I am pretty terrified that if we fail to create any accountability, in 5 years, we will look back and say "that was our last chance.". Increasingly, it feels like the ONLY WAY to stop the freefall of our country is to punish people who caused it.
We have a crisis of belief in our own system. If we show for the 50th consecutive time that our system can't punish people who do us wrong, then we will never be able to convince anyone to believe in it again. Some people make the argument that it's strength to show restraint and forgive people who made bad choices in the name of unity. These people are naive cowards and will destroy our country.
Every time Dems have insisted on ‘not looking back’ the GOP response has been to accumulate more power, to push the country further right, towards crony capitalism, towards fascism, toward Millers goal of a white ethnostate and because there was no accountability it keeps getting easier and easier for them to accomplish their goals.
“It’s too easy to imagine our leaders talking themselves out of this kind of confrontation once again.”
Dems (and any R with a shred of decency left) should absolutely be sending this message but yes, it’s very easy to imagine as it doesn’t seem like a majority of elected D’s have the inclination to do it.
The info Raskin obtained should be enough to end a presidency but it was barely a blip amongst all of the gross actions coming out of the White House.
It’s also so depressing that most people outside of the US can easily see this corrupt regime and its enablers for what they are while way too many Americans continue to eat up the lies and propaganda.
“Perhaps the biggest question on everyone’s mind: Is America rotten to the marrow, or is it effectively in exile? Is America going to be a part-time mafia state indefinitely? Or is its government simply occupied by a crooked cabal that can be disposed of permanently, once democratic forces summon the will to reclaim control. “
After the Civil War the repudiation of Reconstruction and the rise of the dual state of Jim Crow ensured America’s rottenness would remain. Now it has metastasized, and so the real question is not about an election outcome, but about whether Americans will tolerate the required treatment to excise the rottenness from our civic body.
The rapid reversal of Reconstruction showed how Americans were unwilling to do so before, the re-election of Trump shows Americans were unwilling to do so in 2024. Absent a cataclysmic failure, I would not bet on Americans suddenly rediscovering virtue and decency.
"Our Republican robe is soiled and trailed in the dust. Let us purify it. Let us turn and wash it white in the spirit if not the blood of the Revolution. Let us turn slavery from its claims of moral right, back upon its existing legal rights and its arguments of necessity. Let us return it to the position our fathers gave it, and there let it rest in peace. Let us re-adopt the Declaration of Independence, and with it the practices and policy which harmonize with it. Let North and South, let all Americans, let all lovers of liberty everywhere, join in the great and good work. If we do this, we shall not only have saved the Union, but we shall have so saved it as to make and to keep it for ever worthy of the saving." - Lincoln
Unfortunately you're right, we didn't truly excise the cancer. They killed the guy who said this. But he wasn't wrong. And what's more scary is that this message applies now more than ever.
Interesting article. You missed the "Big Short" taken out on Crypto on Oct 10th. About $2bn just before Trump announced the 130% Tariffs on China. No one takes out a short position that size without almost certain knowledge of likely market movement first.
It’s really hard to have faith in America when we have people that will have instant amnesia every two to five years about the absolute corruption of the Republican party.
Doesn’t help that the Democrats are so divided on stuff that it boggles the mind and gives most of us ulcers.
I don’t think America can ever come back from all of this. I really don’t.
Radical change will need to occur but it feels like nobody is up for it. That’s the way it feels.
We'll have to go with the Democratic Party we have, not the one we wish we had and this is frightening. The longer this lasts the less optimistic I am. There is one more problem: Trump / MAGA will almost certainly fail in 2028 (I'd argue that Trump is unable to adjust his policies due to a combination of old age and his narcissistic personality--or maybe he is dead by 2028--and also the GOP coalition minus Trump will not be ready to win by then). The GOP was already rotten before Trump came along (since Nixon all major scandals of importance--Watergate, Iran-Contra, the steal of a seat on the Supreme Court--happened under GOP Presidents). It's not going to be clean and honest after Trump's end. At any rate 2028 will only be a temporary victory; we made the mistake of thinking we were past all of this in the Biden years.
Do there at least some concept of a plan exist for future judgement? The way legal system in US works tend to favor rich and powerful. Trump, even if he loses, can easily stall everything until he dies or the public gets bored. He doesn't even have to do anything criminal, simple lawfare is enough. Going through courts means years of legal battles, overcoming hundreds of Judge Cannons, and everything this while right wing media cries about witch hunts. This problem is not limited to Trump, making any republican accountable would be possible, but difficult. In the era of zero attention span, any future dem president must have some kind of plan worked out that would symbolically punish Trump and show clear break with past regime. If only Trump would build a big statue of himself in DC, so that it can be blown up with fanfares.
We have a clearly inscribed pattern now. The american right wing accumulates power, then wreaks untold destruction, then the left wins an election by default, pronounces the threat neutralized, and then the electorate as currently constituted returns the American right wing to power and the cycle begins again. I strongly encourage you to unpack this cycle so that the left as clearly as you can make them see understands that breaking this cycle is their reason for existing politically from now until the situation is subverted.
Since Trump was not president at the time he supposedly exposed top secret documents to unclassified individuals, can he be brought up on criminal charges...at least on state charges?
I am pretty terrified that if we fail to create any accountability, in 5 years, we will look back and say "that was our last chance.". Increasingly, it feels like the ONLY WAY to stop the freefall of our country is to punish people who caused it.
We have a crisis of belief in our own system. If we show for the 50th consecutive time that our system can't punish people who do us wrong, then we will never be able to convince anyone to believe in it again. Some people make the argument that it's strength to show restraint and forgive people who made bad choices in the name of unity. These people are naive cowards and will destroy our country.
Every time Dems have insisted on ‘not looking back’ the GOP response has been to accumulate more power, to push the country further right, towards crony capitalism, towards fascism, toward Millers goal of a white ethnostate and because there was no accountability it keeps getting easier and easier for them to accomplish their goals.
“It’s too easy to imagine our leaders talking themselves out of this kind of confrontation once again.”
Dems (and any R with a shred of decency left) should absolutely be sending this message but yes, it’s very easy to imagine as it doesn’t seem like a majority of elected D’s have the inclination to do it.
The info Raskin obtained should be enough to end a presidency but it was barely a blip amongst all of the gross actions coming out of the White House.
It’s also so depressing that most people outside of the US can easily see this corrupt regime and its enablers for what they are while way too many Americans continue to eat up the lies and propaganda.
“Perhaps the biggest question on everyone’s mind: Is America rotten to the marrow, or is it effectively in exile? Is America going to be a part-time mafia state indefinitely? Or is its government simply occupied by a crooked cabal that can be disposed of permanently, once democratic forces summon the will to reclaim control. “
After the Civil War the repudiation of Reconstruction and the rise of the dual state of Jim Crow ensured America’s rottenness would remain. Now it has metastasized, and so the real question is not about an election outcome, but about whether Americans will tolerate the required treatment to excise the rottenness from our civic body.
The rapid reversal of Reconstruction showed how Americans were unwilling to do so before, the re-election of Trump shows Americans were unwilling to do so in 2024. Absent a cataclysmic failure, I would not bet on Americans suddenly rediscovering virtue and decency.
"Our Republican robe is soiled and trailed in the dust. Let us purify it. Let us turn and wash it white in the spirit if not the blood of the Revolution. Let us turn slavery from its claims of moral right, back upon its existing legal rights and its arguments of necessity. Let us return it to the position our fathers gave it, and there let it rest in peace. Let us re-adopt the Declaration of Independence, and with it the practices and policy which harmonize with it. Let North and South, let all Americans, let all lovers of liberty everywhere, join in the great and good work. If we do this, we shall not only have saved the Union, but we shall have so saved it as to make and to keep it for ever worthy of the saving." - Lincoln
Unfortunately you're right, we didn't truly excise the cancer. They killed the guy who said this. But he wasn't wrong. And what's more scary is that this message applies now more than ever.
Interesting article. You missed the "Big Short" taken out on Crypto on Oct 10th. About $2bn just before Trump announced the 130% Tariffs on China. No one takes out a short position that size without almost certain knowledge of likely market movement first.
It’s really hard to have faith in America when we have people that will have instant amnesia every two to five years about the absolute corruption of the Republican party.
Doesn’t help that the Democrats are so divided on stuff that it boggles the mind and gives most of us ulcers.
I don’t think America can ever come back from all of this. I really don’t.
Radical change will need to occur but it feels like nobody is up for it. That’s the way it feels.
We'll have to go with the Democratic Party we have, not the one we wish we had and this is frightening. The longer this lasts the less optimistic I am. There is one more problem: Trump / MAGA will almost certainly fail in 2028 (I'd argue that Trump is unable to adjust his policies due to a combination of old age and his narcissistic personality--or maybe he is dead by 2028--and also the GOP coalition minus Trump will not be ready to win by then). The GOP was already rotten before Trump came along (since Nixon all major scandals of importance--Watergate, Iran-Contra, the steal of a seat on the Supreme Court--happened under GOP Presidents). It's not going to be clean and honest after Trump's end. At any rate 2028 will only be a temporary victory; we made the mistake of thinking we were past all of this in the Biden years.
Do there at least some concept of a plan exist for future judgement? The way legal system in US works tend to favor rich and powerful. Trump, even if he loses, can easily stall everything until he dies or the public gets bored. He doesn't even have to do anything criminal, simple lawfare is enough. Going through courts means years of legal battles, overcoming hundreds of Judge Cannons, and everything this while right wing media cries about witch hunts. This problem is not limited to Trump, making any republican accountable would be possible, but difficult. In the era of zero attention span, any future dem president must have some kind of plan worked out that would symbolically punish Trump and show clear break with past regime. If only Trump would build a big statue of himself in DC, so that it can be blown up with fanfares.
We have a clearly inscribed pattern now. The american right wing accumulates power, then wreaks untold destruction, then the left wins an election by default, pronounces the threat neutralized, and then the electorate as currently constituted returns the American right wing to power and the cycle begins again. I strongly encourage you to unpack this cycle so that the left as clearly as you can make them see understands that breaking this cycle is their reason for existing politically from now until the situation is subverted.
Since Trump was not president at the time he supposedly exposed top secret documents to unclassified individuals, can he be brought up on criminal charges...at least on state charges?
This is excellent information that we need to respond to the most recent crimes committed by Trump and his cronies! Time for truth to rein