Right? This will "not" fly with MAGA or anyone else. People start thinking 'now' of budgeting for Christmas. They get through graduation and a summer vacay or staycay and then it's all about Christmas but they start budgeting, listing and shopping now. Empty containers and fired workers and dock workers out of jobs, not gonna fly.
I was at a Red Wine and Blue event last night and one of the women I met said she had a middle schooler and that she had already stocked up on school supplies, a new book bag, etc. I don't have any kids in school, but I always donate generously to "back to school" drives. I have made a note to stock up on those things on my next visit to the office supply store (no doubt I will soon need more posterboard for protest signs!)
Thank you for sharing the note from Alyssa from MA. I saw AG Campbell with Rep Clark last month at a Town Hall, and it was great to hear her talk about everything she and the other Democratic AGs are doing.
Oh my gosh and truly yes. Every day I wait to see what you will say. Today I'm reading reading nodding nodding and then I get to this and I laugh out loud, because it's JUST how I am feeling, such a perfect summation. "Ok, this has become a rant. I’m sorry. Some days I know where I am going when I get up and others I don’t." ... Then this perfect next series of sentences, which tells us where we are going! Thank you, Simon! "But, my friends, why does this matter? For it’s my argument that Trump is not just falling in the polls and becoming far weaker, but the growing circle of defiance we are seeing and the growing recognition of how absurd and ridiculous this all is starting to significantly undermine the legitimacy of the regime itself. Trump is not just losing his hold on the public, I think he is starting to lose something more important - the legitimacy to run the greatest country in the history of the world."
Self report: Called my reps with a laundry list of things including some of Simon’s recommendations. Submitted letter to editor of my local paper about standing up for the deported US citizen kids. Signed a message with the Human Rights Campaign opposing an anti-LGBTQ “report” released by HHS. Also started my own progressive Substack recently - click my name to find it.
Love that judge's ruling. It almost ridicules the premise of Trump's argument, just like Simon wrote.
And... who TAF are the 19% of people who think an administration does not have to comply with a Supreme Court ruling??? Maybe the R's in Congress? :-) FFS, those people should not be allowed to vote. Drives me crazy to see numbers like that.
Actually, the 19% refers to those who think tRump doesn’t have to obey [lower] court rulings, while it falls to 9% with respect to the Supreme Court. Yeah, I’ll agree that 9% is still too many idiots, BUT for context, Rachel Maddow mentioned the other day that 9% is the proportion of Americans who claim to be in favor of Bubonic Plague. So maybe what it’s telling us is that 9% prefers to cast their vote for the most outrageous or ridiculous option available?
Thanks for clarifying! 19% for a SC ruling would have been absolutely insane, but still high for a lower court ruling.
"Rachel Maddow mentioned the other day that 9% is the proportion of Americans who claim to be in favor of Bubonic Plague. So maybe what it’s telling us is that 9% prefers to cast their vote for the most outrageous or ridiculous option available?" LOL!!
I guess they "did their own research" and determined Bubonic Plague was actually beneficial to developing a strong immune system :-)
Please do not conflate the worst president in US history with a secondary sex characteristic that is celebrated in paintings and sculpture, and that is greatly appreciated by large numbers of people, particularly on the gender to which they are attracted. That is more or less equivalent to using the C-word for the female genitalia as an epithet.
Allowing the President to unilaterally define the conditions when he may invoke the AEA, and then summarily declare that those conditions exist, would remove all limitations to the Executive Branch’s authority under the AEA, and would strip the courts of their traditional role of interpreting Congressional statutes to determine whether a government official has exceeded the statute’s scope. The law does not support such a position. See, e.g., Comm. for Nuclear Resp., Inc. v. Seaborg, 463 F.2d 788, 793 (D.C. Cir. 1971) (“An essential ingredient of our rule of law is the authority of the courts to determine whether an executive official or agency has complied with the Constitution and with the mandates of Congress which define and limit the authority of the executive.”); see also Boumediene v. Bush, 553 U.S. 723, 783 (2008) (reasoning that a court considering a person’s habeas action challenging his detention based on an executive order “must have sufficient authority to conduct a meaningful review of both the cause for detention and the Executive’s power to detain”).
Axios has a stunning article that documents how the Trump family and his entire inner circle are experiencing "a veritable Golden Age". Emoluments, anyone? This goes far beyond emoluments! The article has an itemized list (only partial, of course) of how they’re cashing in.
More and more Americans may be suffering, but so what? That’s not on Trump’s radar.
EDIT: This morning, this article was top-of-the-news at Axios. Now it’s far down and hardly visible, not even listed on the sidebar. Seems like somebody in the Trump Regime has good connections at Axios.
Senator Warren continues to do stellar work. The CPFB, now fighting for its life, was her brainchild. Likewise she had a strong impact on Biden’s policies and many key personnel choices.
Imho, Elizabeth Warren is the best president we never had.
Hard to read but in The a Guardian today MAGA minions reasons for still supporting he who shall not be named. Obvious they haven’t started to feel the pinch yet. But they will and then the silence will be deafening!!
Having lived and done grassroots work in a very red rural area, I think some of us underestimate the degree to which a group of about 30% of Americans are in a cult and will never turn on him. "Inflation" may have been the excuse this time, just like "her emails" were the excuse before, but they love him for reasons of tribalism, sexism, xenophobia, etc. That group will not turn on him when prices go up. Trump will tell them to blame China, or uppity women who get abortions, or immigrants and they'll believe him. Or he'll start a war and they'll agree it's unpatriotic to complain about high prices when our Commander in Chief asks us to pay them. It reminds me in some ways of how the Russian peasants were sure that if the czar only knew what the boyars were doing to them, he'd step in and protect them! We just have to concentrate on the rest of the country.
Along those lines…. We asked a Dem candidate for CA state assembly here in our red zone, what he’d heard as the biggest issue from self-labeled Republicans. He replied, “ transgendered people.” He went on to give examples of how Republican voters were able to lay all else from tariffs to homelessness to forest fires to grocery prices at the door of transgendered persons.
We cannot counteract this with language, song, measurable data, or exposure to actual transgendered people. The brain channels have already been sealed tight by some psychologically induced brain chemicals.
100% Fortunately there is some proportion of people who voted for Trump this time who are "gettable" and more people who aren't even registered who are "gettable" for us. I believe we can flip them and win. But it worries me that so many Dems seem to think this was all just about economics for all Trump voters. Economic issues were the excuse this time (I'm so old that I remember lots of Dem blogger bros lecturing us in 2016 about "economic insecurity" as an excuse for Trump voters.) but they weren't the real reason for the 30% of the country that's in a cult.
I like very much what Simon has said about Dems hamstringing ourselves by singing the Economy Johnny One Note song. I like what Simon is trying to do to broaden the “it’s the Economy S****d” into a coherent story tying science research and whatever else together with “the economy” (which doesn’t actually exist apart from farm issues, climate change, medical research and practice, and the arts). And I, nerd me, want to say that what the general voter means by “the economy” generally does not mean the worldwide flow of money and resources, but rather means stresses on their pocketbook. So I plan to look for and use focused, plain language tie ins between, say, climate change or anything “scientific” and the cost of ….
I'm well past disbelief at the high level of support — and 30% of "Americans" translates into an overwhelming proportion of MAGA voters — enjoyed by Trump. What I am having a hard time doing is thinking through what living in a country with that level of support means even assuming electoral reverses in 2026. To be unoriginal, that genie ain't going back in the bottle.
The genie has never been in the bottle. I’m a Brooklyn, NY girl from Flatbush, currently living among California’s Gold Country cultural descendants of highly territorial prospectors. NYC is characterized by waves of immigrants with whoever was second-to-last bitterly resenting who has come most lately. Think “West Side Story.” Meanwhile here in CA, on the urban side I discover the cultural descendants of those who believed the New Deal stole from the “hard working righteous” to give to the lazy shiftless poor (remember that both Nixon and Reagan were Californians) and out in the rural areas, the fiercely libertarian Leave Me Alone “State of Jefferson” secessionists.
I grew up on Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, and Martin Luther King, Jr but I have LEARNED to respect that love of “brother” usually depends on what that brother looks like and how much he’s gonna take.
I suspect there's an evolutionary explanation, i.e. a fitness advantage under some circumstances, to cultism or it wouldn't be so prevalent within society. So, as you say, let's work on the segments who aren't captured by this phenomenon.
My Friday Congresspersons call script that anyone can riff off of:
1. Support AOC or Jasmine Crockett to replace Gerry Connelly for House Oversight. Time for new leadership that the base is excited about. No more conservative 80-something-year-olds plz.
2. Support the resolution for review of human rights abuses by El Salvador that has been proposed by Senators Van Hollen, Kaine and Schumer.
3. Human SOS formed by detainees @ Bluebonnet ICE detention center in Texas. They have good reason to call for help even w/o us knowing how terrible the conditions in that particular facility might be. They’re facing being illegally sent to CECOT in violation of 5th & 8th Amendments. May not be inaccurate to say that CECOT is a deliberate parallel to Dachau. Nazi Germany also established its concentration camps and death camps outside of Germany itself. The idea is to remove people from the realm in which they’ll be protected by the law, to forcibly remove them to stateless and rightless zones. Stephen Miller and his ilk appear to have studied history in order to deliberately replicate it. Congressional Dems must put a stop to this before it is too late.
Self reporting from yesterday's protest in Arlington TX. Had a very interesting encounter.
Went to the Arlington Texas (DFW) protest, which is in a very red part of the state, though there is large-ish university there with a lot of international students. I was pleasantly surprised that 400-500 people were there. Most of the protesters were on the older side, with quite a few seniors. I’d just been at a coffeeshop a few blocks away where a bunch of hip and pretty young people were hanging out, but I didn’t see anybody like that protesting. This area, on top of being heavily Republican, can also be politically apathetic, so maybe this doesn’t reflect elsewhere, but I’d like to see younger folks at these protests.
I carried my traditional American flag again (there were two upside down flags, but no other traditional flag), and something interesting happened. When I was packing it up at the end, a big white guy came out of a non-upscale tattoo parlor across the street and crossed to meet me. I was unsure what was going on, but he shook my hand and thanked me for carrying the American flag. Then he turned and crossed back to his shop where a little old lady (his mother?) was watching, then they went inside.
This goes to some of the stuff I’ve been thinking about. I mean, this guy was not a normal leftist protester type. He could have had a police record. He could have been a vet. Who knows? But the fact that somebody decided to carry a traditional flag in the protest moved him to leave his place of business to thank me, and no one else. It obviously made a big difference to him, and possibly made him more open to the message we’re trying to deliver. That flag somehow made him feel represented among all the much more lefty messages (which are needed too, of course). And the thing is, I don’t think he needed more than one American flag in that crowd, but he damn sure needed one.
So I’m going to carry my traditional flag and possibly be a bridge to some of these more centrist or even off-the-grid people. The rest of y’all keep doing what feels right for you. If I’m being honest, one reason I’m carrying that flag is I *suck* big time at making signs. But I also think about my mom who was very emotional about the flag, and if she saw a group of protesters and there was a flag in the crowd she’d feel completely different about them than had there not been one.
Excellent anecdote to illustrate how much symbolism matters to many many people...especially on the right. exactly why we need to OWN independence day and make sure ALL AMERICANS know what the Declaration means and it is NOT "unity love and respect". Dude has clearly never read the Declaration lol. How the hell can "independence" be "unity". Absolutely insane.
More flags! I received many compliments on mine (3x5’) this time there were more flags at our May 1 Redwood City rally (~1000 people showed up). Several people said they were going to bring a flag to the next rally. I’m going to pick up a bunch of small flags on wooden sticks to hand out, large numbers of small flags look great among the clever signs. Between Flag Day on June 14, and Independence Day July 4 we can retake our flag! “Not going to let those bastards take my flag away” as a friend of my activist father said in 1970.
I was at a sign-waving event yesterday. The turnout was great, but also primarily retirement age. I saw only a few younger (I'm 43.) I had to leave work early to go and then finish my work afterwards. I know that's not possible for a lot of people, and I don't have kids either. My community is also older overall. People there really wanted to see younger people, but it's tough. I also had to dig to find out about the protest so I don't know if the communication is an obstacle too.
We had someone drive by several times in a lifted truck with flags flying, three US flags and a skull and crossbones. Someone near me said "hey, it's our flag too, we can't let them take it from us." That's a good point. There were a few regular flags at the rally but honestly more Canadian flags (we're near the border and normally get a lot of Canadian tourists.) Lots of small flags would be a nice touch.
I had bought a bunch of small flags at a dollar store (yes, I know where they were made), and I took them with me to our protest in Bloomfield, NJ yesterday. Several fellow protesters noticed and made bold to ask if they could borrow one (I'm not so bold as to offer unasked), so my little bunch of flags had a multiplier effect, and were more conspicuous to the cars as they raced by on the road. (Many cars honked in support of our protest.) I ended up giving a few flags away, to anyone who wanted to keep them. Now I will buy more and be sure to take a bunch with me to every protest to lend and/or give away.
Love the flag ideas! I fly our flag in the front of house on holidays and other times. I want to incorporate it into more signage and clothing. I really do think I’m patriotic as hell because I believe in the constitution. We should definitely own July 4.
I went to our local (Eugene, Oregon) rally yesterday. Good turnout, good signs, lots of laughter, which is one of the reasons to go to these protests. But it was held in the middle of the day, and so there was a whole lot of honking, waving, smiling, and gestures of solidarity done by passing cars, really big trucks, small trucks, even Teslas! It felt like the whole world was with us.
We were watching Andor last night and my husband commented that Star Wars really didn't prepare us for what a clown show autocracy could be.
My calls today will continue to be about immigration. A woman died in the Florida facility yesterday, and clearly there are terrible things happening in the Bluebonnet facility.
Great protest in St. Paul yesterday, focusing on immigrants and workers. Definitely thousands of people there, though I can't find a good crowd shot, with lots of unions showing up. Many more younger people than I've seen before.
Really glad to hear about the focus on health. Yesterday RFK Jr said that there are aborted fetuses in the measles vaccine. Thank you, Simon.
Speaking of ridiculous, this story continues to be pure insanity and maybe something for OK opposition to organize around. The state Superintendent appears to have surreptitiously altered the standards and blocked opponents from challenging the standards before they went to the Senate. The OK Senate has declined to intervene just like the US senate with tariffs. The actual state standards are ludicrous.
"Identify the source of the COVID-19 pandemic from a Chinese lab and the economic and social effects of state and local lockdowns"
"Identify discrepancies in 2020 elections results...security risks of mail-in balloting..."
It's literally just MAGA brainwashing as state curriculum.
"Three new board members have said Walters deceived them, both in making last-minute additions to the standards without notifying them or the public and by telling them the standards had to be approved during a late February meeting, when in reality they could have been presented to the Legislature for approval as late as this week....
...New board member Michael Tinney told The Oklahoman earlier in April that he’d compared the standards he’d downloaded from the Oklahoma State Department of Education website to what Walters sent him, and there were definite differences."
Calls are in to WI republican elected members. Attended a protest in red River Falls WI. About 200 people showed up to line the street. Mostly happy honks and thumbs up. Lots of good signs; I especially like the ones that refer to “Republican tax cuts for the billionaires ,etc.
Simon, Just want to suggest that IN ADDITION to photos from rallies and protests, the Hopium Community could report on which comments went over big -- got the most applause or the biggest laughs. For example, yesterday I was at a protest in Berryville, VA and I noticed that when the speaker (not sure which one) said something to the effect that we could all be living in "Flint, Michigan" unless our government invests in water quality, the protestors showed their concern/agreement by applauding and banging on their signs, more than for almost any other comment. Maybe this is a hot button local issue? Or maybe at many rallies across the US when someone talks about water quality, it's a big deal? I don't know. But if all of us "plucky patriots" share the most impactful comments we hear (from the standpoint of the protestors in attendance), we could learn a lot about the electorate in real time. Each protest/rally could actually be an informal focus group from which we can extract some useful info, or at least good lines to use again. So that's the idea.
I took pictures but can’t upload here so, yeah, how to send them to you?
Also want to say we had an impromptu speaker from the Bronx who will be interviewed on our local nonprofit boulder co station KGNU (1:30pm MST) and at a nearby church. Her name: Claudia de laCruise. Her message is very generalized to the consistent unmet needs of the working class. She spoke about how trump is a symptom that did not begin recently. That 41% of children in the Bronx are in poverty and have been through many administrations. And they even have a fresh produce distribution center in the Bronx but the children are going hungry there. Important info for the letter to America
Rachel Maddow has a phone number on WhatsApp specifically for folks to send photos from demonstrations...some have suggested using Signal, of all things! But I have sent photos to her at WhatsApp...maybe that would be a good idea for you, Simon! I would love to send you photos of rallies I attend. I always post a couple on Bluesky as well...Nancy Bruski
I would love to share my photos from our May Day protest at Foley Square in Manhattan. I helped two artist friends with a large inflatable puppet of king trump wearing a sign “Deport Cruelty”. Let me know where to share visuals.
Congresswoman Boebert - talked to a live person today! I asked if the congresswoman has a strategy to help her constituents after the budget bill is passed. The live person read me a script about how much she cares about her constituents and they are ever on her mind. I told him if that's true, she shouldn't vote for the budget. He said he would pass along my message.
Senators Bennet and Hickenlooper - I thanked them for everything they are doing. I told them to stop confirming any Trump nominees. Do they really think Purdue is the best person to work with China during these times? How did that work out with Rubio when they voted to confirm him? Gum up the works with every opportunity. And keep fighting the tariffs.
Right? This will "not" fly with MAGA or anyone else. People start thinking 'now' of budgeting for Christmas. They get through graduation and a summer vacay or staycay and then it's all about Christmas but they start budgeting, listing and shopping now. Empty containers and fired workers and dock workers out of jobs, not gonna fly.
I was at a Red Wine and Blue event last night and one of the women I met said she had a middle schooler and that she had already stocked up on school supplies, a new book bag, etc. I don't have any kids in school, but I always donate generously to "back to school" drives. I have made a note to stock up on those things on my next visit to the office supply store (no doubt I will soon need more posterboard for protest signs!)
Thank you for sharing the note from Alyssa from MA. I saw AG Campbell with Rep Clark last month at a Town Hall, and it was great to hear her talk about everything she and the other Democratic AGs are doing.
Oh my gosh and truly yes. Every day I wait to see what you will say. Today I'm reading reading nodding nodding and then I get to this and I laugh out loud, because it's JUST how I am feeling, such a perfect summation. "Ok, this has become a rant. I’m sorry. Some days I know where I am going when I get up and others I don’t." ... Then this perfect next series of sentences, which tells us where we are going! Thank you, Simon! "But, my friends, why does this matter? For it’s my argument that Trump is not just falling in the polls and becoming far weaker, but the growing circle of defiance we are seeing and the growing recognition of how absurd and ridiculous this all is starting to significantly undermine the legitimacy of the regime itself. Trump is not just losing his hold on the public, I think he is starting to lose something more important - the legitimacy to run the greatest country in the history of the world."
Self report: Called my reps with a laundry list of things including some of Simon’s recommendations. Submitted letter to editor of my local paper about standing up for the deported US citizen kids. Signed a message with the Human Rights Campaign opposing an anti-LGBTQ “report” released by HHS. Also started my own progressive Substack recently - click my name to find it.
Love that judge's ruling. It almost ridicules the premise of Trump's argument, just like Simon wrote.
And... who TAF are the 19% of people who think an administration does not have to comply with a Supreme Court ruling??? Maybe the R's in Congress? :-) FFS, those people should not be allowed to vote. Drives me crazy to see numbers like that.
Actually, the 19% refers to those who think tRump doesn’t have to obey [lower] court rulings, while it falls to 9% with respect to the Supreme Court. Yeah, I’ll agree that 9% is still too many idiots, BUT for context, Rachel Maddow mentioned the other day that 9% is the proportion of Americans who claim to be in favor of Bubonic Plague. So maybe what it’s telling us is that 9% prefers to cast their vote for the most outrageous or ridiculous option available?
Thanks for clarifying! 19% for a SC ruling would have been absolutely insane, but still high for a lower court ruling.
"Rachel Maddow mentioned the other day that 9% is the proportion of Americans who claim to be in favor of Bubonic Plague. So maybe what it’s telling us is that 9% prefers to cast their vote for the most outrageous or ridiculous option available?" LOL!!
I guess they "did their own research" and determined Bubonic Plague was actually beneficial to developing a strong immune system :-)
I hear the measles vaccine is actually made out of bubonic plague.
Please do not conflate the worst president in US history with a secondary sex characteristic that is celebrated in paintings and sculpture, and that is greatly appreciated by large numbers of people, particularly on the gender to which they are attracted. That is more or less equivalent to using the C-word for the female genitalia as an epithet.
Allowing the President to unilaterally define the conditions when he may invoke the AEA, and then summarily declare that those conditions exist, would remove all limitations to the Executive Branch’s authority under the AEA, and would strip the courts of their traditional role of interpreting Congressional statutes to determine whether a government official has exceeded the statute’s scope. The law does not support such a position. See, e.g., Comm. for Nuclear Resp., Inc. v. Seaborg, 463 F.2d 788, 793 (D.C. Cir. 1971) (“An essential ingredient of our rule of law is the authority of the courts to determine whether an executive official or agency has complied with the Constitution and with the mandates of Congress which define and limit the authority of the executive.”); see also Boumediene v. Bush, 553 U.S. 723, 783 (2008) (reasoning that a court considering a person’s habeas action challenging his detention based on an executive order “must have sufficient authority to conduct a meaningful review of both the cause for detention and the Executive’s power to detain”).
TRUMP & HIS INNER CIRCLE ARE CASHING IN
Axios has a stunning article that documents how the Trump family and his entire inner circle are experiencing "a veritable Golden Age". Emoluments, anyone? This goes far beyond emoluments! The article has an itemized list (only partial, of course) of how they’re cashing in.
INSIDE TRUMP’s 100 days of PRESIDENTIAL PROFIT
https://www.axios.com/2025/05/02/trump-crypto-world-liberty-business-profit
More and more Americans may be suffering, but so what? That’s not on Trump’s radar.
EDIT: This morning, this article was top-of-the-news at Axios. Now it’s far down and hardly visible, not even listed on the sidebar. Seems like somebody in the Trump Regime has good connections at Axios.
Yep, that's Sen. Warren's purview, and her staff is tracking all of it.
Senator Warren continues to do stellar work. The CPFB, now fighting for its life, was her brainchild. Likewise she had a strong impact on Biden’s policies and many key personnel choices.
Imho, Elizabeth Warren is the best president we never had.
Absolutely all of this!
very well said
Talk to the hand, volunteered for her campaign. Sigh.
Milk
And
Gut
America
But all of us have our own circle of influence and can amplify the message and share the article with friends via email or on social media!
Yes! Bookmark, dowload and share.
Hard to read but in The a Guardian today MAGA minions reasons for still supporting he who shall not be named. Obvious they haven’t started to feel the pinch yet. But they will and then the silence will be deafening!!
Having lived and done grassroots work in a very red rural area, I think some of us underestimate the degree to which a group of about 30% of Americans are in a cult and will never turn on him. "Inflation" may have been the excuse this time, just like "her emails" were the excuse before, but they love him for reasons of tribalism, sexism, xenophobia, etc. That group will not turn on him when prices go up. Trump will tell them to blame China, or uppity women who get abortions, or immigrants and they'll believe him. Or he'll start a war and they'll agree it's unpatriotic to complain about high prices when our Commander in Chief asks us to pay them. It reminds me in some ways of how the Russian peasants were sure that if the czar only knew what the boyars were doing to them, he'd step in and protect them! We just have to concentrate on the rest of the country.
Along those lines…. We asked a Dem candidate for CA state assembly here in our red zone, what he’d heard as the biggest issue from self-labeled Republicans. He replied, “ transgendered people.” He went on to give examples of how Republican voters were able to lay all else from tariffs to homelessness to forest fires to grocery prices at the door of transgendered persons.
We cannot counteract this with language, song, measurable data, or exposure to actual transgendered people. The brain channels have already been sealed tight by some psychologically induced brain chemicals.
100% Fortunately there is some proportion of people who voted for Trump this time who are "gettable" and more people who aren't even registered who are "gettable" for us. I believe we can flip them and win. But it worries me that so many Dems seem to think this was all just about economics for all Trump voters. Economic issues were the excuse this time (I'm so old that I remember lots of Dem blogger bros lecturing us in 2016 about "economic insecurity" as an excuse for Trump voters.) but they weren't the real reason for the 30% of the country that's in a cult.
I like very much what Simon has said about Dems hamstringing ourselves by singing the Economy Johnny One Note song. I like what Simon is trying to do to broaden the “it’s the Economy S****d” into a coherent story tying science research and whatever else together with “the economy” (which doesn’t actually exist apart from farm issues, climate change, medical research and practice, and the arts). And I, nerd me, want to say that what the general voter means by “the economy” generally does not mean the worldwide flow of money and resources, but rather means stresses on their pocketbook. So I plan to look for and use focused, plain language tie ins between, say, climate change or anything “scientific” and the cost of ….
I'm well past disbelief at the high level of support — and 30% of "Americans" translates into an overwhelming proportion of MAGA voters — enjoyed by Trump. What I am having a hard time doing is thinking through what living in a country with that level of support means even assuming electoral reverses in 2026. To be unoriginal, that genie ain't going back in the bottle.
The genie has never been in the bottle. I’m a Brooklyn, NY girl from Flatbush, currently living among California’s Gold Country cultural descendants of highly territorial prospectors. NYC is characterized by waves of immigrants with whoever was second-to-last bitterly resenting who has come most lately. Think “West Side Story.” Meanwhile here in CA, on the urban side I discover the cultural descendants of those who believed the New Deal stole from the “hard working righteous” to give to the lazy shiftless poor (remember that both Nixon and Reagan were Californians) and out in the rural areas, the fiercely libertarian Leave Me Alone “State of Jefferson” secessionists.
I grew up on Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, and Martin Luther King, Jr but I have LEARNED to respect that love of “brother” usually depends on what that brother looks like and how much he’s gonna take.
I suspect there's an evolutionary explanation, i.e. a fitness advantage under some circumstances, to cultism or it wouldn't be so prevalent within society. So, as you say, let's work on the segments who aren't captured by this phenomenon.
There is. I have neither data nor degrees in sociology or psychology, but I do believe there is a selection process for safety-in-numbers belief.
My Friday Congresspersons call script that anyone can riff off of:
1. Support AOC or Jasmine Crockett to replace Gerry Connelly for House Oversight. Time for new leadership that the base is excited about. No more conservative 80-something-year-olds plz.
2. Support the resolution for review of human rights abuses by El Salvador that has been proposed by Senators Van Hollen, Kaine and Schumer.
3. Human SOS formed by detainees @ Bluebonnet ICE detention center in Texas. They have good reason to call for help even w/o us knowing how terrible the conditions in that particular facility might be. They’re facing being illegally sent to CECOT in violation of 5th & 8th Amendments. May not be inaccurate to say that CECOT is a deliberate parallel to Dachau. Nazi Germany also established its concentration camps and death camps outside of Germany itself. The idea is to remove people from the realm in which they’ll be protected by the law, to forcibly remove them to stateless and rightless zones. Stephen Miller and his ilk appear to have studied history in order to deliberately replicate it. Congressional Dems must put a stop to this before it is too late.
This is all excellent - thank you, Pamela!
Self reporting from yesterday's protest in Arlington TX. Had a very interesting encounter.
Went to the Arlington Texas (DFW) protest, which is in a very red part of the state, though there is large-ish university there with a lot of international students. I was pleasantly surprised that 400-500 people were there. Most of the protesters were on the older side, with quite a few seniors. I’d just been at a coffeeshop a few blocks away where a bunch of hip and pretty young people were hanging out, but I didn’t see anybody like that protesting. This area, on top of being heavily Republican, can also be politically apathetic, so maybe this doesn’t reflect elsewhere, but I’d like to see younger folks at these protests.
I carried my traditional American flag again (there were two upside down flags, but no other traditional flag), and something interesting happened. When I was packing it up at the end, a big white guy came out of a non-upscale tattoo parlor across the street and crossed to meet me. I was unsure what was going on, but he shook my hand and thanked me for carrying the American flag. Then he turned and crossed back to his shop where a little old lady (his mother?) was watching, then they went inside.
This goes to some of the stuff I’ve been thinking about. I mean, this guy was not a normal leftist protester type. He could have had a police record. He could have been a vet. Who knows? But the fact that somebody decided to carry a traditional flag in the protest moved him to leave his place of business to thank me, and no one else. It obviously made a big difference to him, and possibly made him more open to the message we’re trying to deliver. That flag somehow made him feel represented among all the much more lefty messages (which are needed too, of course). And the thing is, I don’t think he needed more than one American flag in that crowd, but he damn sure needed one.
So I’m going to carry my traditional flag and possibly be a bridge to some of these more centrist or even off-the-grid people. The rest of y’all keep doing what feels right for you. If I’m being honest, one reason I’m carrying that flag is I *suck* big time at making signs. But I also think about my mom who was very emotional about the flag, and if she saw a group of protesters and there was a flag in the crowd she’d feel completely different about them than had there not been one.
Excellent anecdote to illustrate how much symbolism matters to many many people...especially on the right. exactly why we need to OWN independence day and make sure ALL AMERICANS know what the Declaration means and it is NOT "unity love and respect". Dude has clearly never read the Declaration lol. How the hell can "independence" be "unity". Absolutely insane.
More flags! I received many compliments on mine (3x5’) this time there were more flags at our May 1 Redwood City rally (~1000 people showed up). Several people said they were going to bring a flag to the next rally. I’m going to pick up a bunch of small flags on wooden sticks to hand out, large numbers of small flags look great among the clever signs. Between Flag Day on June 14, and Independence Day July 4 we can retake our flag! “Not going to let those bastards take my flag away” as a friend of my activist father said in 1970.
I was at a sign-waving event yesterday. The turnout was great, but also primarily retirement age. I saw only a few younger (I'm 43.) I had to leave work early to go and then finish my work afterwards. I know that's not possible for a lot of people, and I don't have kids either. My community is also older overall. People there really wanted to see younger people, but it's tough. I also had to dig to find out about the protest so I don't know if the communication is an obstacle too.
We had someone drive by several times in a lifted truck with flags flying, three US flags and a skull and crossbones. Someone near me said "hey, it's our flag too, we can't let them take it from us." That's a good point. There were a few regular flags at the rally but honestly more Canadian flags (we're near the border and normally get a lot of Canadian tourists.) Lots of small flags would be a nice touch.
Thanks for sharing your story.
I had bought a bunch of small flags at a dollar store (yes, I know where they were made), and I took them with me to our protest in Bloomfield, NJ yesterday. Several fellow protesters noticed and made bold to ask if they could borrow one (I'm not so bold as to offer unasked), so my little bunch of flags had a multiplier effect, and were more conspicuous to the cars as they raced by on the road. (Many cars honked in support of our protest.) I ended up giving a few flags away, to anyone who wanted to keep them. Now I will buy more and be sure to take a bunch with me to every protest to lend and/or give away.
Love the flag ideas! I fly our flag in the front of house on holidays and other times. I want to incorporate it into more signage and clothing. I really do think I’m patriotic as hell because I believe in the constitution. We should definitely own July 4.
Yes! We're fighting for our country because we're truly patriotic!
I went to our local (Eugene, Oregon) rally yesterday. Good turnout, good signs, lots of laughter, which is one of the reasons to go to these protests. But it was held in the middle of the day, and so there was a whole lot of honking, waving, smiling, and gestures of solidarity done by passing cars, really big trucks, small trucks, even Teslas! It felt like the whole world was with us.
I'll be in Eugene this weekend. I can't find any scheduled protests. Do you know of any? Would love to participate if there are. I adore Eugene :)
I don’t at this moment but will post here if I hear of anything. Mobilize.us is one place to check.
I love Eugene's strong activist community.
We were watching Andor last night and my husband commented that Star Wars really didn't prepare us for what a clown show autocracy could be.
My calls today will continue to be about immigration. A woman died in the Florida facility yesterday, and clearly there are terrible things happening in the Bluebonnet facility.
Great protest in St. Paul yesterday, focusing on immigrants and workers. Definitely thousands of people there, though I can't find a good crowd shot, with lots of unions showing up. Many more younger people than I've seen before.
Really glad to hear about the focus on health. Yesterday RFK Jr said that there are aborted fetuses in the measles vaccine. Thank you, Simon.
Speaking of ridiculous, this story continues to be pure insanity and maybe something for OK opposition to organize around. The state Superintendent appears to have surreptitiously altered the standards and blocked opponents from challenging the standards before they went to the Senate. The OK Senate has declined to intervene just like the US senate with tariffs. The actual state standards are ludicrous.
"Identify the source of the COVID-19 pandemic from a Chinese lab and the economic and social effects of state and local lockdowns"
"Identify discrepancies in 2020 elections results...security risks of mail-in balloting..."
It's literally just MAGA brainwashing as state curriculum.
https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news/education/2025/04/29/ryan-walters-oklahoma-social-studies-standards-will-go-into-effect-senate/83351128007/
"Three new board members have said Walters deceived them, both in making last-minute additions to the standards without notifying them or the public and by telling them the standards had to be approved during a late February meeting, when in reality they could have been presented to the Legislature for approval as late as this week....
...New board member Michael Tinney told The Oklahoman earlier in April that he’d compared the standards he’d downloaded from the Oklahoma State Department of Education website to what Walters sent him, and there were definite differences."
Thank you. There are great folks like yourself in OK and they don't deserve this in the land of Woody Guthrie.
Thankfully I'm not in OK...just spreading word of the story :)
got it, thanks!
Calls are in to WI republican elected members. Attended a protest in red River Falls WI. About 200 people showed up to line the street. Mostly happy honks and thumbs up. Lots of good signs; I especially like the ones that refer to “Republican tax cuts for the billionaires ,etc.
KFF Health Tracking Poll April 2025: Public’s View on Major Cuts to Federal Health Agencies
Grace Sparks, Alex Montero, Marley Presiado, Julian Montalvo III, Ashley Kirzinger, and Liz Hamel
Published: May 01, 2025
https://www.kff.org/health-costs/poll-finding/kff-health-tracking-poll-april-2025-publics-view-on-major-cuts-to-federal-health-agencies/
Friends, suggestions for how I can collect photos from the rallies and protests?
Any good contacts in Trump’s NSA?
/s
Create a public group on SezUs and invite people to join (it’s free) and post their pictures?
Maybe ask some of the alt media people if they have a collection they're willing to share?
We can send photos to you or Lincoln in a direct message on Substack.
https://support.substack.com/hc/en-us/articles/10551066288404-Can-I-direct-message-another-reader-or-writer-on-Substack#:~:text=The%20direct%20messaging%20(DMs)%20feature,links%2C%20and%20reacting%20to%20messages.
Simon, Just want to suggest that IN ADDITION to photos from rallies and protests, the Hopium Community could report on which comments went over big -- got the most applause or the biggest laughs. For example, yesterday I was at a protest in Berryville, VA and I noticed that when the speaker (not sure which one) said something to the effect that we could all be living in "Flint, Michigan" unless our government invests in water quality, the protestors showed their concern/agreement by applauding and banging on their signs, more than for almost any other comment. Maybe this is a hot button local issue? Or maybe at many rallies across the US when someone talks about water quality, it's a big deal? I don't know. But if all of us "plucky patriots" share the most impactful comments we hear (from the standpoint of the protestors in attendance), we could learn a lot about the electorate in real time. Each protest/rally could actually be an informal focus group from which we can extract some useful info, or at least good lines to use again. So that's the idea.
I took pictures but can’t upload here so, yeah, how to send them to you?
Also want to say we had an impromptu speaker from the Bronx who will be interviewed on our local nonprofit boulder co station KGNU (1:30pm MST) and at a nearby church. Her name: Claudia de laCruise. Her message is very generalized to the consistent unmet needs of the working class. She spoke about how trump is a symptom that did not begin recently. That 41% of children in the Bronx are in poverty and have been through many administrations. And they even have a fresh produce distribution center in the Bronx but the children are going hungry there. Important info for the letter to America
There are photos and videos all over blue sky. The problem is that we can't post them in this comments section
Rachel Maddow has a phone number on WhatsApp specifically for folks to send photos from demonstrations...some have suggested using Signal, of all things! But I have sent photos to her at WhatsApp...maybe that would be a good idea for you, Simon! I would love to send you photos of rallies I attend. I always post a couple on Bluesky as well...Nancy Bruski
I would love to share my photos from our May Day protest at Foley Square in Manhattan. I helped two artist friends with a large inflatable puppet of king trump wearing a sign “Deport Cruelty”. Let me know where to share visuals.
My calls today:
Congresswoman Boebert - talked to a live person today! I asked if the congresswoman has a strategy to help her constituents after the budget bill is passed. The live person read me a script about how much she cares about her constituents and they are ever on her mind. I told him if that's true, she shouldn't vote for the budget. He said he would pass along my message.
Senators Bennet and Hickenlooper - I thanked them for everything they are doing. I told them to stop confirming any Trump nominees. Do they really think Purdue is the best person to work with China during these times? How did that work out with Rubio when they voted to confirm him? Gum up the works with every opportunity. And keep fighting the tariffs.