Most maggats are nihilistic and seem to hate half the country more than love this country. However…the maggats at work are quieter now and the younger ones are angry and don’t want “to fight a war for Israel.” I feel hope still.
America's reputation in the world is so damaged it will take generations to earn back. The majority of the American electorate either voted for this or didn't bother to vote at all.
"What's wrong with your county?" my Australian relatives ask me. They knew what was wrong with Trump back in 2015. What they (and I) cannot understand is why more people voted for him the second time! The regret being voiced now just makes it worse.
This needs to be a website, not a book. An interactive timeline of every betrayal, including betrayals they don’t even realize are happening because they don’t make top headlines. The people who need to read this the most aren’t going to. A website is free and shareable.
I am thinking of something different: A single scrolling page showcasing a comprehensive, living, time-based catalog of every betrayal, juxtaposed with actual quotes and footage of Trump’s broken promises. This would be shareable in a way that a book isn’t, and effortless to digest in a way that a substack isn’t. It has to be a frictionless experience that can’t be looked away from.
Hell, I would volunteer outside of my day job to help with this effort if anyone was interested taking me up on it. I don’t think it would undercut the book. If anything, it might help drum up more interest.
Believe it or not, McSweeney's is doing that. It's mentioned and linked in the piece. And the litigation tracker at JustSecurity is tracking every legal action against the administration. This is more of a book that's good for organizing your thoughts without getting overwhelmed. Although, as I wrote, even the table of contents kind of overwhelmed me. 🤦♀️
Jill, Thank you, this was an excellent piece of work. Sounds like this should be mandatory reading for anyone still backing Trump. Unfortunately, many of them probably don't read and the rest of them can't. This book needs to go direct to video then played on Fox, maybe then will make some progress.
At this point, Dems and all Trump opposition should cut to the chase: Buy billboard advertising across the country simply proclaiming “Trump is a Crook!” Indeed, “Trump is a Crook” should become a thing. Use it in every kind of political messaging.
The Orange Jesus haunts me. At times I can't help but ruminate on this shit show and it's almost like a memory game. Lately, it's just been too much. I'll start to read an article or watch a Podcast and I just have to turn it off and binge a comedy like The Rooster or Funny AF. I'm relieved to know that somebody is tracking this, just as I want a tracker on the $$ (fraud etc), then I'm hoping someone knows how many deaths this regime is responsible for . . . Yes, I have feared that it's not ALL getting tracked. My wish is that some International organization arrests them all ...they can't trust the US system to hold them responsible.
I thought he was pretty honest about what he was going to do. To be aware one needed to read P2025, have some living memory of the first term and access real news on rare occasion.
Key example: tariffs across the board...even Fox Jews Opinion section wrote how across the board tariffs will NOT bring back manufacturing volume and WILL increase prices. So if your platform is reduce prices but your solution is tariffs across the board...... Something's gotta give and an adult should understand supply and demand is going to win over campaign rhetoric.
Those who attacked the Capitol in 2021 and who continue to disparage our Constitution are - and will ever remain - traitors.
I pray, literally, that all candidates for office who maintain their allegiance to our Constitution use the specifications identified in this book aggressively and successfully in their campaigns at all levels to remove all MAGA, MAHA, and Project 2025 adherents from office in 2026 and 2028.
The flaw here is assuming that Trump's voters didn't know what they were voting for. Despite the stereotype description, most people aren't too stupid to live. I know a lot of MAGAs. Most of them aren't dumb, and the ones that are exist in numbers too small to take over an entire party, or win a national election. I posit that the vast majority of MAGA voters know in their hearts (and minds) that Trump is incompetent at governing, that his impulses are unpredictable and destructive, that he surrounds himself with incompetents and grifters, and that they really can't believe anything he says as factual or true. You can see it in their responses when you back them into a corner with logic arguments. They resort to emotional appeals and vicious personal attacks (and I come at them from the Right, as a believer in much of the same conservative ideology that Trump pretends to believe in).
So, why do they support, vote for, and defend him. In the end it's simple. He pisses off all the people they hate. Period. It's not even that he actually "hates" the same people they hate. He doesn't. He employs illegals in his hotels and at his golf courses. He hobnobs with the "elite" billionaires who are fleecing the rubes blind. He doesn't hate "Criminals". He loves them. He IS one. He doesn't hate the morally bankrupt. Epstein was his friend, and nobody is more morally bankrupt than Trump himself.
But, he gives them permission to be the worst version of themselves. He gives them permission to hate out loud, and to focus their rage and insecurities on targets about whom he neither really cares, nor values. His victories, his presidencies, enrage the people who "think they're better than us". His attacks on brown people, who they have always hated, validate their world view and satisfy their bloodlust. His degradation of women satisfies the deep resentment that a lot of men feel because some woman rejected them and "did them wrong", and then got away with it.
And this alone is enough for them to disbelieve their own eyes and ignore all the carnage they can see as plainly as we can. They vote for him not because they were "voting for this", but in spite of it, because they are just awful, mean, resentful, jealous people. At least they have finally been exposed.
I think they are inherently fearful people, or narcissistic, or both. Their fear turns into a need to control other people, and their ignorance leads them to believe they know better than other people, even when they don't understand that prices can't go down 500%. Most of them are deeply incurious and prefer to cling to money and their safe space.
I have an aunt that finally decided that Trump wasn’t a good guy or a good president, it was about a year into the second term. Even now she cannot be part of a conversation or let a negative comment go about Trump without …. “Hillary”, “Biden”, or “Obama”.
After all the pedophilia news became clear she did stop referencing Biden smelling women’s hair. Somehow that didn’t seem to be a thing anymore, the hair smelling.
If he ran again… I think she would still vote for him, without understanding why.
Hillary is a horrible, corrupt person, hated by more people than even Trump, which is why he beat her. That doesn’t change because Trump sucks. Biden was a decent man whose mind and body failed him, allowing him to acquiesce to the worst instincts of his party’s base. Obama was an objectively good, if inherently divisive, president.
Just because Trump is horrific, that doesn’t mean the alternatives were any good. Maybe better, but not any good.
All that said, I expect most of Trump’s marginal support will one day come to disavow ever supporting him. The 25-30% that are truly MAGA? They’ll die believing he was the best president ever. Once fully invested in delusion, it’s hard to escape it.
In addition to rarely, if ever, reporting any negative thing about the Reps [lies of omission], immigrant from Australia Mr. Murdock's Fox News channel - and Buchanan, Limbaugh, Levin, Bannon, Shapiro, et. al. - have for 20-30 years now convinced a lot of our fellow Americans that the Dems are nothing but a threat to The American Way.
For years now I've been a casual student of psychology, and can now state that our inborn Confirmation and Negativity Biases have made many people suckers for Murdock Crime Family's Fear Porn.
Worse, once they've latched on to these prejudices, many people are naturally inclined to Close themselves off to new information, despite the Cognitive Dissonance of, for example, prices everywhere.
Radiolab or Hidden Brain had an episode that boiled down to "conservative" brains are essentially more fearful. They tend to see change more as a threat than an opportunity. So, yes, I agree with you; they essentially allow their fear to be turned into hate and a need to control other people. I'm sure this is easier to manipulate the further a brain is toward the fearful, avoidant end of the spectrum.
Among other sources, most recently I’ve been watching this series of Great Courses lectures about personality: Why You Are Who You Are: Investigations Into Human Personality. Done in 2017-2018, I get the impression that lectures 8 and 9 in particular deal with the MAGA personality, even though he doesn’t state it specifically.
Lecture 8: Values and Moral Character
Lecture 9: Traits That Shape How You Think
A big takeaway for me comes in Lecture 9: I really enjoy thinking, and have even been told at times to “not overthink” things. So I am clearly on one side of the spectrum, while people like my father, who despite having a PhD., is now 99 yo, lives in a rural area, and clearly does not want to think about anything political.
Search for the title and you can find it not only on the Great Courses site but also on amazon (bleech!), ebay, and elsewhere.
I've been shell shocked since Musk and his woodchipper took out USAID and his boys raided the government for every bit of info they could jam on a zip drive. I had read Project 2025 so some of this wasn't a surprise, but what has been is the ungodly amount of unchecked grift and lawlessness....and the complete capitulation of the GOP House and Senate.
Most maggats are nihilistic and seem to hate half the country more than love this country. However…the maggats at work are quieter now and the younger ones are angry and don’t want “to fight a war for Israel.” I feel hope still.
America's reputation in the world is so damaged it will take generations to earn back. The majority of the American electorate either voted for this or didn't bother to vote at all.
"What's wrong with your county?" my Australian relatives ask me. They knew what was wrong with Trump back in 2015. What they (and I) cannot understand is why more people voted for him the second time! The regret being voiced now just makes it worse.
This needs to be a website, not a book. An interactive timeline of every betrayal, including betrayals they don’t even realize are happening because they don’t make top headlines. The people who need to read this the most aren’t going to. A website is free and shareable.
There is a website, linked toward the top of the piece. https://commonsensecoalition.net/ And it has a link to their substack, too.
Hi Jill,
I am thinking of something different: A single scrolling page showcasing a comprehensive, living, time-based catalog of every betrayal, juxtaposed with actual quotes and footage of Trump’s broken promises. This would be shareable in a way that a book isn’t, and effortless to digest in a way that a substack isn’t. It has to be a frictionless experience that can’t be looked away from.
Hell, I would volunteer outside of my day job to help with this effort if anyone was interested taking me up on it. I don’t think it would undercut the book. If anything, it might help drum up more interest.
Believe it or not, McSweeney's is doing that. It's mentioned and linked in the piece. And the litigation tracker at JustSecurity is tracking every legal action against the administration. This is more of a book that's good for organizing your thoughts without getting overwhelmed. Although, as I wrote, even the table of contents kind of overwhelmed me. 🤦♀️
Is the plan to do a Volume 2 for the rest of Trump’s term?😩
Glad that this is being done…ordered it as much as I didn’t want to from Amazon,
Oh yes they did vote for this.
Jill, Thank you, this was an excellent piece of work. Sounds like this should be mandatory reading for anyone still backing Trump. Unfortunately, many of them probably don't read and the rest of them can't. This book needs to go direct to video then played on Fox, maybe then will make some progress.
At this point, Dems and all Trump opposition should cut to the chase: Buy billboard advertising across the country simply proclaiming “Trump is a Crook!” Indeed, “Trump is a Crook” should become a thing. Use it in every kind of political messaging.
The Orange Jesus haunts me. At times I can't help but ruminate on this shit show and it's almost like a memory game. Lately, it's just been too much. I'll start to read an article or watch a Podcast and I just have to turn it off and binge a comedy like The Rooster or Funny AF. I'm relieved to know that somebody is tracking this, just as I want a tracker on the $$ (fraud etc), then I'm hoping someone knows how many deaths this regime is responsible for . . . Yes, I have feared that it's not ALL getting tracked. My wish is that some International organization arrests them all ...they can't trust the US system to hold them responsible.
The Stupid. It Burns.
I thought he was pretty honest about what he was going to do. To be aware one needed to read P2025, have some living memory of the first term and access real news on rare occasion.
Key example: tariffs across the board...even Fox Jews Opinion section wrote how across the board tariffs will NOT bring back manufacturing volume and WILL increase prices. So if your platform is reduce prices but your solution is tariffs across the board...... Something's gotta give and an adult should understand supply and demand is going to win over campaign rhetoric.
“Fox Jews” Opinion? Yikes.
I dunno, this sure sounds antisemitic to me. And I’m no fan of what Netanyahu and his deranged settlers are doing la.
I’m pretty sure that’s a typo.
Order In.
Those who attacked the Capitol in 2021 and who continue to disparage our Constitution are - and will ever remain - traitors.
I pray, literally, that all candidates for office who maintain their allegiance to our Constitution use the specifications identified in this book aggressively and successfully in their campaigns at all levels to remove all MAGA, MAHA, and Project 2025 adherents from office in 2026 and 2028.
Yeah, they did vote for this...And I tell every Trump voter who tells me that "I didn't vote for this"...YES, you most certainly did. Great job.
The flaw here is assuming that Trump's voters didn't know what they were voting for. Despite the stereotype description, most people aren't too stupid to live. I know a lot of MAGAs. Most of them aren't dumb, and the ones that are exist in numbers too small to take over an entire party, or win a national election. I posit that the vast majority of MAGA voters know in their hearts (and minds) that Trump is incompetent at governing, that his impulses are unpredictable and destructive, that he surrounds himself with incompetents and grifters, and that they really can't believe anything he says as factual or true. You can see it in their responses when you back them into a corner with logic arguments. They resort to emotional appeals and vicious personal attacks (and I come at them from the Right, as a believer in much of the same conservative ideology that Trump pretends to believe in).
So, why do they support, vote for, and defend him. In the end it's simple. He pisses off all the people they hate. Period. It's not even that he actually "hates" the same people they hate. He doesn't. He employs illegals in his hotels and at his golf courses. He hobnobs with the "elite" billionaires who are fleecing the rubes blind. He doesn't hate "Criminals". He loves them. He IS one. He doesn't hate the morally bankrupt. Epstein was his friend, and nobody is more morally bankrupt than Trump himself.
But, he gives them permission to be the worst version of themselves. He gives them permission to hate out loud, and to focus their rage and insecurities on targets about whom he neither really cares, nor values. His victories, his presidencies, enrage the people who "think they're better than us". His attacks on brown people, who they have always hated, validate their world view and satisfy their bloodlust. His degradation of women satisfies the deep resentment that a lot of men feel because some woman rejected them and "did them wrong", and then got away with it.
And this alone is enough for them to disbelieve their own eyes and ignore all the carnage they can see as plainly as we can. They vote for him not because they were "voting for this", but in spite of it, because they are just awful, mean, resentful, jealous people. At least they have finally been exposed.
Of course they voted for it. They foolishly didn't believe the leopard would eat THEIR face.
I think they are inherently fearful people, or narcissistic, or both. Their fear turns into a need to control other people, and their ignorance leads them to believe they know better than other people, even when they don't understand that prices can't go down 500%. Most of them are deeply incurious and prefer to cling to money and their safe space.
I’ve suspected this all along.
I have an aunt that finally decided that Trump wasn’t a good guy or a good president, it was about a year into the second term. Even now she cannot be part of a conversation or let a negative comment go about Trump without …. “Hillary”, “Biden”, or “Obama”.
After all the pedophilia news became clear she did stop referencing Biden smelling women’s hair. Somehow that didn’t seem to be a thing anymore, the hair smelling.
If he ran again… I think she would still vote for him, without understanding why.
I sure don’t understand.
Hillary is a horrible, corrupt person, hated by more people than even Trump, which is why he beat her. That doesn’t change because Trump sucks. Biden was a decent man whose mind and body failed him, allowing him to acquiesce to the worst instincts of his party’s base. Obama was an objectively good, if inherently divisive, president.
Just because Trump is horrific, that doesn’t mean the alternatives were any good. Maybe better, but not any good.
All that said, I expect most of Trump’s marginal support will one day come to disavow ever supporting him. The 25-30% that are truly MAGA? They’ll die believing he was the best president ever. Once fully invested in delusion, it’s hard to escape it.
In addition to rarely, if ever, reporting any negative thing about the Reps [lies of omission], immigrant from Australia Mr. Murdock's Fox News channel - and Buchanan, Limbaugh, Levin, Bannon, Shapiro, et. al. - have for 20-30 years now convinced a lot of our fellow Americans that the Dems are nothing but a threat to The American Way.
For years now I've been a casual student of psychology, and can now state that our inborn Confirmation and Negativity Biases have made many people suckers for Murdock Crime Family's Fear Porn.
Worse, once they've latched on to these prejudices, many people are naturally inclined to Close themselves off to new information, despite the Cognitive Dissonance of, for example, prices everywhere.
In a word: SAD!!!
Radiolab or Hidden Brain had an episode that boiled down to "conservative" brains are essentially more fearful. They tend to see change more as a threat than an opportunity. So, yes, I agree with you; they essentially allow their fear to be turned into hate and a need to control other people. I'm sure this is easier to manipulate the further a brain is toward the fearful, avoidant end of the spectrum.
Among other sources, most recently I’ve been watching this series of Great Courses lectures about personality: Why You Are Who You Are: Investigations Into Human Personality. Done in 2017-2018, I get the impression that lectures 8 and 9 in particular deal with the MAGA personality, even though he doesn’t state it specifically.
Lecture 8: Values and Moral Character
Lecture 9: Traits That Shape How You Think
A big takeaway for me comes in Lecture 9: I really enjoy thinking, and have even been told at times to “not overthink” things. So I am clearly on one side of the spectrum, while people like my father, who despite having a PhD., is now 99 yo, lives in a rural area, and clearly does not want to think about anything political.
Search for the title and you can find it not only on the Great Courses site but also on amazon (bleech!), ebay, and elsewhere.
I've been shell shocked since Musk and his woodchipper took out USAID and his boys raided the government for every bit of info they could jam on a zip drive. I had read Project 2025 so some of this wasn't a surprise, but what has been is the ungodly amount of unchecked grift and lawlessness....and the complete capitulation of the GOP House and Senate.