‘End the war. End mass deportation. End the tariffs. End Republican control of Congress.’
Did Bill Kristol get reincarnated as a 60’s antiwar hippy? The Bill Kristol of the early 2000’s Bush era needs a time machine as I doubt that Bill Kristol would believe what he is writing now. Seeing Bill Kristol stick to his convictions, beliefs and values has been one of the true girts of an otherwise bad era and worth the price of admission to the Bulwark.
I had the great luck to meet Woke Bill Kristol in Minneapolis. A lovely man who has always spoken with integrity and conviction, even as his assessment of the world has shifted over time. Like all people of true integrity, he has that rare ability to question his own assumptions rather than simply digging in and defending them.
Most of us would rather stubbornly shut down rather than go through the humiliation of reexamining our own beliefs. There's an old saying to the effect that "It's easier to fool a man than to get him to admit he's been fooled," and that's pretty true for all of us: goodness knows it is a challenge for me, as a little old lady, to look back and realize how far off the mark some of my own beliefs and assumptions have been (luckily for me I have kids and grandkids who keep me up to the mark and make me rethink things on a regular basis).
We should never get too brittle or stubborn to reexamine our beliefs particularly when they fail. This is something Bill Kristol is teaching all of us.
Agreed! Even though there's times I was 100% against his views, I still respected him and thought he really wants what's best for our country. I think it would be cool to meet him! (and the rest of The Bulwark team!)
I agree! Watching people with strong and publicly stated beliefs react to reality, even when it might contradict personal motives, keeps me sane. This is integrity.
My understanding is that Bill is who drafted the PNAC manifesto--People for a New American Century. Published in 1997 and signed by a slew of people who were household names, or would become so in the aughts, it was a plan how to react to the dissolution of the USSR. In short, the plan was to promote democracy world-wide; it did not rule out unseating dictators like Saddam if that was necessary. Looking back, it was well-intended and just might have worked were it not for the devil lurking in the details. Anyway, I agree with your comment.
1) Amidst justification to wage war against Afghanistan for harboring Bib Laden, a justification had to be made up to attack Iraq. The WMD's were bullshit and everybody knew it. 2) Not disarming the Iraqi army.
Exactly. He's shown that you can be true to your Conservative beliefs and values but not be a cheerleader for a conservative party (today's GOP) that has gone astray.
I am a portrait type artist. But I have never done characters (based on over exaggeration)you often see at fairs. I must admit that it would be very tough for me to do, But I can imagine! The image of Bill now; with the slant of his eyes, his smile while at the same time, long strait hair would be awesome!
Actually you’re closer to the truth than you think. While the neocons weren’t hippies (they despised them), the movement grew out of the intellectual left—war hawks, so…..
At least that’s my understanding of the movement…:)
I believe it just shows how far right MAGA has drawn the center towards the right on their end. You can now be a small c conservative at heart but be considered liberal or woke for believing in small l liberal democracy.
I've always respected Ol' Bill in the fact that he always presented his argument in a rational, intelligent way. Did I agree with Ol' Bill? No, but I respected him. I'm really liking this new Bill. He shows that you still can be a Conservative but not be in lockstep with whatever is the current version of the GOP. He's not afraid to tell the GOP, even when he supported them, "Guys, you're pissing in the wind on this issue!".
I have always respected Bill. I remember him very well on the talk shows in the 80 s and 90 s. Like you pointed, I may not have agreed with him much, but I always liked his self deprecating sense of humor and the way He presented himself. He never demonized Democrats like FOX or others did at that time. (and still do)
We don’t have to agree with everyone and probably shouldn’t, but we can all learn who to disagree and still respect the person and learn from our disagreements and differing views.
We must be willing to change our opinions and positions in response to evidence. That is how we move forward, by the correction of error and by admitting that we were wrong.
I look at this poll and I truly wonder who these people are, if they pay attention to what is going on around them, do they go to the grocery store. The economy is tanking and absolutely everything trump has done since he took office has caused this. He is well on the way to crashing our economy like he did in his first term. Biden fixed that left us the best economy in the world. Remember W crashed the economy and Obama fixed it, the stupidity of Reganomics caught up with Bush I, Clinton fixed it and left us a balanced budget. Why in the name of all that is sane do people trust republicans more with the economy.
I would argue that racism plays a very big part in the GOP numbers. To wit: "tough on crime" for the GOP translates to: zealously prosecute brown and black people. White collar (so on the nose) crime that led to the 2008 crisis, meh. Economics: keep brown and black people from accumulating wealth. Immigration. keep brown and black people from "replacing" the white majority. They believe the GOP is defending white America.
Simon Rosenberg in Hopium Chronicles has been presenting graphs that demonstrate how much more effective Democratic administrations are than Republican ones in terms of job creation. For example, the data show that “Only 215,000 jobs have been created in America in Trump’s first fourteen months. This is less than the monthly average under Clinton and Biden”!
Democrats are more efficient at deporting people, too. In fact, I would argue that the items Republicans have the edge on with voters are things Democrats are better at than Republicans. What Republicans do is to shriek things endlessly to the point where a lot of low information voters believe it.
Deportation is where Trump most has the law on his side--even if not common sense. However, that does not extend to deporting asylum applicants, green card holders, and people in the process of naturalizing.
From his ride down the escalator; to the ''18 mid-terms, the GOP theme of which was Migrant Invasion; to Haitians eating pets in '24, it is Trump's most enduring theme. And it is the area in which he has been awarded the most Pinnochios by the WaPo Factchecker.
He's blowing it now, thanks to the decision to make deportations a reality teevee show.
I was reading a Quora entry from a Wyoming resident who notes how much of a bubble her fellows live in. She tries to read a wide range of news sources and seems thoughtful and open-minded, but she says others inhale the Fox spews.
I’m really curious if Dem Shawn Harris can break 40% in GA14 in the April election. He benefited from GOP splits, but that won’t happen in a 2-person race. (He almost certainly can’t win, but hey …)
Agree about Rs better at selling. They tell the People that Ds want to tax them and spend their hard-earned money for programs that support THOSE no-good, lazy people. That's the appeal - not jobs or deficits or employment.
A lot of these members are wealthy and can personally weather whatever storm they create. Trump has no idea what the average hundredaire and thousandaire are dealing with. He can only comprehend the stock market and the prices of a very few sectors.
Ah, come on. It’s not that big. Our neighbor Proxima Centauri b is a mere 4.24 light years away. If I hopped in a starship with state of the art propulsion technologies, I could reach Proxima in a mere 70,000 years. If I wasn’t a desiccated corpse at that point, I wouldn’t be able to stop in the system, because I wouldn’t have any fuel left.
The rocket equation and the Lorentz factor are brutal when it comes to dreams of interstellar flight. Not to mention the high energy bombardment of cosmic rays, the brutal effects of zero gravity on humans, etc.
Anyway, the universe is indeed mind bogglingly humungous.
Me too, JVL is always right! Sarah is far too nice to these distracted, illiterate halfwits. She may prove me wrong and they can change their minds and wake up to the causes of their own destruction but I very much doubt that will happen.
First of all, Everybody around DJT are millionaires and billionaires. So they are in their own bubble and aren't subject to what happens to the rest of us. Secondly, Republicans have become the party of tax cuts. (About the time of Reagan) Over time, (in voter's minds) the notion of tax cuts meant getting back money whereas Democrats wouldn't do that. All too simplistic. But it stuck. Easy to campaign on.
I think that’s because Republicans are seen as the party of business and lower taxes (more so if you’re a business), and Democrats more as the party of the huddled masses, the little guy. That was the reason I chose the Dems, anyway, way back when, having been raised in a home with no political discussions at all.
"...I truly wonder who these people are, if they pay attention to what is going on around them,...[Why] do sane people trust republicans more with the economy?"
People still pretend the words mean what they meant.
Growing up, in generally Republican areas but a Democratic household (or "democratic household" based on current meanings of words), the basic understanding of the world was that the only real difference was between political parties was being either fiscally conservative or fiscally liberal. And that boiled down to, "if it's good but it costs money, it's a liberal idea. If it's a cost saving measure it's Republican. But otherwise we get along."
This is how most people view the country as citizens. And it's all backed up by whatever bullshit you overheard growing up.
I don't know if it was true in the late 80s/early 90s, but that's how it felt. Based on this country's direction, I assume it felt that way because other kids had parents who spent their time lying to their children. I say this because I've had enough conversations to know people like that hide intentionally in plain sight because they wilt when pressed, and it's my experience with most MAGAs.
They aren't paying attention, but they do have personal investments in the jerseys of their team.
It's simple. Trump and his oligarch lords and ladies have the Devine Rights of Kings to all the world's wealth. So, get out of our way or get bombed, decapitated, imprisoned, deported and so forth. We are mighty. You are weak. You MUST learn to be happy to make personal sacrifices for our enrichment.
an American character actor known for his distinctive raspy, crackly voice and roles in Western films, including his role as Cookie, the sidekick of Roy Rogers
I tried to think of why the Sec. of Energy would have fabricated a story about the U.S. Navy escorting an oil tanker through the Strait of Hormuz, knowing it would quickly be debunked. The best I can come up with is that he was helping someone make a shit ton of money in the oil market. I hope and pray outlets like Propublica can find out if that's what happened.
That's a great point/question. I totally agree that it's very strange that he put that out and even stranger how quickly the administration wanted to snuff it out.
Another plausible scenario is that perhaps one of the ships we were escorting is currently on fire from Iranian attack. That would be some very bad news..."US escorted ship still gets hit by Iranian drones".
I think it’s also possible he was trying to reassure everyone that Trump was ensuring oil was going through so the world oil markets wouldn’t be TOO damaged. (Don’t panic!). He was trying to be helpful.
Here is why Americans should trust the Dems more than the Republicans on AI: Dems are more open to corporate regulation, and Dems are more open to wealth redistribution through the tax code.
My biggest immediate concern with AI is its potential to drastically exacerbate wealth inequality. There will be a small handful of people who reap ungodly amounts of money in productivity gains without humans workers in the loop, and there will be millions of sad and unemployed Sans Coulottes waiting in the wings to tear some oligarchs to shreds if given the opportunity. So, while there are certain aspects of AI that I do think need regulating, like the climate impacts of energy consumption and potential alignment misfires, where the machines start acting against our interests, I also think we need to try to push the limits on the technology, because our geopolitical adversaries will, and this is not something where we want to allow ourselves to lag behind.
What AI promises is huge gains in wealth; what government can decide is where that wealth ends up. There are at least two things we need to start talking about sooner rather than later: 1) UBI, how much to distribute and where the financing for it comes from, and 2) no more healthcare that's tied to employment - we need universal free healthcare.
There are two paths with AI: Lane one is dozens of trillionaires and millions of impoverished and hopeless, and lane two is government leveling the playing field by spreading the wealth with confiscatory tax policies. I prefer a world where we choose lane number two and people find meaning in activities other than their careers while we let automation take care of us. Unfortunately, I think we're so stupid as a country that voters will actively sabotage lane two in favor of lane number one, because Cletus thinks choosing lane two is the only thing preventing him from becoming one of the next trillionaires.
" Lane one is dozens of trillionaires and millions of impoverished and hopeless, " with guns. Something the Epstein Class seems to forget is just how many guns there are in private hands in the US.
I read a book called "Survival of the Richest" where the author begins the book by discussing a retreat he was invited to by billionaires where they asked him on how they would survive the apocalypse that they created. They walked through various scenarios about hiring security guards, paying them with post-apocalyptic cryptocurrency, and installing some level of computer safeguards on the security guards in order to prevent the guards from killing them (a ludicrous RoboCop scenario) or hoarding the food supply. When the author told them that the apocalypse was preventable by simply making sensible choices as well as giving their money to worthwhile causes and treating others as humans, the author got laughed at.
If there’s an apocalypse, I reckon I would like to be the head of security of one of these bloodsucker’s bunkers. I would promote myself to king of the bunker, and trillionaire douchebag, his family, and girlfriend, would be declared by my royal highness unnecessary to bunker functioning. If you know what I mean, and I think you do.
I will add this one caveat rooted in my own paranoia: Americans have the guns, but these technofascists control a sprawling surveillance apparatus. With that in mind, they can keep tabs on folks should they be so inclined, and leverage AI to assist them in that endeavor. They can control and monitor communications channels. They can see what we're buying and when. They can track us through our phones. They are constantly extracting information about us from us, and we've become utterly helpless without the very tools they can use to keep us docile. They can make organized resistance virtually impossible.
Organized, sure. But "lone wolf" attacks have become pretty much the norm. And at some point there are enough troublemakers that the apparatus can't control them all, even if it can track them. The problem of having too many targets.
Sort of like how Ukrainian drones are defeating the Russians, or how Iran is defeating the US.
I agree completely, but see no one. making those sorts of arguments and while the Democrats are more *open* to regulation they have mostly just nibbled around the edges while taking corporate money. Over the past several decades when it comes down to protecting company interests over those of workers, our government has almost always gone for the former which is why regulating AI which should have a Democratic advantage but doesn’t. Winning AI won’t merely be about advocating regulation as the industry has demonstrated they will fight that tooth and nail, but it will be about creating a vision of how to make AI benefit everyone and that the profits and efficiencies from AI will not be limited to a few as you note above. Whoever managed that trick would come out ahead.
Yeah, if Democrats don't get out there and make the argument Republicans will sneak in and steal the momentum from them, even as they're enacting policy contrary to the arguments that they make.
Completely unrelated and far less impactful, but it reminds me of cannabis legalization. For years and years Dems were the party nominally more favorably disposed to its legalization, and yet they've done little to move the ball forward on national legalization, even when they've had legislative majorities and the presidency. Then Trump mutters some murmurings on legalization while campaigning, and that ingratiates him further with the bros who got hoodwinked and swept him into office a second time. Meanwhile, the Republican Congress has put hemp-derived THC seltzers and gummies on the chopping block.
AI is a populist cudgel. Convince the unconvinced voters that it's a threat to their way of life, tell them you're going to fix it by putting the thumb screws on the people responsible for upending their way of life. And if you're elected, do everything in your power to make good on your word.
I think that part of the future is the present and near future, and ultimately the future will take humans out of the equation entirely, as just adding noise to a system that can be much faster, more efficient, and more accurate without the human slowing things down and mucking things up.
This human/computer combo was an actual thing in chess temporarily, but then computer chess engines like Stockfish and Alpha Zero quickly advanced to the point that the human component added nothing, and in fact became a liability against just a chess engine minus the human. When Deep Mind created Alpha Zero, the training technique they used basically produced an invincible chess engine out of nothing within hours (it was either four or eight hours, I don't recall), and it did it by just playing games against itself over and over again and learning. And while chess engines are supreme in a very limited domain, I think the lessons will still apply as AIs continue encroaching in other human vocations.
Either that or Cletus realizes that he's getting screwed over by one of the trillionaires but still will side with the trillionaires in order to screw over an immigrant or a minority.
We spend a trillion dollars a year on the military and we're running out of ammo after TEN days?!? WTF!! If China wants to invade Taiwan I can't think of a better time than right now! The evangelicals may be getting the Armageddon they seem to desperately want...
I'm guessing that this attack of Iran decision will be one of the most studied strategic blunders of the history of war. We have a POTUS who acts like his control of the military is the same as a TV addict with a remote control in his hand. He keeps pushing the buttons until he finds something better...in this case...you only have so many pushes until you're out of ammo.
That seems like a real possibility before Jan 2029. There is a lot of debate about how realistic an invasion of Taiwan is but as far as geopolitical timing with regard to the US is concerned it's got to be about as good of a time as there will ever be.
The thing about the military is, they would rather buy a new super lethal, exquisite weapon system. That’s the sexy promotion fuel for flag rank superstars. Nobody is going to get their fourth star bragging about how big our munitions stocks are.
It’s the human curse of having to learn bloody lessons for ourselves, despite lessons from history. Wars eat people and munitions at a dizzying rate. Plus, the chumps in charge often think the war will be short.
War is like grabbing a ravenous wolf by the ears. You have a hold of it, but you aren’t really in control, and how do you let go?
"Apropos of nothing, the Trump administration’s official explanation of why previous wars went wrong is that we had stupid people in charge." Thanks, Trump and Hegseth, for making that point!
The biggest mistake we're making is considering "AI" a thing. First, we need to start expressing "AI" as "Algorithmic Intelligence," or better yet, "Algorithmic Technology" and not abbreviated to AT. The technology being described is the use of advanced computer programs, notably incorporating machine learning, to analyze and put to other uses vast databases, all enabled by the latest chips. It's a continuation of automation and augmentation software that I've seen over the past 50 years as STEM knowledge and skills accumulate. "Artificial Intelligence" is part of the hype and "AI" itself just a marketing ploy slapped on just about anything computer related. Worth noting I think that "artificial" means "fake, false, mechanical, simulated, pseudo." The discourse will be more constructive if we can be more precise in the names we use.
I'm not super concerned at this moment from AI taking everyone's jobs (I'm more concerned about obscene AI spending resulting in a bubble), but I'm convinced the people running these companies are morons when it comes to the politics of all this. So many of these AI execs have gone out and practically bragged about AI's potential ability to take everyone's jobs, and numerous tech companies are using it as an excuse for huge job cuts that are actually due to overhiring during the pandemic/juicing stock prices. Just look at Jack Dorsey's Block last week, which gutted its workforce. Firing a bunch of people for "shareholder value" and suggesting you'll be giving more work to AI "agents"? That's radicalizing people, and it's not hard to imagine some Bernie-style populist campaigning hard against this stuff in 2 years.
Regarding the Dodge bro data breach, I got a letter in the mail yesterday telling me my kids info was breached, including his SSN. I was assured in the letter nothing untoward was done with his data. The letter was dated December 12, 2025. The data breach was in January 2025.
I've had my data breached so many times that I've lost count. Just hoping to avoid issues by sheer odds against me being the one they take advantage of. Terrible strategy but I just figure it's part of the way of life these days. Like driving your car in traffic...no choice, inherently risky but low odds. Not zero...just low.
The Bulwark’s take on the "AI Apocalypse" is like a CTO buying a $50M enterprise license to fix a problem that could be solved by a single 'if' statement.
In "AI Apocalypse Looms," the DoD’s panic over Anthropic is pure theater. They’re treating a domestic LLM like it’s a stolen nuclear core, but in reality, we’re just watching the ultimate Vendor Lock-in play out at the federal level. Invoking the Defense Production Act because a lab won't give you the "secret sauce" isn’t national security; it’s just a government temper tantrum because they can’t find the Undo button on their own outsourcing strategy. We’ve built a defense posture that’s essentially a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack on our own innovation, run by people who think "The Cloud" is an actual weather pattern.
As for "Everybody Hates AI," it’s the inevitable result of shipping Vaporware at scale. We were promised AGI that would solve cancer; instead, we got a chatbot that hallucinates fake case law and tries to sell us NFTs. The "vibe shift" isn't complicated: the public is tired of being the unpaid QA department for a product that’s 10% math and 90% marketing. We’ve traded deterministic software that actually works for a Black-Box Lottery where you have to "prompt engineer" (read: beg) the machine to not lie to you.
The real threat isn't Skynet; it’s the fact that we’ve handed the keys to our infrastructure to a bunch of over-funded pattern-matchers that can't pass a basic Sanity Check without a human babysitter. We aren’t "blowing it" because the tech is too scary; we’re blowing it because we’re trying to build a future on code that’s basically just high-speed autocorrect on steroids.
For more deep dives into the over-engineered failures of the modern tech stack, check out ModernCYPH3R.com. Because if we’re going to hit the wall, we might as well understand the physics of the crash.
I have to admit, I'm not sure what the appropriate response is to an AI-generated pseudo-critique (and sly piece of cross-advertising) on my piece about the coming AI singularity! What a time to be alive!
Honestly, I've stopped using ChatGPT because I found that it was giving me information that was wrong. The only thing I found it to be valuable for was the brief entertainment value I got from just making silly pictures I thought up in my head (like Martin Luther wearing a shirt saying "Straight Outta Wittenberg").
Completely true!! Also - AI is a computer program that has to be compiled into machine language 'cause computers are mechanical devices and that's how they work
I appreciate the more nuanced take of the AI issue. Do you have any concern that people that don't care...outside the US...will give AI too much freedom?
I guess that I have been blown away by how fast AI has developed and I'm not seeing much of a ceiling for it except for what we put there. Not everyone is going to want that ceiling there.
just remember the endless amount of time Rs spent on Hillary and her server. this is an enormous govt data breach under current law. and crickets…. we are fucked.
If the majority of Americans trust the Republicans with border security, immigration, and crime, then the majority of Americans are blind bigots complicit in the crimes of Donald Trump, and should be completely happy when both the economy and democracy fail. They will deserve their suffering. The rest of us will just have to put up with whatever hellscape looms because of these people, and never let them forget what they did. I'm am sick to death of these "Americans."
‘End the war. End mass deportation. End the tariffs. End Republican control of Congress.’
Did Bill Kristol get reincarnated as a 60’s antiwar hippy? The Bill Kristol of the early 2000’s Bush era needs a time machine as I doubt that Bill Kristol would believe what he is writing now. Seeing Bill Kristol stick to his convictions, beliefs and values has been one of the true girts of an otherwise bad era and worth the price of admission to the Bulwark.
"Woke Bill Kristol" is best Bill Kristol
I had the great luck to meet Woke Bill Kristol in Minneapolis. A lovely man who has always spoken with integrity and conviction, even as his assessment of the world has shifted over time. Like all people of true integrity, he has that rare ability to question his own assumptions rather than simply digging in and defending them.
Most of us would rather stubbornly shut down rather than go through the humiliation of reexamining our own beliefs. There's an old saying to the effect that "It's easier to fool a man than to get him to admit he's been fooled," and that's pretty true for all of us: goodness knows it is a challenge for me, as a little old lady, to look back and realize how far off the mark some of my own beliefs and assumptions have been (luckily for me I have kids and grandkids who keep me up to the mark and make me rethink things on a regular basis).
Bill is at core a good man. Always has been.
We should never get too brittle or stubborn to reexamine our beliefs particularly when they fail. This is something Bill Kristol is teaching all of us.
Agreed! Even though there's times I was 100% against his views, I still respected him and thought he really wants what's best for our country. I think it would be cool to meet him! (and the rest of The Bulwark team!)
I agree! Watching people with strong and publicly stated beliefs react to reality, even when it might contradict personal motives, keeps me sane. This is integrity.
My understanding is that Bill is who drafted the PNAC manifesto--People for a New American Century. Published in 1997 and signed by a slew of people who were household names, or would become so in the aughts, it was a plan how to react to the dissolution of the USSR. In short, the plan was to promote democracy world-wide; it did not rule out unseating dictators like Saddam if that was necessary. Looking back, it was well-intended and just might have worked were it not for the devil lurking in the details. Anyway, I agree with your comment.
Just curious - what do you think those details were?
1) Amidst justification to wage war against Afghanistan for harboring Bib Laden, a justification had to be made up to attack Iraq. The WMD's were bullshit and everybody knew it. 2) Not disarming the Iraqi army.
No, Bill Kristol has remained true to his conservative values. Trump never had them.
Exactly. He's shown that you can be true to your Conservative beliefs and values but not be a cheerleader for a conservative party (today's GOP) that has gone astray.
The GOP is now a reactionary personality cult. Nothing conservative about it.
To alter Reagan's quote: I didn't leave conservatives. They left me.
I was just thinking the same thing! Next thing you know, Bill will be getting clean for Gene.
Bill in long hair, quite and image! Somewhere AI should create that!
Well, drat. I had Midjourney draw me a nice pic of hippy Bill, but I can't figure out how to share it here!
I am a portrait type artist. But I have never done characters (based on over exaggeration)you often see at fairs. I must admit that it would be very tough for me to do, But I can imagine! The image of Bill now; with the slant of his eyes, his smile while at the same time, long strait hair would be awesome!
That's exactly how MJ made him look. Sigh, if you figure out how I can share it, please let me know!
Actually you’re closer to the truth than you think. While the neocons weren’t hippies (they despised them), the movement grew out of the intellectual left—war hawks, so…..
At least that’s my understanding of the movement…:)
I believe it just shows how far right MAGA has drawn the center towards the right on their end. You can now be a small c conservative at heart but be considered liberal or woke for believing in small l liberal democracy.
Historically liberalism could operate in either more left or right environments and certainly libertarianism draws heavily ok classical liberalism.
I've always respected Ol' Bill in the fact that he always presented his argument in a rational, intelligent way. Did I agree with Ol' Bill? No, but I respected him. I'm really liking this new Bill. He shows that you still can be a Conservative but not be in lockstep with whatever is the current version of the GOP. He's not afraid to tell the GOP, even when he supported them, "Guys, you're pissing in the wind on this issue!".
I have always respected Bill. I remember him very well on the talk shows in the 80 s and 90 s. Like you pointed, I may not have agreed with him much, but I always liked his self deprecating sense of humor and the way He presented himself. He never demonized Democrats like FOX or others did at that time. (and still do)
We don’t have to agree with everyone and probably shouldn’t, but we can all learn who to disagree and still respect the person and learn from our disagreements and differing views.
We must be willing to change our opinions and positions in response to evidence. That is how we move forward, by the correction of error and by admitting that we were wrong.
I look at this poll and I truly wonder who these people are, if they pay attention to what is going on around them, do they go to the grocery store. The economy is tanking and absolutely everything trump has done since he took office has caused this. He is well on the way to crashing our economy like he did in his first term. Biden fixed that left us the best economy in the world. Remember W crashed the economy and Obama fixed it, the stupidity of Reganomics caught up with Bush I, Clinton fixed it and left us a balanced budget. Why in the name of all that is sane do people trust republicans more with the economy.
I would argue that racism plays a very big part in the GOP numbers. To wit: "tough on crime" for the GOP translates to: zealously prosecute brown and black people. White collar (so on the nose) crime that led to the 2008 crisis, meh. Economics: keep brown and black people from accumulating wealth. Immigration. keep brown and black people from "replacing" the white majority. They believe the GOP is defending white America.
Simon Rosenberg in Hopium Chronicles has been presenting graphs that demonstrate how much more effective Democratic administrations are than Republican ones in terms of job creation. For example, the data show that “Only 215,000 jobs have been created in America in Trump’s first fourteen months. This is less than the monthly average under Clinton and Biden”!
https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/a-disastrous-jobs-report-russia-is
The Republicans have just been too good at selling their lie that the government wastes all the tax dollars it receives and tax cuts are the cure.
Democrats are more efficient at deporting people, too. In fact, I would argue that the items Republicans have the edge on with voters are things Democrats are better at than Republicans. What Republicans do is to shriek things endlessly to the point where a lot of low information voters believe it.
Deportation is where Trump most has the law on his side--even if not common sense. However, that does not extend to deporting asylum applicants, green card holders, and people in the process of naturalizing.
From his ride down the escalator; to the ''18 mid-terms, the GOP theme of which was Migrant Invasion; to Haitians eating pets in '24, it is Trump's most enduring theme. And it is the area in which he has been awarded the most Pinnochios by the WaPo Factchecker.
He's blowing it now, thanks to the decision to make deportations a reality teevee show.
Thank you, you said it way better than me
I was reading a Quora entry from a Wyoming resident who notes how much of a bubble her fellows live in. She tries to read a wide range of news sources and seems thoughtful and open-minded, but she says others inhale the Fox spews.
I’m really curious if Dem Shawn Harris can break 40% in GA14 in the April election. He benefited from GOP splits, but that won’t happen in a 2-person race. (He almost certainly can’t win, but hey …)
Agree about Rs better at selling. They tell the People that Ds want to tax them and spend their hard-earned money for programs that support THOSE no-good, lazy people. That's the appeal - not jobs or deficits or employment.
It is not only jobs created by Democrats, but also economic growth and deficits that have favored Democrats since 1900.
A lot of these members are wealthy and can personally weather whatever storm they create. Trump has no idea what the average hundredaire and thousandaire are dealing with. He can only comprehend the stock market and the prices of a very few sectors.
Like I said previously, DJT administration are millionaires and billionaires in their own cocoon.
Very true. If they are doing well, then so is everyone else apparently.
It's like trying to comprehend the vastness of the universe.....
Ah, come on. It’s not that big. Our neighbor Proxima Centauri b is a mere 4.24 light years away. If I hopped in a starship with state of the art propulsion technologies, I could reach Proxima in a mere 70,000 years. If I wasn’t a desiccated corpse at that point, I wouldn’t be able to stop in the system, because I wouldn’t have any fuel left.
The rocket equation and the Lorentz factor are brutal when it comes to dreams of interstellar flight. Not to mention the high energy bombardment of cosmic rays, the brutal effects of zero gravity on humans, etc.
Anyway, the universe is indeed mind bogglingly humungous.
Having read the other comments, I will be more succinct - They are "the common clay of the West - you know, morons."
Had I seen this, prior to writing my response, I would have deferred to this answer as the correct one.
It’s my go to response for all questions about the American public because I am an unrelenting elitist snob, but not wrong.
I mean, it's how I came to The Bulwark. JVL says the quite part out loud.
Me too, JVL is always right! Sarah is far too nice to these distracted, illiterate halfwits. She may prove me wrong and they can change their minds and wake up to the causes of their own destruction but I very much doubt that will happen.
We need Sarah's in the world to talk the JVLs of the world off of the ledge.
First of all, Everybody around DJT are millionaires and billionaires. So they are in their own bubble and aren't subject to what happens to the rest of us. Secondly, Republicans have become the party of tax cuts. (About the time of Reagan) Over time, (in voter's minds) the notion of tax cuts meant getting back money whereas Democrats wouldn't do that. All too simplistic. But it stuck. Easy to campaign on.
I think that’s because Republicans are seen as the party of business and lower taxes (more so if you’re a business), and Democrats more as the party of the huddled masses, the little guy. That was the reason I chose the Dems, anyway, way back when, having been raised in a home with no political discussions at all.
"...I truly wonder who these people are, if they pay attention to what is going on around them,...[Why] do sane people trust republicans more with the economy?"
1) Your "average" American.
2) No.
3) They dumb.
People still pretend the words mean what they meant.
Growing up, in generally Republican areas but a Democratic household (or "democratic household" based on current meanings of words), the basic understanding of the world was that the only real difference was between political parties was being either fiscally conservative or fiscally liberal. And that boiled down to, "if it's good but it costs money, it's a liberal idea. If it's a cost saving measure it's Republican. But otherwise we get along."
This is how most people view the country as citizens. And it's all backed up by whatever bullshit you overheard growing up.
I don't know if it was true in the late 80s/early 90s, but that's how it felt. Based on this country's direction, I assume it felt that way because other kids had parents who spent their time lying to their children. I say this because I've had enough conversations to know people like that hide intentionally in plain sight because they wilt when pressed, and it's my experience with most MAGAs.
They aren't paying attention, but they do have personal investments in the jerseys of their team.
Everyone knows Republicans are better for the economy!!!!!
/conventional wisdom
It's simple. Trump and his oligarch lords and ladies have the Devine Rights of Kings to all the world's wealth. So, get out of our way or get bombed, decapitated, imprisoned, deported and so forth. We are mighty. You are weak. You MUST learn to be happy to make personal sacrifices for our enrichment.
YHANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!
Would that be Andy Devine?
Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Andy_Devine
an American character actor known for his distinctive raspy, crackly voice and roles in Western films, including his role as Cookie, the sidekick of Roy Rogers
I tried to think of why the Sec. of Energy would have fabricated a story about the U.S. Navy escorting an oil tanker through the Strait of Hormuz, knowing it would quickly be debunked. The best I can come up with is that he was helping someone make a shit ton of money in the oil market. I hope and pray outlets like Propublica can find out if that's what happened.
That's a great point/question. I totally agree that it's very strange that he put that out and even stranger how quickly the administration wanted to snuff it out.
Another plausible scenario is that perhaps one of the ships we were escorting is currently on fire from Iranian attack. That would be some very bad news..."US escorted ship still gets hit by Iranian drones".
There's also the possibility that he picked up some false info on X and like everyone assumed it was correct.
I think it’s also possible he was trying to reassure everyone that Trump was ensuring oil was going through so the world oil markets wouldn’t be TOO damaged. (Don’t panic!). He was trying to be helpful.
Here is why Americans should trust the Dems more than the Republicans on AI: Dems are more open to corporate regulation, and Dems are more open to wealth redistribution through the tax code.
My biggest immediate concern with AI is its potential to drastically exacerbate wealth inequality. There will be a small handful of people who reap ungodly amounts of money in productivity gains without humans workers in the loop, and there will be millions of sad and unemployed Sans Coulottes waiting in the wings to tear some oligarchs to shreds if given the opportunity. So, while there are certain aspects of AI that I do think need regulating, like the climate impacts of energy consumption and potential alignment misfires, where the machines start acting against our interests, I also think we need to try to push the limits on the technology, because our geopolitical adversaries will, and this is not something where we want to allow ourselves to lag behind.
What AI promises is huge gains in wealth; what government can decide is where that wealth ends up. There are at least two things we need to start talking about sooner rather than later: 1) UBI, how much to distribute and where the financing for it comes from, and 2) no more healthcare that's tied to employment - we need universal free healthcare.
There are two paths with AI: Lane one is dozens of trillionaires and millions of impoverished and hopeless, and lane two is government leveling the playing field by spreading the wealth with confiscatory tax policies. I prefer a world where we choose lane number two and people find meaning in activities other than their careers while we let automation take care of us. Unfortunately, I think we're so stupid as a country that voters will actively sabotage lane two in favor of lane number one, because Cletus thinks choosing lane two is the only thing preventing him from becoming one of the next trillionaires.
" Lane one is dozens of trillionaires and millions of impoverished and hopeless, " with guns. Something the Epstein Class seems to forget is just how many guns there are in private hands in the US.
Or seem to think that they just pay people off because they can't imagine anyone not doing something for money.
Indeed, some of us can’t be bought, or bullied by these super nerd freaks.
I read a book called "Survival of the Richest" where the author begins the book by discussing a retreat he was invited to by billionaires where they asked him on how they would survive the apocalypse that they created. They walked through various scenarios about hiring security guards, paying them with post-apocalyptic cryptocurrency, and installing some level of computer safeguards on the security guards in order to prevent the guards from killing them (a ludicrous RoboCop scenario) or hoarding the food supply. When the author told them that the apocalypse was preventable by simply making sensible choices as well as giving their money to worthwhile causes and treating others as humans, the author got laughed at.
If there’s an apocalypse, I reckon I would like to be the head of security of one of these bloodsucker’s bunkers. I would promote myself to king of the bunker, and trillionaire douchebag, his family, and girlfriend, would be declared by my royal highness unnecessary to bunker functioning. If you know what I mean, and I think you do.
We need to be smart: take the money first and then give them the opposite of what they thought they bought
I will add this one caveat rooted in my own paranoia: Americans have the guns, but these technofascists control a sprawling surveillance apparatus. With that in mind, they can keep tabs on folks should they be so inclined, and leverage AI to assist them in that endeavor. They can control and monitor communications channels. They can see what we're buying and when. They can track us through our phones. They are constantly extracting information about us from us, and we've become utterly helpless without the very tools they can use to keep us docile. They can make organized resistance virtually impossible.
Organized, sure. But "lone wolf" attacks have become pretty much the norm. And at some point there are enough troublemakers that the apparatus can't control them all, even if it can track them. The problem of having too many targets.
Sort of like how Ukrainian drones are defeating the Russians, or how Iran is defeating the US.
I agree completely, but see no one. making those sorts of arguments and while the Democrats are more *open* to regulation they have mostly just nibbled around the edges while taking corporate money. Over the past several decades when it comes down to protecting company interests over those of workers, our government has almost always gone for the former which is why regulating AI which should have a Democratic advantage but doesn’t. Winning AI won’t merely be about advocating regulation as the industry has demonstrated they will fight that tooth and nail, but it will be about creating a vision of how to make AI benefit everyone and that the profits and efficiencies from AI will not be limited to a few as you note above. Whoever managed that trick would come out ahead.
Yeah, if Democrats don't get out there and make the argument Republicans will sneak in and steal the momentum from them, even as they're enacting policy contrary to the arguments that they make.
Completely unrelated and far less impactful, but it reminds me of cannabis legalization. For years and years Dems were the party nominally more favorably disposed to its legalization, and yet they've done little to move the ball forward on national legalization, even when they've had legislative majorities and the presidency. Then Trump mutters some murmurings on legalization while campaigning, and that ingratiates him further with the bros who got hoodwinked and swept him into office a second time. Meanwhile, the Republican Congress has put hemp-derived THC seltzers and gummies on the chopping block.
AI is a populist cudgel. Convince the unconvinced voters that it's a threat to their way of life, tell them you're going to fix it by putting the thumb screws on the people responsible for upending their way of life. And if you're elected, do everything in your power to make good on your word.
I wonder whether in the future people will work as the human half of cyborgs. That seems already to be true in the area of computer programming,
I think that part of the future is the present and near future, and ultimately the future will take humans out of the equation entirely, as just adding noise to a system that can be much faster, more efficient, and more accurate without the human slowing things down and mucking things up.
This human/computer combo was an actual thing in chess temporarily, but then computer chess engines like Stockfish and Alpha Zero quickly advanced to the point that the human component added nothing, and in fact became a liability against just a chess engine minus the human. When Deep Mind created Alpha Zero, the training technique they used basically produced an invincible chess engine out of nothing within hours (it was either four or eight hours, I don't recall), and it did it by just playing games against itself over and over again and learning. And while chess engines are supreme in a very limited domain, I think the lessons will still apply as AIs continue encroaching in other human vocations.
Either that or Cletus realizes that he's getting screwed over by one of the trillionaires but still will side with the trillionaires in order to screw over an immigrant or a minority.
We spend a trillion dollars a year on the military and we're running out of ammo after TEN days?!? WTF!! If China wants to invade Taiwan I can't think of a better time than right now! The evangelicals may be getting the Armageddon they seem to desperately want...
I'm guessing that this attack of Iran decision will be one of the most studied strategic blunders of the history of war. We have a POTUS who acts like his control of the military is the same as a TV addict with a remote control in his hand. He keeps pushing the buttons until he finds something better...in this case...you only have so many pushes until you're out of ammo.
There's always nukes.
The President has been itching to order those for 10 years.
Let's hope that Trump doesn't know where that button is on the remote.
Let's hope he doesn't mistake it for the diet coke button
That seems like a real possibility before Jan 2029. There is a lot of debate about how realistic an invasion of Taiwan is but as far as geopolitical timing with regard to the US is concerned it's got to be about as good of a time as there will ever be.
Well...possibly Xi is looking at the Iran debacle and doing a serious cost-benefit analysis about an invasion of Taiwan.
The thing about the military is, they would rather buy a new super lethal, exquisite weapon system. That’s the sexy promotion fuel for flag rank superstars. Nobody is going to get their fourth star bragging about how big our munitions stocks are.
It’s the human curse of having to learn bloody lessons for ourselves, despite lessons from history. Wars eat people and munitions at a dizzying rate. Plus, the chumps in charge often think the war will be short.
War is like grabbing a ravenous wolf by the ears. You have a hold of it, but you aren’t really in control, and how do you let go?
"Apropos of nothing, the Trump administration’s official explanation of why previous wars went wrong is that we had stupid people in charge." Thanks, Trump and Hegseth, for making that point!
🤦♀️
"End the war. End mass deportation. End the tariffs. End Republican control of Congress."
The Democrats do overthink everything and Bill's messaging is a winning gift they will probably not accept, sadly.
The biggest mistake we're making is considering "AI" a thing. First, we need to start expressing "AI" as "Algorithmic Intelligence," or better yet, "Algorithmic Technology" and not abbreviated to AT. The technology being described is the use of advanced computer programs, notably incorporating machine learning, to analyze and put to other uses vast databases, all enabled by the latest chips. It's a continuation of automation and augmentation software that I've seen over the past 50 years as STEM knowledge and skills accumulate. "Artificial Intelligence" is part of the hype and "AI" itself just a marketing ploy slapped on just about anything computer related. Worth noting I think that "artificial" means "fake, false, mechanical, simulated, pseudo." The discourse will be more constructive if we can be more precise in the names we use.
I'm not super concerned at this moment from AI taking everyone's jobs (I'm more concerned about obscene AI spending resulting in a bubble), but I'm convinced the people running these companies are morons when it comes to the politics of all this. So many of these AI execs have gone out and practically bragged about AI's potential ability to take everyone's jobs, and numerous tech companies are using it as an excuse for huge job cuts that are actually due to overhiring during the pandemic/juicing stock prices. Just look at Jack Dorsey's Block last week, which gutted its workforce. Firing a bunch of people for "shareholder value" and suggesting you'll be giving more work to AI "agents"? That's radicalizing people, and it's not hard to imagine some Bernie-style populist campaigning hard against this stuff in 2 years.
At the moment I'm a bit more concerned about WWIII than I am about the ramifications of AI....
People should know how accurate your paragraph is.
Regarding the Dodge bro data breach, I got a letter in the mail yesterday telling me my kids info was breached, including his SSN. I was assured in the letter nothing untoward was done with his data. The letter was dated December 12, 2025. The data breach was in January 2025.
Does not inspire any confidence.
I've had my data breached so many times that I've lost count. Just hoping to avoid issues by sheer odds against me being the one they take advantage of. Terrible strategy but I just figure it's part of the way of life these days. Like driving your car in traffic...no choice, inherently risky but low odds. Not zero...just low.
I totally agree. :)
If you can't read the WaPo article due to the paywall, here's a TechCrunch article based on the WaPo story: https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/10/doge-employee-stole-social-security-data-and-put-it-on-a-thumb-drive-report-says/
Thank you for this article!
So Thune and Roberts are democracy's backstop. Oh boy
🤦♀️😫🤪
The Bulwark’s take on the "AI Apocalypse" is like a CTO buying a $50M enterprise license to fix a problem that could be solved by a single 'if' statement.
In "AI Apocalypse Looms," the DoD’s panic over Anthropic is pure theater. They’re treating a domestic LLM like it’s a stolen nuclear core, but in reality, we’re just watching the ultimate Vendor Lock-in play out at the federal level. Invoking the Defense Production Act because a lab won't give you the "secret sauce" isn’t national security; it’s just a government temper tantrum because they can’t find the Undo button on their own outsourcing strategy. We’ve built a defense posture that’s essentially a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack on our own innovation, run by people who think "The Cloud" is an actual weather pattern.
As for "Everybody Hates AI," it’s the inevitable result of shipping Vaporware at scale. We were promised AGI that would solve cancer; instead, we got a chatbot that hallucinates fake case law and tries to sell us NFTs. The "vibe shift" isn't complicated: the public is tired of being the unpaid QA department for a product that’s 10% math and 90% marketing. We’ve traded deterministic software that actually works for a Black-Box Lottery where you have to "prompt engineer" (read: beg) the machine to not lie to you.
The real threat isn't Skynet; it’s the fact that we’ve handed the keys to our infrastructure to a bunch of over-funded pattern-matchers that can't pass a basic Sanity Check without a human babysitter. We aren’t "blowing it" because the tech is too scary; we’re blowing it because we’re trying to build a future on code that’s basically just high-speed autocorrect on steroids.
For more deep dives into the over-engineered failures of the modern tech stack, check out ModernCYPH3R.com. Because if we’re going to hit the wall, we might as well understand the physics of the crash.
I have to admit, I'm not sure what the appropriate response is to an AI-generated pseudo-critique (and sly piece of cross-advertising) on my piece about the coming AI singularity! What a time to be alive!
Honestly, I've stopped using ChatGPT because I found that it was giving me information that was wrong. The only thing I found it to be valuable for was the brief entertainment value I got from just making silly pictures I thought up in my head (like Martin Luther wearing a shirt saying "Straight Outta Wittenberg").
Completely true!! Also - AI is a computer program that has to be compiled into machine language 'cause computers are mechanical devices and that's how they work
I appreciate the more nuanced take of the AI issue. Do you have any concern that people that don't care...outside the US...will give AI too much freedom?
I guess that I have been blown away by how fast AI has developed and I'm not seeing much of a ceiling for it except for what we put there. Not everyone is going to want that ceiling there.
just remember the endless amount of time Rs spent on Hillary and her server. this is an enormous govt data breach under current law. and crickets…. we are fucked.
If the majority of Americans trust the Republicans with border security, immigration, and crime, then the majority of Americans are blind bigots complicit in the crimes of Donald Trump, and should be completely happy when both the economy and democracy fail. They will deserve their suffering. The rest of us will just have to put up with whatever hellscape looms because of these people, and never let them forget what they did. I'm am sick to death of these "Americans."
As Tim says, it fits on a hat!: "End the war. End mass deportation. End the tariffs."