart enough to trick and lie and steal from 10% of the population. And he has effectively castrated the Press.
Donald is mentally ill. There is a major mental problem when a grown man cheats at golf (the game of honor) and business, in full public view, and worries about "looking like a loser." Everyone KNOWS hes a loser and laughing AT him. He's getting worse by the day. He is falling into madness in front of us. Imagine his desperation as the cops surround him and hold him accountable for HIS OWN ACTIONS.
It appears that Mike Johnson is a Trump.dupe. He may well be stupider than Donald. His reasoning is twisted just enough to be Donald's tool. Is the Press going to hold them both to account for their lies? It's up to each of us to demand it from them.
You are absolutely right: defeat of Trumpists and all their works now stands as our only viable option. Honest conservatives must reclaim the GOP or form a new political party. Then we can deal. Democracy requires trust. DJT and all his Trumpist minions forfeited any just claim to trust long ago. Defeat them, yes.
The first step toward repair would be televising each and every hearing in the cases now pending against Donald Trump related to campaign fraud and interference with the electoral process. (Billed by most media as the “hush money” and “insurrection” charges.)
No, it is NOT possible, with the Republicans currently in the House, to return to any sense of American normalcy. Soundly defeating them in November will be tough enough, but that would be just the beginning. What to do about all the gullible supporters of MAGA, wow, that will be a years-long arduous challenge, especially with the feet of Russia and China on the scale.
Repair absolutely is not possible simply because all credibility has been lost. Today’s Republican Party is a disaster in how ridiculously foolish it’s become. Listen to any of the “impeach Biden” hearings, or others. The republican members are performing in badly composed theater while the Democrats bring receipts … repeat ad nauseam. It’s literally become sporting for folks like Rep. Moskowitz to repeatedly show us the fools that Comer and Jordan have become in servitude to their orange idol.
How many times can we listen to easily proven lies before we stop listening? How many more times does our media need to begin a sentence with “Trump lied about …”? Drop the word about. All of his supporters and followers only repeat the lies.
I’m 18 months shy of 70. I’ve never seen anything like this in my decades here. I read the other day that the only difference between Trump and Jim Jones is that Trump would charge for the koolaid. That millions obsessively swoon over *that* abomination disgusts me on too many levels.
The abject failures of Corporate Media to expose the ugly truth that today's GOP is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Kremlin will go down in journalism as how the Freedom of the Press ended
IF
We fail to all become citizen journalists who post the facts & truth
1- Trump & Family were recruited by Moscow in the 1990's
2- In 2016-the NRA money-laundered over $400M dirty Russian rubles into Trump & GOP campaigns
3-Today GOP is the #1 purveyor of Russian propaganda & talking points
Nope. And like deep wounds, the scars will always be there—so the damage will never be “fixed.” If we are lucky, maybe, maybe, we’ll learn from them. But if history is prelude, I won’t hedge any bets on that.
Even if he loses, until we get rid of ALL the gaslighters it is going to be hard to get back to a national consensus on what is reality and back to arguing about how to DEAL with reality. But I think that if trump loses, the gaslighters will be less likely to gaslight, at least for a while. Possibly it might take a stroke or worse for trump to stop making him a useful tool. But the problem is not trump himself, really, but those who DO use him as a tool. It's hard to think where they would find another one with the horrific charisma he has.
One of the funniest things I've seen on this topic today is below. I know it's X, but watch it anyway
I wish forgiveness in its truest sense could happen. However, only truth from Republicans and an acknowledgment that they lied and damaged our country could make it possible. I do not see that happening. What must happen, in my opinion, is that the rule of law must be must be shown to be real and lasting and fundamental to our country’s healing by enforcing it on every level of deceit. In my mind this means no one gets a free ride. Not just Trump, but everyone who colluded with him. Yes, that means it will drag on. However, if they are not held accountable, like the current Republicans in the House, and Justice Thomas’s wife, and all the many supporters and enablers, we still have a country that allows some people off the hook. Yes, we need to vote them out. However, think of MGT. will that stop her? No. Only legal repercussions have the power to end this national nightmare. All attorneys should be barred from practice, etc. I had worked with the criminal justice system for 35 years before I retired. The people with whom I worked, most of them for non violent crimes, got much more jail or prison time than the majority of those who were part of the insurrection on January 6th. The inequality is glaring! And you and I both know that if I threatened the President as Trump has, i would not be writing to you right now. I would be in prison. Yet Trump still prances around as a free man speaking lies and filth that damage this country’s belief in justice. Forgiveness requires truth and a willingness to change. Our fellow citizens who currently call themselves Republicans are incapable of this humility.
I am 73 and have never before been as troubled about the direction we are going in. I fear that it's going to take decades to get the trump toxicity out of our lives. Certainly I won't live to see it, but I am hoping that when he dies that may help us to turn a corner
No, this Republican Party should just be renamed to the Trump Party and it should go on the same route as Whig or DoNothing parties did. But we need another credible party to spring up after the elections such as the New Republican Party that deals in reality. To do that, we need leaders willing to put their principles on the line.
My Father, who had a Masters degree in history, always said “look at the history not just the here and now.” When Trump won in 2016, I wept, understanding how we got to this place with the Republican Party. I have watched them evolve since the 1970’s using patriotism, “family values” and religion to brainwash folks into believing they were for the average Joe American, while they interfered in peoples private lives ( anything that has to do with sex and diversity), but in reality supporting their big corporate donors.
We can't even call this a new low for American politics - that boundary was shredded to depraved tatters long ago by these foul ghouls and their cult of utter bullshit. What went down in Mar-a-Lago was the ninth or tenth circle of hell swallowing itself in an obscene ouroboros death-spiral of lies and abject delusion.
To see that sniveling worm Speaker Johnson slithering around Mar-a-Lago licking Trump's bloated sadist boots and barking the same vicious anti-immigrant lies that the crazed orange monster first unleashed on his deranged kingdom of mutants, shit-kickers and tooth-deprived yahoos? It would almost be funny if it wasn't so terminally poisonous to what's left of America's feebleminded grasp on reality.
The dangerous insanity is no longer just that these subhuman cretins are lying - of course theyare, shameless habitual liars looking to spike the national brain with more mind-melting acid nightmare conspiracy fantasies about voter fraud and illegals rigging elections. The real mindfuck is how many millions of our deluded countrymen, bloated on a perpetual intravenous drip of right-wing horseshit and rancid Fox toilet prole, will gleefully shotgun another syringe of these depraved, crippled mutations and call it truth.
We're watching the full psycho breakdown in real time here. The American dream gutshot and coughing up blood while these warped goblins dance and pissbabble about made-up migrant caravans overrunning the ballot box. How do we survive as a society when a huge chunk of the populace exists in a violent fantasy realm where hallucinated hobgoblins and enemies are more real than verifiable facts? When the unshackled id triumphs and our sickest delusions seep out to become deranged reality?
The bitter truth is we don't come back from this without the hardest of harsh reckonings - a people either shake themselves back to sanity or we lose the final threads of any shared national consciousness and atomize into a million snarling tribes, each huddled around their own campfire psychosis. No more quick fixes or naive faith that "coming together" and "healing" overcomes these terminal brain fevers - not when the most potent malignancies infecting the zeitgeist flow straight from the mutant hive-mind of creatures like Trump.
So warrior up and get vicious, samurai - because the battle to avoid a permanent, irreversible plunge into a violent, dystopian, paranoid night-world has only just begun. The old decayed Order is dying, but we'll need to wrestle the demons with unshakable ferocity if hope is survive Armageddon. The high water mark has been reached and the time has come to decide if this brutal, greed-crazed swamp is finally drained of its boundless capacity for darkness and inhumanity, or if we all just drown in it, bloated and forgotten.
There are two quotes that seem to summarize current times and some of those who have led us to this point.
First, Carl Sandburg:
"A liar is a liar and lives on the lies he tells and dies in a bed of lies."
Second, Gore Vidal:
"Once a country is habituated by liars it takes generations to get the truth back"
While there is much fault with the politicians who traffic in unreality, there is an equal amount of fault with us as a society. There is little point in looking to reform those who live by their lies. They are irredeemable and must be tossed into the trash bin of history. We have to first look at ourselves. In our own comfort, we have allowed the liars comfort and allowed the media that carries the capability of tossing a few thorns into that bed of lies to evade the responsibility of doing so.
Nope, as long as race and religion are part of our male dominated politics, our system will be subject to continued corruption. It will be the women of this country, pushed to the boiling point, to finally clean house of the stench.
The Republican party has been conquered by tRump and his followers and the politicians who are hanging to his red tie. The Republicans understand that Trumpism is a big permission slip for unfettered extremism, lies, racism , hate, bribes, and all the desires to trample the Democrats, progressive anyone who challenges them.
We have take them ar their word - they want to destroy our government one cabinet and all the various agencies at a time, they want to take our national resources and sell them off to the highest bidder. They want to stop spending any money to protect our world from the quickly moving effects of global climate change. They want to roll back our society to the repressive 1950’s.
Their willingness to ignore the evil that is trump so they can siphon off money anf power.
"Treason against the United States, Shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the overt Act, or on Confession in open Court."
It is not difficult or unreasonable to conclude that those verbally repeating the talking points of Putin, an enemy of The United States, on the floor and in committees of the Congress, constitutes adhering to & giving aid and comfort to our enemy.
This struggle is not new in America. The major difference is that one political party has adopted a white supremacy, fascist agenda, except even that has been done before, before WWII.
From the beginning there has been a huge division in what people thought America stood for. There were the enlightened idealists who believed that all men are created equal vs. the greedy rich, who used racism and slavery to enhance the few and exploit the rest.
That’s basically what is going on now. Trump has a bunch of billionaire backers who have, as you often point out, bought lot of the media, They use that media to spread racism and fear to try to keep the very wealthy very wealthy. To do this they need to attract enough voters by using racism, misogyny, and the fear of communism and socialism to get the confused, angry and left behind folks to vote for them one more time. If enough of them do, we may not have another meaningful election for a long time. We will have chaos, rampant corruption, high inflation, and alliances with Putin and Saudi Arabia.
Germany and Japan changed their cultures only after the horror that was World War II. I have been praying for years now that a similar shock will not be necessary.
“Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
When the spawn of Satan resides in one of the three most powerful seats in government, "repair" is dubious at best. Evil is a potent toxin. Trump is toxic. Johnson is toxic. Most of the Republican Party is toxic. They are enemies of our Constitution, our constitutional democracy and separation of church and state. The guard rails have been removed. "Anything goes." Regrettably and sadly much of this dysfunction (dis-ease) rests at the feet of Democrats who for far too long simply have watched this parade of tyranny march on by. Republicans have been stacking the decks of state and local legislatures while Democrats simply provided wide audience. Johnson is weak. MT ("empty") Greene is a ravenous she-wolf, vicious and deranged to her core. There is no repair where there are no repair persons available or at the ready.
Thanks, Steven, for this excellent article. I think that saving our country will involve---defeating Trump, defeating Trump's imitators/Trumpism and then, maybe most important for the long run, determine the factors that allowed Trump to seem so attractive to so many and address them as well. We have to defeat the immediate dangers but also get to the root cause of the disease.
The fix has to come from so called “christian” leaders who for numerous self-interested reasons are promoting a theocracy. Silent are the Catholic bishops on trump telling white Americans “our blood is being poisoned” and on the hatred and division being promoted by trump and white nationalists “christians.” Our Seattle Archbishop Paul Etienne took zero caution in promoting the “right to keep and bear arms” in his “Truth In Love” blog but is silent on the hate being spread and wealth disparity and attacks on minorities. The American Christian leadership must change course.
It's more than just the drift from factual reality that is astounding and stomach churning. It's the brazen self awareness of Trump and his sycophants that they are manufacturing and promulgating all this bullshit, and even the self awareness of many in and out of MAGA world that they are being fed manufactured bullshit. And all that is somehow ok, because it's in service to what Trump needs to escape his legal troubles and feed his insecure ego, and it's also what his followers need to bring about the white Christian nationalist dream of a white-Christian male-dominated American culture free of constitutional chains and people who don't look or think like them.
The link is to a pro-truth movement intended to keep everyone on track, by sticking to the facts, but it can only work if participants are willing to adhere to the actual truth. Our parents wouldn't have tolerated our lies when we were children, so why are they so willing to accept the lies of an adult - unless they want to believe it. Lying should be unacceptable and illegal. /https://www.protruthpledge.org/
I worry about it everyday. How will we ever re-unify after such traitorous behavior?! I have no forgiveness in my heart. I don’t know that I ever will! Remorse from them would be something to see, but I don’t know that it will ever come. Your question is something I wrestle with constantly.
Our house is broken and desperately needs repair. The foundation is cracked and beginning to crumble. The question is, do we have the will and drive to take on the challenges that are in front of us. Will our home still stand after Nov. 5? Sadly, that's what keeps me awake at night.
Unfortunately the lesson that lying works and disinformation is a weapon cannot be put back into the bottle.
The solution is improved education, especially media literacy, critical thinking, and civics.
That means that the real battle is with school board elections.
We need an educated public to have a democracy. Right now many people don’t know why democracy is important to have and because we assume it is self evident we don’t spell it out.
The main feature I believe is that without a democracy people cannot replace a person in power (I don’t call them leaders) no matter what they do.
Right wing media is complicit when promoting their lies. I don't know that anyone enjoys being outright lied to - and despite our living in the "age of information" - the constant lies and/or misinformation continue to be embraced by manipulated and trusting followers. Lying to the public, to include the promotion of lies by the media, should be criminal offenses. This should be just as it is within the justice system since we all want to make our decisions based upon the truth and nothing but the truth. Grifters abound and they must be stopped.
GOP is furiously backpedaling on their anti-abortion rhetoric but it's too damn late
They think we are all morons like the people who still vote for GOP but we’ve seen the disaster & incredible harm they have already perpetuated on American women & they will pay…at the polls
Where is Gen. John Kelly? Where is Gen. Jim Mathis? Where are the others who worked in his administration who know just exactly what a disaster the man was (and promises to be) as an executive? If they stay quiet out of respect for a bygone era when military leaders stayed out of electoral politics, they will ALL. be complicit in a second Trump term and all that ensues!
To fix this mess, we’d have to first be in a world where voter suppression and social media propaganda weren’t suffocating actual truth and democracy. Those days are gone and never to return. It will get unimaginably worse.
Unless we act decisively the US government will be beyond repair. Trump is just a puppet. MAGA is mislead and grotesquely aggrieved. Today's political “issues” are simply diversion and subterfuge. Forget trying to catalog and react to every lie. Forget “othersideisms.” We all must pay attention to the men (and money) behind the curtain–who are deciding and controlling too many outcomes. The division and craziness is simply a smokescreen. Unless our vote counts it's all for nought. The legislatures and courts and institutional safeguards have been compromised. In order to protect the people's will to self-govern we must get every state on board the National Popular Vote law ASAP. Reality is NOT in retreat. Our turnout must be overwhelming and incontrovertible. DECIDE TO VOTE & VOTE TO DECIDE.
No repair is not possible with the current leader of the GOP. Yes they must be totally defeated via the ballot box. Thats the only thing they care about. The only thing that will get them to begin to consider to stop promoting fascism. I'm 49, it will probably take longer than the rest of my life to repair the damage. If it's repaired and everyone goes back to forgetting about this then it's going to start all over again.
I think the country will only repair once the social media algorithms are adjusted for neutrality, diversity, and accuracy - no echo-chamber tunnels of false information. And regulations on big business that will create financial stability for all working - Eg, a ceo-to-lowest-paid-employee mandatory minimum ratio, plus a living wage calculated on cost of living that includes the ability of a single-earner-family-of-four to pay rent, keep the utilities on and everyone fed and healthy, and save a down payment for a mortgage on a 2BR home in four years - so the ceo doesn’t get a raise unless that criteria is met for the lowest paid employee.
Until the real issue of bottom line ability to afford to live at a basic standard of living - home ownership, healthcare, food, utilities, decent clothing - the parties can make up any blather they want about “why” and foment animosity across race, religion, gender, sexual orientation and so forth - all boogeymen - to distract attention away from the top-level businesses exploitation, quite frankly, of everyone else.
Agent orange directing foreign policy from his bug infested hotel in Florida. Watch the video of the religious experience on the floor of the Arizona Senate. Repair is not possible with this nonsense. They need to be voted out.
Even if he loses, it’s going to be a long, long time before Trump voters get over what he’s done to them, and the rest of us will have a very hard time forgiving them for putting our country through this nightmare.
I’d love to remake our world. The first two things would entail getting rid of Citizens United. The second would be to create a press that was not dependent on advertising or stocks. It’s basically the same old story about how money corrupts. Our ability to discover the “truth” depends on getting representatives and information that are ethical—by that I mean working for the greater good. We are a long way from that. Jamie Raskin has some great ideas about how our elections and representation (presidential and congressional) could be improved through ranked voting.
For MAGA, there will be no sudden realization they have taken the wrong path. They have abandoned any allegiance to facts or common sense. Power is their sole North Star and they believe Trump provides the path.
We must defeat them soundly and repeatedly until sensible people are once again willing to run for office. Those of us who care for democracy, must protect honest people willing to serve on either side of the aisle. There are no easy fixes, much damage has already been done. Many have lost the ability to discern lies from fact. It will take determination and patience to correct course. And the clock is ticking.
War clouds are gathering and climate change threatens everything. There is no time to dither and get stuck in stalemate. Democrats need to take control while Republicans reform their caucus.
A great many of us will never trust them again, even if in some post-Trump world they mouthed the right words. If they had any integrity they have lost it and would always be prone to sell us out for whatever they thought would benefit them. It would be like trying to re-integrate Putin’s or Hitler’s upper staff into the ranks of decent citizens. Never!
Simply, no. Current Republican “leadership” (and I use the term loosely) is irreparable. Need a clean sweep or an entirely new party to replace them.
There’s another reason they will continue to lie and gaslight and scapegoat. They can’t win any other way. Their disastrous positions on abortion alone are wildly unpopular. They need chaos to have any chance at all.
I’m afraid we can’t go back to what we all long for, which for me is a just a simple peaceful existence . When tRump unleashed his vitriol and hate, he, in his position as president 🤮(NEVER mine), gave the green light for all the haters to crawl out from under the rocks they were lurking under. It gave them a voice, that before, was totally unacceptable. Respect, honor, trust. Those words mean nothing to them, hate, greed and control is all they are after. Not the good of our fellow man, not the good of the country. Until we make that unacceptable again, we are doomed. However! I am an optimist and still believe in we the people..we just have to annihilate republicans up and down the ballot in Roevember!
It's just maddening to see a major political party spreading lies and disinformation. This is both unethical and immoral. The U.S. needs a better mechanism, similar to slander and libel laws, that citizens can use to call out those in elected position who lie to the public.
A quote from Heather Cox Richardson’ April 12 LFAA.
“Both parties deprecated war but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish.” Abraham Lincoln
What Trump and his fascist freedom caucus have done to this country over the past 8 or 9 years just boggles my 84 year old mind! A huge Biden victory in November, along with some major convictions with prison time for the "Orange Haired Deity", will be an excellent start on returning the country to some sense of democratic normalcy.
Journalists have been covering Donald for decades. Many of them wonder "Does he really believe what he's saying?" Maggie Haberman knows him best and she answers, "No. He's a conman."
Cassidy Hutchinson reports in her book "Enough" a conversation between Trump and his communications director Alyssa Farah, when he was asking her to lie to the Press. "It doesn't matter what you say. Just repeat it and they will believe you." This is the key for hard news journalists and for voters. Be skeptical. Push back. Dig for the reasons behind the words. Don't be fooled.
Donald doesn't hide his deceptions. He doubles and triples down. Every word is chosen to achieve his goal. No scruples or shame. His life of fraud was validated by Roy Cohn, Roger Stone and Steve Bannon. "He's just going to say he won!" Donald is stupid and self destructive. But just smart enough to trick and lie and steal from 10% of the population. And he has effectively castrated the Press.
Donald is mentally ill. There is a major mental problem when a grown man cheats at golf (the game of honor) and business, in full public view, and worries about "looking like a loser." Everyone KNOWS hes a loser and laughing AT him. He's getting worse by the day. He is falling into madness in front of us. Imagine his desperation as the cops surround him and hold him accountable for HIS OWN ACTIONS.
It appears that Mike Johnson is a Trump.dupe. He may well be stupider than Donald. His reasoning is twisted just enough to be Donald's tool. Is the Press going to hold them both to account for their lies? It's up to each of us to demand it from them.
You are absolutely right: defeat of Trumpists and all their works now stands as our only viable option. Honest conservatives must reclaim the GOP or form a new political party. Then we can deal. Democracy requires trust. DJT and all his Trumpist minions forfeited any just claim to trust long ago. Defeat them, yes.
The first step toward repair would be televising each and every hearing in the cases now pending against Donald Trump related to campaign fraud and interference with the electoral process. (Billed by most media as the “hush money” and “insurrection” charges.)
No, it is NOT possible, with the Republicans currently in the House, to return to any sense of American normalcy. Soundly defeating them in November will be tough enough, but that would be just the beginning. What to do about all the gullible supporters of MAGA, wow, that will be a years-long arduous challenge, especially with the feet of Russia and China on the scale.
Repair absolutely is not possible simply because all credibility has been lost. Today’s Republican Party is a disaster in how ridiculously foolish it’s become. Listen to any of the “impeach Biden” hearings, or others. The republican members are performing in badly composed theater while the Democrats bring receipts … repeat ad nauseam. It’s literally become sporting for folks like Rep. Moskowitz to repeatedly show us the fools that Comer and Jordan have become in servitude to their orange idol.
How many times can we listen to easily proven lies before we stop listening? How many more times does our media need to begin a sentence with “Trump lied about …”? Drop the word about. All of his supporters and followers only repeat the lies.
I’m 18 months shy of 70. I’ve never seen anything like this in my decades here. I read the other day that the only difference between Trump and Jim Jones is that Trump would charge for the koolaid. That millions obsessively swoon over *that* abomination disgusts me on too many levels.
The abject failures of Corporate Media to expose the ugly truth that today's GOP is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Kremlin will go down in journalism as how the Freedom of the Press ended
IF
We fail to all become citizen journalists who post the facts & truth
1- Trump & Family were recruited by Moscow in the 1990's
2- In 2016-the NRA money-laundered over $400M dirty Russian rubles into Trump & GOP campaigns
3-Today GOP is the #1 purveyor of Russian propaganda & talking points
Just ask GOP Rep. Mike Turner
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/04/07/russian-propaganda-republicans-congress/
Nope. And like deep wounds, the scars will always be there—so the damage will never be “fixed.” If we are lucky, maybe, maybe, we’ll learn from them. But if history is prelude, I won’t hedge any bets on that.
No....they are so far down the rabbit hole they ain't never coming back to reality.
Even if he loses, until we get rid of ALL the gaslighters it is going to be hard to get back to a national consensus on what is reality and back to arguing about how to DEAL with reality. But I think that if trump loses, the gaslighters will be less likely to gaslight, at least for a while. Possibly it might take a stroke or worse for trump to stop making him a useful tool. But the problem is not trump himself, really, but those who DO use him as a tool. It's hard to think where they would find another one with the horrific charisma he has.
One of the funniest things I've seen on this topic today is below. I know it's X, but watch it anyway
https://twitter.com/ronfilipkowski/status/1778911252821192762?s=46&t=V7VfS2X8f7Tb8bB5srchIg
The only place the current Republican party belongs is in the dustbin of history.
I wish forgiveness in its truest sense could happen. However, only truth from Republicans and an acknowledgment that they lied and damaged our country could make it possible. I do not see that happening. What must happen, in my opinion, is that the rule of law must be must be shown to be real and lasting and fundamental to our country’s healing by enforcing it on every level of deceit. In my mind this means no one gets a free ride. Not just Trump, but everyone who colluded with him. Yes, that means it will drag on. However, if they are not held accountable, like the current Republicans in the House, and Justice Thomas’s wife, and all the many supporters and enablers, we still have a country that allows some people off the hook. Yes, we need to vote them out. However, think of MGT. will that stop her? No. Only legal repercussions have the power to end this national nightmare. All attorneys should be barred from practice, etc. I had worked with the criminal justice system for 35 years before I retired. The people with whom I worked, most of them for non violent crimes, got much more jail or prison time than the majority of those who were part of the insurrection on January 6th. The inequality is glaring! And you and I both know that if I threatened the President as Trump has, i would not be writing to you right now. I would be in prison. Yet Trump still prances around as a free man speaking lies and filth that damage this country’s belief in justice. Forgiveness requires truth and a willingness to change. Our fellow citizens who currently call themselves Republicans are incapable of this humility.
I am 73 and have never before been as troubled about the direction we are going in. I fear that it's going to take decades to get the trump toxicity out of our lives. Certainly I won't live to see it, but I am hoping that when he dies that may help us to turn a corner
No, this Republican Party should just be renamed to the Trump Party and it should go on the same route as Whig or DoNothing parties did. But we need another credible party to spring up after the elections such as the New Republican Party that deals in reality. To do that, we need leaders willing to put their principles on the line.
My Father, who had a Masters degree in history, always said “look at the history not just the here and now.” When Trump won in 2016, I wept, understanding how we got to this place with the Republican Party. I have watched them evolve since the 1970’s using patriotism, “family values” and religion to brainwash folks into believing they were for the average Joe American, while they interfered in peoples private lives ( anything that has to do with sex and diversity), but in reality supporting their big corporate donors.
We can't even call this a new low for American politics - that boundary was shredded to depraved tatters long ago by these foul ghouls and their cult of utter bullshit. What went down in Mar-a-Lago was the ninth or tenth circle of hell swallowing itself in an obscene ouroboros death-spiral of lies and abject delusion.
To see that sniveling worm Speaker Johnson slithering around Mar-a-Lago licking Trump's bloated sadist boots and barking the same vicious anti-immigrant lies that the crazed orange monster first unleashed on his deranged kingdom of mutants, shit-kickers and tooth-deprived yahoos? It would almost be funny if it wasn't so terminally poisonous to what's left of America's feebleminded grasp on reality.
The dangerous insanity is no longer just that these subhuman cretins are lying - of course theyare, shameless habitual liars looking to spike the national brain with more mind-melting acid nightmare conspiracy fantasies about voter fraud and illegals rigging elections. The real mindfuck is how many millions of our deluded countrymen, bloated on a perpetual intravenous drip of right-wing horseshit and rancid Fox toilet prole, will gleefully shotgun another syringe of these depraved, crippled mutations and call it truth.
We're watching the full psycho breakdown in real time here. The American dream gutshot and coughing up blood while these warped goblins dance and pissbabble about made-up migrant caravans overrunning the ballot box. How do we survive as a society when a huge chunk of the populace exists in a violent fantasy realm where hallucinated hobgoblins and enemies are more real than verifiable facts? When the unshackled id triumphs and our sickest delusions seep out to become deranged reality?
The bitter truth is we don't come back from this without the hardest of harsh reckonings - a people either shake themselves back to sanity or we lose the final threads of any shared national consciousness and atomize into a million snarling tribes, each huddled around their own campfire psychosis. No more quick fixes or naive faith that "coming together" and "healing" overcomes these terminal brain fevers - not when the most potent malignancies infecting the zeitgeist flow straight from the mutant hive-mind of creatures like Trump.
So warrior up and get vicious, samurai - because the battle to avoid a permanent, irreversible plunge into a violent, dystopian, paranoid night-world has only just begun. The old decayed Order is dying, but we'll need to wrestle the demons with unshakable ferocity if hope is survive Armageddon. The high water mark has been reached and the time has come to decide if this brutal, greed-crazed swamp is finally drained of its boundless capacity for darkness and inhumanity, or if we all just drown in it, bloated and forgotten.
No repair is possible until all of us truly believe that all humans are created to be equal.
They were always there. They were seething under ground for decades just waiting to explode like a volcano.
The damage can’t be undone. We’re witnessing an historic pivot not just here but globally. And not for the better.
I can make this quick.
No.
There are two quotes that seem to summarize current times and some of those who have led us to this point.
First, Carl Sandburg:
"A liar is a liar and lives on the lies he tells and dies in a bed of lies."
Second, Gore Vidal:
"Once a country is habituated by liars it takes generations to get the truth back"
While there is much fault with the politicians who traffic in unreality, there is an equal amount of fault with us as a society. There is little point in looking to reform those who live by their lies. They are irredeemable and must be tossed into the trash bin of history. We have to first look at ourselves. In our own comfort, we have allowed the liars comfort and allowed the media that carries the capability of tossing a few thorns into that bed of lies to evade the responsibility of doing so.
Nope, as long as race and religion are part of our male dominated politics, our system will be subject to continued corruption. It will be the women of this country, pushed to the boiling point, to finally clean house of the stench.
The Republican party has been conquered by tRump and his followers and the politicians who are hanging to his red tie. The Republicans understand that Trumpism is a big permission slip for unfettered extremism, lies, racism , hate, bribes, and all the desires to trample the Democrats, progressive anyone who challenges them.
We have take them ar their word - they want to destroy our government one cabinet and all the various agencies at a time, they want to take our national resources and sell them off to the highest bidder. They want to stop spending any money to protect our world from the quickly moving effects of global climate change. They want to roll back our society to the repressive 1950’s.
Their willingness to ignore the evil that is trump so they can siphon off money anf power.
Vote Blue to stop the madness.
A follow up to my earlier comment:
Treason is afoot in the Congress..
Article III Sec 3
"Treason against the United States, Shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the overt Act, or on Confession in open Court."
It is not difficult or unreasonable to conclude that those verbally repeating the talking points of Putin, an enemy of The United States, on the floor and in committees of the Congress, constitutes adhering to & giving aid and comfort to our enemy.
This struggle is not new in America. The major difference is that one political party has adopted a white supremacy, fascist agenda, except even that has been done before, before WWII.
From the beginning there has been a huge division in what people thought America stood for. There were the enlightened idealists who believed that all men are created equal vs. the greedy rich, who used racism and slavery to enhance the few and exploit the rest.
That’s basically what is going on now. Trump has a bunch of billionaire backers who have, as you often point out, bought lot of the media, They use that media to spread racism and fear to try to keep the very wealthy very wealthy. To do this they need to attract enough voters by using racism, misogyny, and the fear of communism and socialism to get the confused, angry and left behind folks to vote for them one more time. If enough of them do, we may not have another meaningful election for a long time. We will have chaos, rampant corruption, high inflation, and alliances with Putin and Saudi Arabia.
Germany and Japan changed their cultures only after the horror that was World War II. I have been praying for years now that a similar shock will not be necessary.
“Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
When the spawn of Satan resides in one of the three most powerful seats in government, "repair" is dubious at best. Evil is a potent toxin. Trump is toxic. Johnson is toxic. Most of the Republican Party is toxic. They are enemies of our Constitution, our constitutional democracy and separation of church and state. The guard rails have been removed. "Anything goes." Regrettably and sadly much of this dysfunction (dis-ease) rests at the feet of Democrats who for far too long simply have watched this parade of tyranny march on by. Republicans have been stacking the decks of state and local legislatures while Democrats simply provided wide audience. Johnson is weak. MT ("empty") Greene is a ravenous she-wolf, vicious and deranged to her core. There is no repair where there are no repair persons available or at the ready.
Thanks, Steven, for this excellent article. I think that saving our country will involve---defeating Trump, defeating Trump's imitators/Trumpism and then, maybe most important for the long run, determine the factors that allowed Trump to seem so attractive to so many and address them as well. We have to defeat the immediate dangers but also get to the root cause of the disease.
The fix has to come from so called “christian” leaders who for numerous self-interested reasons are promoting a theocracy. Silent are the Catholic bishops on trump telling white Americans “our blood is being poisoned” and on the hatred and division being promoted by trump and white nationalists “christians.” Our Seattle Archbishop Paul Etienne took zero caution in promoting the “right to keep and bear arms” in his “Truth In Love” blog but is silent on the hate being spread and wealth disparity and attacks on minorities. The American Christian leadership must change course.
It's more than just the drift from factual reality that is astounding and stomach churning. It's the brazen self awareness of Trump and his sycophants that they are manufacturing and promulgating all this bullshit, and even the self awareness of many in and out of MAGA world that they are being fed manufactured bullshit. And all that is somehow ok, because it's in service to what Trump needs to escape his legal troubles and feed his insecure ego, and it's also what his followers need to bring about the white Christian nationalist dream of a white-Christian male-dominated American culture free of constitutional chains and people who don't look or think like them.
The link is to a pro-truth movement intended to keep everyone on track, by sticking to the facts, but it can only work if participants are willing to adhere to the actual truth. Our parents wouldn't have tolerated our lies when we were children, so why are they so willing to accept the lies of an adult - unless they want to believe it. Lying should be unacceptable and illegal. /https://www.protruthpledge.org/
25% of Americans are lost and cannot be recovered. It may take 2-3 generations to bring them back into reality. Hard to believe and harder to watch,
I worry about it everyday. How will we ever re-unify after such traitorous behavior?! I have no forgiveness in my heart. I don’t know that I ever will! Remorse from them would be something to see, but I don’t know that it will ever come. Your question is something I wrestle with constantly.
Our house is broken and desperately needs repair. The foundation is cracked and beginning to crumble. The question is, do we have the will and drive to take on the challenges that are in front of us. Will our home still stand after Nov. 5? Sadly, that's what keeps me awake at night.
Unfortunately the lesson that lying works and disinformation is a weapon cannot be put back into the bottle.
The solution is improved education, especially media literacy, critical thinking, and civics.
That means that the real battle is with school board elections.
We need an educated public to have a democracy. Right now many people don’t know why democracy is important to have and because we assume it is self evident we don’t spell it out.
The main feature I believe is that without a democracy people cannot replace a person in power (I don’t call them leaders) no matter what they do.
Right wing media is complicit when promoting their lies. I don't know that anyone enjoys being outright lied to - and despite our living in the "age of information" - the constant lies and/or misinformation continue to be embraced by manipulated and trusting followers. Lying to the public, to include the promotion of lies by the media, should be criminal offenses. This should be just as it is within the justice system since we all want to make our decisions based upon the truth and nothing but the truth. Grifters abound and they must be stopped.
GOP is furiously backpedaling on their anti-abortion rhetoric but it's too damn late
They think we are all morons like the people who still vote for GOP but we’ve seen the disaster & incredible harm they have already perpetuated on American women & they will pay…at the polls
Do not let them get away with it.
https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2024/04/politics/abortion-rights-republican-2024-election-dg/?cid=ios_app
#VoteOutEveryRepublican
#VoteBlueToProtectOurRights
Where is Gen. John Kelly? Where is Gen. Jim Mathis? Where are the others who worked in his administration who know just exactly what a disaster the man was (and promises to be) as an executive? If they stay quiet out of respect for a bygone era when military leaders stayed out of electoral politics, they will ALL. be complicit in a second Trump term and all that ensues!
To fix this mess, we’d have to first be in a world where voter suppression and social media propaganda weren’t suffocating actual truth and democracy. Those days are gone and never to return. It will get unimaginably worse.
Unless we act decisively the US government will be beyond repair. Trump is just a puppet. MAGA is mislead and grotesquely aggrieved. Today's political “issues” are simply diversion and subterfuge. Forget trying to catalog and react to every lie. Forget “othersideisms.” We all must pay attention to the men (and money) behind the curtain–who are deciding and controlling too many outcomes. The division and craziness is simply a smokescreen. Unless our vote counts it's all for nought. The legislatures and courts and institutional safeguards have been compromised. In order to protect the people's will to self-govern we must get every state on board the National Popular Vote law ASAP. Reality is NOT in retreat. Our turnout must be overwhelming and incontrovertible. DECIDE TO VOTE & VOTE TO DECIDE.
No repair is not possible with the current leader of the GOP. Yes they must be totally defeated via the ballot box. Thats the only thing they care about. The only thing that will get them to begin to consider to stop promoting fascism. I'm 49, it will probably take longer than the rest of my life to repair the damage. If it's repaired and everyone goes back to forgetting about this then it's going to start all over again.
I think the country will only repair once the social media algorithms are adjusted for neutrality, diversity, and accuracy - no echo-chamber tunnels of false information. And regulations on big business that will create financial stability for all working - Eg, a ceo-to-lowest-paid-employee mandatory minimum ratio, plus a living wage calculated on cost of living that includes the ability of a single-earner-family-of-four to pay rent, keep the utilities on and everyone fed and healthy, and save a down payment for a mortgage on a 2BR home in four years - so the ceo doesn’t get a raise unless that criteria is met for the lowest paid employee.
Until the real issue of bottom line ability to afford to live at a basic standard of living - home ownership, healthcare, food, utilities, decent clothing - the parties can make up any blather they want about “why” and foment animosity across race, religion, gender, sexual orientation and so forth - all boogeymen - to distract attention away from the top-level businesses exploitation, quite frankly, of everyone else.
Agent orange directing foreign policy from his bug infested hotel in Florida. Watch the video of the religious experience on the floor of the Arizona Senate. Repair is not possible with this nonsense. They need to be voted out.