Not necessarily on the subject of this newsletter, when I awoke early this morning, Axios was reporting that the DHS-less bill the Senate was ready to vote for was jammed up because Lindsay Graham wanted to add back the right for Senators to sue for having their phone records subpoenaed by Jack Smith.
Now, perhaps unlike most people reading this Newsletter, I really despise the hypo-creepical Graham and think, if this is still the case, attention should be drawn to the fact in a big way. So far, what I've seen on the news is simply unnamed Senators wanting to add stuff.
Not for nothing, but wouldn't basically *everyone* hate that he's doing this?
HATE that he’s my senator. I call his office regularly, and you can only leave a voicemail. He’s one of the biggest cowards and an embarrassment to South Carolina, among many others. He’s been in that office way too long to be anything but the worst.
And I am glad that they are being inundated. It means people are calling.
It's the same for my Representative as well. I don't think it matters. I think we give our short opinion (why waste my time?) and go on to other things. They only want to know what side of an issue people are on. I started calling once a week. I am now up to 3 times a week.
All citizens are subject to judicial subpoenas. Why should Senators or Congress be excluded. Has Lindsey Graham suffered from that in someway? If anything this has brought him closer to his golfing buddy Trump, and he just wants his share of the grift.
What I find personally offensive about Lap Dog Graham is that he is a retired JAG officer with the Air Force. Why isn't Personal Pet Pete seeking to reduce his retirement pay and grade?
I would hope tipper you are not the only one who throws up in your mouth at the thought of that weasel (sorry weasels, you have a bad reputation, too).
“Hypo-creepical”- I like that! Trump’s suing the IRS and Treasury Department, meaning he would personally get our tax dollars. Why shouldn’t senators be able to make money off this mess, too?
And I'm pretty sure the pool of recruits for ICE is largely composed of domestic terrorists like J6ers, III percenters, Proud Boys, Boogaloo Boys, Aryan Nationers, various other white supremacist organizations.
From what I’ve read, they have a history of helping at Olympics with international security, and human and drug trafficking, but they used to dress and act like actual , jacketed FBI agents, not jackbooted thugs.
The Italian government has restricted ICE to diplomatic premises or coordination centers during Olympics. ICE is explicitly banned from street patrols or immigration enforcement on Italian soil. The Foreign Minister compared ICE to the SS, per NPR. They are not having it!
I wish! Wonder what they are going to wear? I can’t imagine it’s their Fallujah action hero costumes…what about masks? Seems the Italian government or Olympic Committee would have a dress code. 🤷♀️
I understand ICE typically accompanies our leaders as security when traveling internationally. Presumably the Secret Service needs more assistance to scope out dangers abroad.
Reading about the incident in Maine, I keep tripping over the word asylum seeker. As in here legally undergoing the legal immigration process. And more importantly, NOT a criminal. After the repeated OFFICIAL references to deporting 100 million people, maybe the whole country can stop pretending that this is about illegal immigration.
And really, what kind of POS marauder abandons a woman and child by the roadside in the cold? Other stories have emerged of thugs breaking windows, pulling people from vehicles, and leaving the damaged vehicles with personal belonging by the roadside for the local police to attend to. This, sanctioned by our government. What have we become? If you aren't speaking up, what kind of person are you?
When I was on the job, abandoning an arrestees property would have led to an internal affairs investigation, and being ordered to appear before a judge to explain ourselves. It would have been bad for us. Real bad. Obviously, these dirtbags are running wild. Hell, maybe they are being told to do it. They must be held accountable.
Unfortunately millions of people think, "its about time that the someone did something about "those" people." Trump has low approval, but its still significant.
Absolutely, NSNC. So too is five-year old Liam Ramos's father an asylum seeker who has been in the midst of the process. Now Liam is in detention with his father, and apparently the facility is saying he is depressed. What a shock and I am sure they know how to help and are providing it. Forget the PTSD that poor kid will live with ... let alone the PTSD countless children (and adults) will carry for generations because of this.
another home grown white rapist or molester from one of the Carolinas was just
in MN messin' with a young teen, I think he is arrested. yeah, all rapist are on the street mexicans, that was abbott actually said, what a idiot, some are in the apartment next door, like a brother in law- just an example
I hope this factoid is getting around: last year in Mpls, a police force not generally known for its self-restraint, had ZERO officers discharge their weapons. ZERO police fired their guns for a whole year. ICE killed two people with approximately 14 bullets and shot another person in a two week span. Who's the worst of the worst causing death and mayhem on our streets?
I knew that at the beginning. ICE officers are just practicing on immigrants. They mentioned a short amount of training, but this is training. Its other purpose is to get Americans to get used armed, masked soldiers invading cities and killing citizens. I refuse to get used to it.
I used to roll my eyes when gun proponents justified owning a gun to protect against a dictator taking over. They were right. But I think those people will be helping a MAGA dictatorship.
Anyone who doesn't think Trump is The Second Coming is "illegal" and should be rounded up, at least. Plus, it's easier to punch down than to go after the *actually* dangerous gangs -- those guys are armed!
That will be a grievous mistake on their part. I think many liberals have the eye of the tiger. They just need motivation. Look at the hero’s of Minneapolis.
A whole lot of Americans never really believed the whole, “they’re sending rapists, they’re sending murderers, they’re emptying their asylums, they’re eating the cats, they’re eating the dawgs” line of bullshit schtik being sold by Trump and his many lackeys. But for way too many racist curious white Americans, it just felt too good to not play along. I mean, what could actually go wrong? Regardless of America’s crumbling resistance to usage of the Deep State to break the guard rails around the election process. Regardless of the creation of a private, masked totalitarian guard armed with the tools of surveillance that Orwell barely dreamed of, the biggest imbeciles on the planet, i.e., Caucasian ‘Mericans (especially the male variety), will march proudly into voting booths -after bowing to the Stasi squads standing guard both outside and inside polling locations- give great consideration to the positives and negatives of each candidate and select the most qualified candidate that aligns with their own values and ideals. Who am I kidding? They’re not even going to hold their nose when they select the people who have brought us here - they’re gonna bet on the horse the brung em this far.
A lot of ‘Muricans dont even know that, Mike. The city I live in was basically founded by migrants following the crops - clearing, planting, harvesting, etc. from south to North and then north to south year after year. But tell that to the ignorami and they just stare blankly at you, or they think you have three heads.
People have the ability to see what they want to see. Plenty of people thought Hitler’s rhetoric about the Jews was just that: rhetoric and not indications of policy. There is a vagueness in the language of people like Trump and Hitler that leave them open for interpretation — the details are never worked out initially. But policy is a moving target which evolves, and the history of removing large populations from a country rarely turns out well for anyone involved.
part of waking up to what this is, the MAGA-ists are clearly aping / speed running 1920s-1930s Nazi tactics, is realizing that they are building out this infrastructure now saying they are going after "illegal" immigrants, but of course, once built, it can be used for going after whoever else they decide is "illegal," and if they get there way, any number of things could become "illegal" and get any one of us interred in a camp.
More and more it appears the only legal Americans are those willing to abase themselves before the Orange Julius and the morality or his mind. If and when we get out of this, we need to work on demolishing the romantic nationalist vision of who is an American.
This regime will stop at nothing to retain power. If people still think this is not an authoritarian grab, I don’t know what is. The only thing that may save us is the backlash grows exponentially faster than their power grab, and that the election results are so clear that whatever shenanigans be kept to a manageable level so winning Dems are seated. Even so, I give it a 50/50 shot. But there is still a shot and we need to act accordingly.
There is a chance- I don’t know about 50-50 though. By the time November draws near I think 50-50 might be a little on the Mr. Rodger’s neighborhood side of optimism….but I am with you, Tai. In the little hamlet of surprise, AZ, there’s protests every Saturday morning and for a city with a large retiree population, we are still drawing thousands of attendees every week. It feels good to hang out with old people - and young people- raising their voices together in opposition to the madness. But the madness just bought a massive warehouse right down the street from the protest siteto round up members of the immigrant community and deport them. I will keep the faith in dreams of a fair election in November. I will keep raising my voice. But in my heart I believe the whole enterprise may be too little, too late.
I am usually JVL level dark, probably darker since I am not white. While I never experienced the kinds of bullying/discriminations at school or at work that older friends and families experienced, I am a student of history and know how bad things were and could be again. Since JVL said 50/50 in his AMA a couple weeks ago, I will not go lower than him. I do agree it may be too late after 77 million people re-elected a person who staged a coup.
There you have it. And the “history” of the coup attempt is disappearing before our very eyes. As is the outcome of the 2020 election result in Georgia. Many other ‘histories’ of the 2020 election itself are being rewritten as we communicate here today. I’m sure the right wing media echo sphere is preparing a lengthy TV special to commemorate the “real story” of the “real results” of the 2020 election in order to justify the rationale to give the dear leader another term which he ‘actually won’ in 2020
History is never fully reliable to begin with. The Confederates lost but my American history teacher still taught us the Civil War was about states’ rights. And I went to high school in the pacific NW for heaven’s sake in the early 90’s! I am also fairly certain the teacher was not a racist or sympathetic to the lost cause.
Imagine how big of a piece of shit you have to be to support what the administration is doing on all these fronts. And before someone tells me that we need to convince people to voted for this to come back to the light and vote for the Democrats later this year, the damage has been done both in blood and treasure. Forgiveness is overrated.
The basic trouble with living in a democracy is that we may not like some -- or even many -- of our fellow citizens. Yet we still need to garner a majority to win elections.
So my inclination is to focus on convincing swing voters to opt for the Democrats in the mid-terms rather than "canceling" them for their past sins. Stewing in one's resentment may be emotionally satisfying, but it doesn't save democracy.
What evidence is there that "swing voters" care about democracy? If there's anything we should have learned from the last election, this block of voters only cares about their wallets. They were warned what would happen if Trump won, and they pulled the lever for him anyway. And now they're shocked that Trump is doing what he promised he would. Tariffs, mass deportations, scuttling NATO, prosecuting political enemies, mass pardoning of MAGA-friendly criminals...that's what the swing voters signed up for, so either they didn't hear Trump clearly in 2024 or they did and didn't care as long as he could magically lower prices. Either way, swing voters are amoral imbeciles. Someone else like Sarah Longwell can court them. They're dead to me.
Personally I think it's a lack of imagination on how bad Trump and his crew could be. Almost 90% of what Trump said in his rallies his supporters just called it bluster.
You have to remember, we (Bulwark readers) do our homework. We work at understanding what is reality vs bluster. Most of Trump's supporters do not (and to be honest most of the Democrat typical voters don't either).
My experience is that a ton of the 2020 Trump supporters had and have no idea how bad the efforts were to overturn the election. Trump's first term was tamed by those around him. 2024 Trump voters are now seeing what we already knew and their eyes are opening. The swing voters are sitting up and paying attention now - some will switch and vote Democrat and some will just not vote ("if I can't vote for a Republican, I just won't vote").
The MAGA hardcore are hopeless and frankly, screw them. They can wallow in their self-righteous piety and the world will pass them by and 4 years from now they will wonder where the world they love went or they will crawl back into their shit-hole lives and dream of all the fun times from 2025-2028
Bottomline: don't give up on the swing voters and moderates who are coming to the realization of reality
Until, say, the 2030 midterms, when the great and good American people turn on President Mark Kelly because gas is expensive for a short period of time and the GOP routs the Democrats. Then the whole cycle begins anew. You can probably tell I don't like people very much, Dave. They only think about their immediate short term interests and not the bigger picture, and it's because of people like that that we are where we are.
The Saturday before the election, I was driving back from my gym and I saw a group of Trump supporters with signs that said "Say No to Socialism". I started laughing my ass off because I knew not a single person could accurately define what socialism is. I wonder how these people feel about USG taking 10% ownership of Intel, or having centralized planning? My guess is they consider that "Art of the Deal" when the rest of us who aren't braindead know that's pretty close to socialism: state controlled means of production.
I know Sarah likes to say that people are the solution to our ills. I'll believe that when the modern GOP is reduced to ashes.
Yea, but we really need their votes in November. Big time we need them to turn out and vote out Republicans or Democrats will not control either the House or the Senate in the last 2 years of Trump’s term.
Turning them out is up to people like Sarah. Whether they realize it or not, Rich, they put my future and my goals at risk, and I'm not the forgiving type when it comes to that.
Your comment illustrates why I think that political organizers are different animals than social critics. I subscribe to The Bulwark because of people like Sarah . . . and will leave if the haters take on too much prominence here.
It is not "hatred" to point out that people are morally and intellectually responsible for the consequences of their actions. The event that I left out of my post is January 6, 2021. What does it say about the electorate that after that event Trump won the popular vote? Call me nuts, Steve, but it tells me that collectively we are awful.
In my own life I can hold people responsible for their bad behavior while also feeling compassion for the fact that we're all mere mortals -- and we all make mistakes.
That's why I think Jon Stewart is on to something in suggesting that the pro-democracy movement might get farther down the road if it gave people grace if they acknowledge when they were wrong about Trumpism.
Alas, there is a depressing failure to understand how big a piece of shit you have to be to continue funding for this totally corrupt government - i.e. to be a corporate Democrat.
The moral imperative seems obvious to me: refusing to go along with the whole shitshow. A general strike - by our supposed Dem representatives. Shut it down. Deny quorum and sit down in the Capital, or the DOJ.
Let me go ahead and spoil the ending for you: Trump and his FBI are going to find "voter fraud" with this raid. Out of millions of votes cast, there are going to be explainable irregularities that the administration will glom onto and spin into a fabric, woven with copious lies, that "proves" that the election was stolen. Maybe it's a married name that mismatches an unmarried name, an innocent misspelling of a street address, or whatever. They will then do what they always do - take an example of statistically insignificant or explainable irregularities, and use it as a cudgel to beat their opponents over the head in an exercise of wholesale group punishment.
Yeah, as soon as I heard the news, I had the same thought. My guess is that they won't even bother with explainable irregularities; they simply assert that the have overwhelming evidence of voter fraud without producing a scintilla of evidence.
The news gets more alarming every day, which doesn't even seem possible. One can only hope the heavy handedness becomes their undoing. I feel like most Americans don't like being told what to do or coerced, so maybe this wakes more people up to resist.
I really hope 250 years isnt all this country can make it to...
Timothy Snyder, student of authoritarianism, and others have said from the beginning that this was going to get worse before it got better. So much of this is cornered rat behavior. It is the time to really take care of ourselves, and continue to resist non-violently.
"Two different signs above the Consulate door plainly read 'Consulate of Ecuador,' one in English, one in Spanish. It’s unclear how Ecuador might have more 'clearly' marked its building to the satisfaction of ICE."
I mean, there was a guard outside that spelled it out for them in spoken words but they still didn't get it. Maybe the guard looked too Hispanic to listen to.
Those boneheads probably don’t know what consulate means. That’s why their fat asses need to be sitting on an X on the Southwest border not rampaging in our cities.
It has the same status as an embassy. Neither an embassy nor a consulate is technically “foreign land”. Instead while still legally US soil, under law, US authorities have no legal jurisdiction to enter without the permission of the foreign embassy or consulate.
Despite thousands of audits and lawsuits, only a small handful of ineligible people were found to have registered to vote, and fewer still actually cast a ballot. Yet we're engaging in ridiculous exercises on the grounds of "protecting election integrity". However, it's clear that the Convicted Felon's definition of "election integrity" is that he's declared the winner. Explain to me how this is not fascism?!
It's not fascism in the sense that people still actually voted and their party won. But Bondi who is one of the 2025 authors will make sure this is rectified. It absolutely will be fascism.
That appalling story about the broken glass and baby- the local news story you linked to says it happened on Jan 21, not "yesterday," as you state here.
Anyway thank you so much for talking about it. Evidently another outrage that we all need to follow and find out what happens here.
Absolutely, the South remaining its own undemocratic third world self would have prevented tons of future headaches. I am sure there might be one or two downsides but I'd have to think on it a while.
Haven't you heard. White Africaners from South Africa have total permission to emmigrate to the United States. No questions. No background checks. If you are white and South African, you're in. (Perhaps Musk was behind this) As if we dont have enough racists.
Everyday I ask myself "What fresh Hell do we have today? In trump's mind he is universally loved so of course he won the election! He is simply the best, brightest, more accomplished, etc. human being to ever walk the planet. Smarter than Einstein. More righteous than Jesus. More loved than Mother Teresa. We should expect Russian-asset tulsi's cosplay in Atlanta to result in the fabrication of data to prove trump really won in 2020. Of course this is about the 2026 midterms - in more ways than most people can imagine.
I truly think Trump is not all there. He has no filters. If he doesn't like something or someone he insults like a spoiled child. Laws and decrees are being made in his name around him and he seems unaware of them. But he is the figurehead. If they need to prop him up they will do it. When everything goes south for them, he will be blamed. Bondi Vought, Theil, Vance, the Heritage Foundation will all protest innocence.
When he revisits 2020 he’s really warming up for this November. Perhaps it has all been about this November—the National Guard deployments, ICE thuggery in blue cities, Gabbard in Georgia.
She deliberately withheld pain meds because her patients' suffering brought them "closer to God."
She socialized with the richest and most powerful people in the world and raised boatloads of money. Yet, the people in her care still lived in utter squalor.
Yes, yes, I've been saying this since the first ICE agents appeared Minneapolis. This is practice. This invasion is to prepare us for Trump's personal army harassing voters, for the false excuse of preventing illegal immigrants voting.
I was an election judge and poll watcher in Illinois for years. Its impossible for an illegal immigrant to vote, because they cannot register therefore cannot go to a polling place and vote. Why does Bondi want MN voter registration documents before she removes ICE? Extortion?
Not necessarily on the subject of this newsletter, when I awoke early this morning, Axios was reporting that the DHS-less bill the Senate was ready to vote for was jammed up because Lindsay Graham wanted to add back the right for Senators to sue for having their phone records subpoenaed by Jack Smith.
Now, perhaps unlike most people reading this Newsletter, I really despise the hypo-creepical Graham and think, if this is still the case, attention should be drawn to the fact in a big way. So far, what I've seen on the news is simply unnamed Senators wanting to add stuff.
Not for nothing, but wouldn't basically *everyone* hate that he's doing this?
HATE that he’s my senator. I call his office regularly, and you can only leave a voicemail. He’s one of the biggest cowards and an embarrassment to South Carolina, among many others. He’s been in that office way too long to be anything but the worst.
My Indiana Republican Senators don’t have staff answering phones at least these past two weeks, per my experience. Voicemail only
To be fair it’s the same for my two Democratic senators. I used to get a staff member sometimes. I imagine they’re being inundated.
Sherri - oh sure, encourage me to have perspective 😇 ...can't I just spend the rest of today stewing in my frustration? LOL! Thank you & best to you
Just a note from one frequent caller to another ❤️
And I am glad that they are being inundated. It means people are calling.
It's the same for my Representative as well. I don't think it matters. I think we give our short opinion (why waste my time?) and go on to other things. They only want to know what side of an issue people are on. I started calling once a week. I am now up to 3 times a week.
Yes, that’s been the same for my other representatives, but Graham has been that way for years.
drama
Appalling that Graham thinks he "deserves" $500K for phone records that tied him to the 2020 overthrow.
And once again Lindsay Graham proves he can’t play in the big leagues. $500,000, now that is just low level grift.
All citizens are subject to judicial subpoenas. Why should Senators or Congress be excluded. Has Lindsey Graham suffered from that in someway? If anything this has brought him closer to his golfing buddy Trump, and he just wants his share of the grift.
Well Trump & family are raking it in so I guess Graham figures, why not me?
What I find personally offensive about Lap Dog Graham is that he is a retired JAG officer with the Air Force. Why isn't Personal Pet Pete seeking to reduce his retirement pay and grade?
Graham is probably just as afraid they will access his Grindr phone calls.
As entertainment I’d love to see the content of those calls, but they’d also probably be pretty cringy.
Stephen Colbert for Senate!
I would hope tipper you are not the only one who throws up in your mouth at the thought of that weasel (sorry weasels, you have a bad reputation, too).
I doubt there’s a single fan of LG reading this newsletter!
I am reasonably sure that some of the other Senators involved are okay with this, so not everyone.
“Hypo-creepical”- I like that! Trump’s suing the IRS and Treasury Department, meaning he would personally get our tax dollars. Why shouldn’t senators be able to make money off this mess, too?
I have always thought that they buried Lindsay's spine, and his cohones, with John McCain. Gutless coward and capital H hypocrite.
The EU has designated Iran's Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization. Will it also designate ICE? Both use the same Gestapo tactics.
And I'm pretty sure the pool of recruits for ICE is largely composed of domestic terrorists like J6ers, III percenters, Proud Boys, Boogaloo Boys, Aryan Nationers, various other white supremacist organizations.
Well, that might actually be good. Those fat, weak-minded fools are not going to be a credible force against competent opponents.
Oh it really should. I dont know how he is getting away this. Trump is too ignorant to figure it out so it must be Miller.
There's talk of sending ICE to Milan for the Olympics. I don't know why they think they have jurisdiction in Italy, tho.
Fun fact: Italian law enforcement is used to dealing with real mafiosi.
Wonder if Trump has any plans to go to Milan. That might get interesting.
Maybe the IOC can present him with a gold medal for peacemaking! 😀
Throw him in a bobsled without brakes !
From what I’ve read, they have a history of helping at Olympics with international security, and human and drug trafficking, but they used to dress and act like actual , jacketed FBI agents, not jackbooted thugs.
Well, now that ICE is demonstrably PRO-human trafficking, the Italians might not want their help.
The Italian government has restricted ICE to diplomatic premises or coordination centers during Olympics. ICE is explicitly banned from street patrols or immigration enforcement on Italian soil. The Foreign Minister compared ICE to the SS, per NPR. They are not having it!
Too bad they didn't just ban them completely.
I wish! Wonder what they are going to wear? I can’t imagine it’s their Fallujah action hero costumes…what about masks? Seems the Italian government or Olympic Committee would have a dress code. 🤷♀️
I understand ICE typically accompanies our leaders as security when traveling internationally. Presumably the Secret Service needs more assistance to scope out dangers abroad.
Reading about the incident in Maine, I keep tripping over the word asylum seeker. As in here legally undergoing the legal immigration process. And more importantly, NOT a criminal. After the repeated OFFICIAL references to deporting 100 million people, maybe the whole country can stop pretending that this is about illegal immigration.
And really, what kind of POS marauder abandons a woman and child by the roadside in the cold? Other stories have emerged of thugs breaking windows, pulling people from vehicles, and leaving the damaged vehicles with personal belonging by the roadside for the local police to attend to. This, sanctioned by our government. What have we become? If you aren't speaking up, what kind of person are you?
well if a protestor kicks twice at a taillight, death penalty
if an ' agent' breaks a window, reward
they do not care about any humans, any level of citizenship, any color
When I was on the job, abandoning an arrestees property would have led to an internal affairs investigation, and being ordered to appear before a judge to explain ourselves. It would have been bad for us. Real bad. Obviously, these dirtbags are running wild. Hell, maybe they are being told to do it. They must be held accountable.
Unfortunately millions of people think, "its about time that the someone did something about "those" people." Trump has low approval, but its still significant.
There’s a faithful core that will never abandon him. 🙄
Absolutely, NSNC. So too is five-year old Liam Ramos's father an asylum seeker who has been in the midst of the process. Now Liam is in detention with his father, and apparently the facility is saying he is depressed. What a shock and I am sure they know how to help and are providing it. Forget the PTSD that poor kid will live with ... let alone the PTSD countless children (and adults) will carry for generations because of this.
another home grown white rapist or molester from one of the Carolinas was just
in MN messin' with a young teen, I think he is arrested. yeah, all rapist are on the street mexicans, that was abbott actually said, what a idiot, some are in the apartment next door, like a brother in law- just an example
I hope this factoid is getting around: last year in Mpls, a police force not generally known for its self-restraint, had ZERO officers discharge their weapons. ZERO police fired their guns for a whole year. ICE killed two people with approximately 14 bullets and shot another person in a two week span. Who's the worst of the worst causing death and mayhem on our streets?
Yep. We all have way more to fear from someone we greet everyday, or say “I love you” to. Random murders, and such, are rare.
It was never about illegal immigration and always about absolute power!
oppression
That too…:)
The white nationalist crowd would definitely like to get rid of the Hispanic migrants, but power is huge too, especially for Trump himself.
I knew that at the beginning. ICE officers are just practicing on immigrants. They mentioned a short amount of training, but this is training. Its other purpose is to get Americans to get used armed, masked soldiers invading cities and killing citizens. I refuse to get used to it.
I used to roll my eyes when gun proponents justified owning a gun to protect against a dictator taking over. They were right. But I think those people will be helping a MAGA dictatorship.
Anyone who doesn't think Trump is The Second Coming is "illegal" and should be rounded up, at least. Plus, it's easier to punch down than to go after the *actually* dangerous gangs -- those guys are armed!
That will be a grievous mistake on their part. I think many liberals have the eye of the tiger. They just need motivation. Look at the hero’s of Minneapolis.
A whole lot of Americans never really believed the whole, “they’re sending rapists, they’re sending murderers, they’re emptying their asylums, they’re eating the cats, they’re eating the dawgs” line of bullshit schtik being sold by Trump and his many lackeys. But for way too many racist curious white Americans, it just felt too good to not play along. I mean, what could actually go wrong? Regardless of America’s crumbling resistance to usage of the Deep State to break the guard rails around the election process. Regardless of the creation of a private, masked totalitarian guard armed with the tools of surveillance that Orwell barely dreamed of, the biggest imbeciles on the planet, i.e., Caucasian ‘Mericans (especially the male variety), will march proudly into voting booths -after bowing to the Stasi squads standing guard both outside and inside polling locations- give great consideration to the positives and negatives of each candidate and select the most qualified candidate that aligns with their own values and ideals. Who am I kidding? They’re not even going to hold their nose when they select the people who have brought us here - they’re gonna bet on the horse the brung em this far.
For too many, it's really fun to punch down.
A lot of ‘Muricans dont even know that, Mike. The city I live in was basically founded by migrants following the crops - clearing, planting, harvesting, etc. from south to North and then north to south year after year. But tell that to the ignorami and they just stare blankly at you, or they think you have three heads.
People have the ability to see what they want to see. Plenty of people thought Hitler’s rhetoric about the Jews was just that: rhetoric and not indications of policy. There is a vagueness in the language of people like Trump and Hitler that leave them open for interpretation — the details are never worked out initially. But policy is a moving target which evolves, and the history of removing large populations from a country rarely turns out well for anyone involved.
Yah! As long as people can rationalize that it’s “the other” and not “me and mine”, it’s all good with the proletariat .
part of waking up to what this is, the MAGA-ists are clearly aping / speed running 1920s-1930s Nazi tactics, is realizing that they are building out this infrastructure now saying they are going after "illegal" immigrants, but of course, once built, it can be used for going after whoever else they decide is "illegal," and if they get there way, any number of things could become "illegal" and get any one of us interred in a camp.
More and more it appears the only legal Americans are those willing to abase themselves before the Orange Julius and the morality or his mind. If and when we get out of this, we need to work on demolishing the romantic nationalist vision of who is an American.
This regime will stop at nothing to retain power. If people still think this is not an authoritarian grab, I don’t know what is. The only thing that may save us is the backlash grows exponentially faster than their power grab, and that the election results are so clear that whatever shenanigans be kept to a manageable level so winning Dems are seated. Even so, I give it a 50/50 shot. But there is still a shot and we need to act accordingly.
There is a chance- I don’t know about 50-50 though. By the time November draws near I think 50-50 might be a little on the Mr. Rodger’s neighborhood side of optimism….but I am with you, Tai. In the little hamlet of surprise, AZ, there’s protests every Saturday morning and for a city with a large retiree population, we are still drawing thousands of attendees every week. It feels good to hang out with old people - and young people- raising their voices together in opposition to the madness. But the madness just bought a massive warehouse right down the street from the protest siteto round up members of the immigrant community and deport them. I will keep the faith in dreams of a fair election in November. I will keep raising my voice. But in my heart I believe the whole enterprise may be too little, too late.
I am usually JVL level dark, probably darker since I am not white. While I never experienced the kinds of bullying/discriminations at school or at work that older friends and families experienced, I am a student of history and know how bad things were and could be again. Since JVL said 50/50 in his AMA a couple weeks ago, I will not go lower than him. I do agree it may be too late after 77 million people re-elected a person who staged a coup.
There you have it. And the “history” of the coup attempt is disappearing before our very eyes. As is the outcome of the 2020 election result in Georgia. Many other ‘histories’ of the 2020 election itself are being rewritten as we communicate here today. I’m sure the right wing media echo sphere is preparing a lengthy TV special to commemorate the “real story” of the “real results” of the 2020 election in order to justify the rationale to give the dear leader another term which he ‘actually won’ in 2020
The “stolen” 2020 election: the new lost cause.
History is never fully reliable to begin with. The Confederates lost but my American history teacher still taught us the Civil War was about states’ rights. And I went to high school in the pacific NW for heaven’s sake in the early 90’s! I am also fairly certain the teacher was not a racist or sympathetic to the lost cause.
In a way, the Civil War was about states rights. Some states wanted to keep the right to own people like property.
Ironic when you think that Arizona was once part of Mexico.
Texas, New Mexico, California, Nevada, Utah, parts of Colorado, parts of Oklahoma, even parts of Wyoming...all were Mexico.
It’s never too late. We are mighty. A sleeping giant baby!
This regime is headed by a pedophile. There is no level they won't sink to to hang on to power.
Imagine how big of a piece of shit you have to be to support what the administration is doing on all these fronts. And before someone tells me that we need to convince people to voted for this to come back to the light and vote for the Democrats later this year, the damage has been done both in blood and treasure. Forgiveness is overrated.
The basic trouble with living in a democracy is that we may not like some -- or even many -- of our fellow citizens. Yet we still need to garner a majority to win elections.
So my inclination is to focus on convincing swing voters to opt for the Democrats in the mid-terms rather than "canceling" them for their past sins. Stewing in one's resentment may be emotionally satisfying, but it doesn't save democracy.
We just have to get MAGA to stay home. That's the main goal, although as always, I'm up for driving young people to poll places.
What evidence is there that "swing voters" care about democracy? If there's anything we should have learned from the last election, this block of voters only cares about their wallets. They were warned what would happen if Trump won, and they pulled the lever for him anyway. And now they're shocked that Trump is doing what he promised he would. Tariffs, mass deportations, scuttling NATO, prosecuting political enemies, mass pardoning of MAGA-friendly criminals...that's what the swing voters signed up for, so either they didn't hear Trump clearly in 2024 or they did and didn't care as long as he could magically lower prices. Either way, swing voters are amoral imbeciles. Someone else like Sarah Longwell can court them. They're dead to me.
Personally I think it's a lack of imagination on how bad Trump and his crew could be. Almost 90% of what Trump said in his rallies his supporters just called it bluster.
You have to remember, we (Bulwark readers) do our homework. We work at understanding what is reality vs bluster. Most of Trump's supporters do not (and to be honest most of the Democrat typical voters don't either).
My experience is that a ton of the 2020 Trump supporters had and have no idea how bad the efforts were to overturn the election. Trump's first term was tamed by those around him. 2024 Trump voters are now seeing what we already knew and their eyes are opening. The swing voters are sitting up and paying attention now - some will switch and vote Democrat and some will just not vote ("if I can't vote for a Republican, I just won't vote").
The MAGA hardcore are hopeless and frankly, screw them. They can wallow in their self-righteous piety and the world will pass them by and 4 years from now they will wonder where the world they love went or they will crawl back into their shit-hole lives and dream of all the fun times from 2025-2028
Bottomline: don't give up on the swing voters and moderates who are coming to the realization of reality
Until, say, the 2030 midterms, when the great and good American people turn on President Mark Kelly because gas is expensive for a short period of time and the GOP routs the Democrats. Then the whole cycle begins anew. You can probably tell I don't like people very much, Dave. They only think about their immediate short term interests and not the bigger picture, and it's because of people like that that we are where we are.
You're good. I am fairly anti-social and fit the definition of an ambivert
Thank you, Dave
I drove by a yard sign all last summer and fall. Trump: low prices, Harris: high prices.
Lots of the folks you describe are real.
The Saturday before the election, I was driving back from my gym and I saw a group of Trump supporters with signs that said "Say No to Socialism". I started laughing my ass off because I knew not a single person could accurately define what socialism is. I wonder how these people feel about USG taking 10% ownership of Intel, or having centralized planning? My guess is they consider that "Art of the Deal" when the rest of us who aren't braindead know that's pretty close to socialism: state controlled means of production.
I know Sarah likes to say that people are the solution to our ills. I'll believe that when the modern GOP is reduced to ashes.
There was a sign in our town: Save the economy. Vote Republican.
Yea, but we really need their votes in November. Big time we need them to turn out and vote out Republicans or Democrats will not control either the House or the Senate in the last 2 years of Trump’s term.
Turning them out is up to people like Sarah. Whether they realize it or not, Rich, they put my future and my goals at risk, and I'm not the forgiving type when it comes to that.
I fully understand.
Your comment illustrates why I think that political organizers are different animals than social critics. I subscribe to The Bulwark because of people like Sarah . . . and will leave if the haters take on too much prominence here.
It is not "hatred" to point out that people are morally and intellectually responsible for the consequences of their actions. The event that I left out of my post is January 6, 2021. What does it say about the electorate that after that event Trump won the popular vote? Call me nuts, Steve, but it tells me that collectively we are awful.
In my own life I can hold people responsible for their bad behavior while also feeling compassion for the fact that we're all mere mortals -- and we all make mistakes.
That's why I think Jon Stewart is on to something in suggesting that the pro-democracy movement might get farther down the road if it gave people grace if they acknowledge when they were wrong about Trumpism.
I can accept the compassion argument and respect it. After 10 years of watching Trump, my compassion has been exhausted.
I agree Tim. Those who voted for this can freeze in the effing dark.
Indeed. Some things can’t be forgiven.
Alas, there is a depressing failure to understand how big a piece of shit you have to be to continue funding for this totally corrupt government - i.e. to be a corporate Democrat.
The moral imperative seems obvious to me: refusing to go along with the whole shitshow. A general strike - by our supposed Dem representatives. Shut it down. Deny quorum and sit down in the Capital, or the DOJ.
Let me go ahead and spoil the ending for you: Trump and his FBI are going to find "voter fraud" with this raid. Out of millions of votes cast, there are going to be explainable irregularities that the administration will glom onto and spin into a fabric, woven with copious lies, that "proves" that the election was stolen. Maybe it's a married name that mismatches an unmarried name, an innocent misspelling of a street address, or whatever. They will then do what they always do - take an example of statistically insignificant or explainable irregularities, and use it as a cudgel to beat their opponents over the head in an exercise of wholesale group punishment.
The chain of evidence was compromised the instant the first FBI agent put their hands on the first document.
Thank you.
Yeah, as soon as I heard the news, I had the same thought. My guess is that they won't even bother with explainable irregularities; they simply assert that the have overwhelming evidence of voter fraud without producing a scintilla of evidence.
‘PresidentTrump and his entire team are committed to ensuring a U.S. election can *always* be rigged again’.
There Ms. Leavitt, I have fixed the phrase for you — no thanks needed.
The news gets more alarming every day, which doesn't even seem possible. One can only hope the heavy handedness becomes their undoing. I feel like most Americans don't like being told what to do or coerced, so maybe this wakes more people up to resist.
I really hope 250 years isnt all this country can make it to...
Not by a long shot.
Timothy Snyder, student of authoritarianism, and others have said from the beginning that this was going to get worse before it got better. So much of this is cornered rat behavior. It is the time to really take care of ourselves, and continue to resist non-violently.
"This operation was allegedly justified by a law requiring election records to be retained for a certain amount of time."
Now to be "retained" in a Mar-a-Lago bathroom?
It will be the ultimate act of fuckery if Tulsi goes thru the ballots and finds that Trump won by one single vote.
She’s so pathetic, but too much of an imbecile to realize it.
"Two different signs above the Consulate door plainly read 'Consulate of Ecuador,' one in English, one in Spanish. It’s unclear how Ecuador might have more 'clearly' marked its building to the satisfaction of ICE."
Have they considered adding illustrations?
I mean, there was a guard outside that spelled it out for them in spoken words but they still didn't get it. Maybe the guard looked too Hispanic to listen to.
Those boneheads probably don’t know what consulate means. That’s why their fat asses need to be sitting on an X on the Southwest border not rampaging in our cities.
True, those were pretty big words. 😀
Is a consulate considered Ecuadoran land like an embassy is? Not that that would have any effect on this admin's "gO aHeAd AnD sToP uS!" mentality.
It has the same status as an embassy. Neither an embassy nor a consulate is technically “foreign land”. Instead while still legally US soil, under law, US authorities have no legal jurisdiction to enter without the permission of the foreign embassy or consulate.
Despite thousands of audits and lawsuits, only a small handful of ineligible people were found to have registered to vote, and fewer still actually cast a ballot. Yet we're engaging in ridiculous exercises on the grounds of "protecting election integrity". However, it's clear that the Convicted Felon's definition of "election integrity" is that he's declared the winner. Explain to me how this is not fascism?!
It's not fascism in the sense that people still actually voted and their party won. But Bondi who is one of the 2025 authors will make sure this is rectified. It absolutely will be fascism.
That appalling story about the broken glass and baby- the local news story you linked to says it happened on Jan 21, not "yesterday," as you state here.
Anyway thank you so much for talking about it. Evidently another outrage that we all need to follow and find out what happens here.
Trump regrets NOT ordering the National Guard to seize voting machines.
Yes, the fate of our republic is being decided today.
Trump is allowed to keep his band of masked desperados we're in for more blood in the streets.
Time for blue states to start secession proceedings. I'm not kidding.
Let the Trump states live in the "reality" that Fox Nooze and Trump believe in, and without the tax dollars. See how that goes.
Should have let the south leave the union in the first place.
Absolutely, the South remaining its own undemocratic third world self would have prevented tons of future headaches. I am sure there might be one or two downsides but I'd have to think on it a while.
I still suspect some are chubby back woods three percenters or thick in the
thighs south afrikaners, they don't have to worry about any law anywhere
they have no loyalty to this nation, at all, I actually think they got the money and
will return to south africa
Haven't you heard. White Africaners from South Africa have total permission to emmigrate to the United States. No questions. No background checks. If you are white and South African, you're in. (Perhaps Musk was behind this) As if we dont have enough racists.
Yes, and he handed them money
they are in the crew, I truly think so, the paramilitary, that was the purpose, I swear
I've picked out a couple of women, they look ' different'
of course, I'm a little biased, ahem
Just like John Roberts and Sam Alito wished for.
Don’t forget that shit head Clarence!
Yep.
Everyday I ask myself "What fresh Hell do we have today? In trump's mind he is universally loved so of course he won the election! He is simply the best, brightest, more accomplished, etc. human being to ever walk the planet. Smarter than Einstein. More righteous than Jesus. More loved than Mother Teresa. We should expect Russian-asset tulsi's cosplay in Atlanta to result in the fabrication of data to prove trump really won in 2020. Of course this is about the 2026 midterms - in more ways than most people can imagine.
I truly think Trump is not all there. He has no filters. If he doesn't like something or someone he insults like a spoiled child. Laws and decrees are being made in his name around him and he seems unaware of them. But he is the figurehead. If they need to prop him up they will do it. When everything goes south for them, he will be blamed. Bondi Vought, Theil, Vance, the Heritage Foundation will all protest innocence.
He hasn’t forgotten about the 2020 election though…
When he revisits 2020 he’s really warming up for this November. Perhaps it has all been about this November—the National Guard deployments, ICE thuggery in blue cities, Gabbard in Georgia.
Absolutely this is about the midterms.
To be fair, I despise Mother Teresa. [Not sarcasm.]
never liked her, the children showed it in their eyes, not decent to others.
She deliberately withheld pain meds because her patients' suffering brought them "closer to God."
She socialized with the richest and most powerful people in the world and raised boatloads of money. Yet, the people in her care still lived in utter squalor.
Not a fan.
Yes, yes, I've been saying this since the first ICE agents appeared Minneapolis. This is practice. This invasion is to prepare us for Trump's personal army harassing voters, for the false excuse of preventing illegal immigrants voting.
I was an election judge and poll watcher in Illinois for years. Its impossible for an illegal immigrant to vote, because they cannot register therefore cannot go to a polling place and vote. Why does Bondi want MN voter registration documents before she removes ICE? Extortion?
"One can’t help but wonder if Amazon and Jeff Bezos believe this investment will pay off in other ways."
Ya think!?!?!
In a lot of countries this might be against the law...
Meanwhile, he’s destroying what’s left of the Washington Post.