It’s all so overwhelming. How will we ever recover from all the harm that is being caused to so many people. I feel scared all the time. I don’t understand why Trump is being allowed to do the things he is doing. It is infuriating.
I know, Laura. We will recover together as long as we all do what we can do. If you can call your Senators and Representative today that will help you feel a little less scared because you will be doing something. I hope you can make it to a No Kings event on Saturday. Being with more people who share your values will help. I hope you feel less overwhelmed soon! We need you!
Yes I call my Senators and congressman daily. I’m actually the organizer of my No Kings this Saturday. I protest every Saturday at two different protest and I have done postcarding and signed petitions and have tried to get people involved! I know I would be feeling more despair if I was not taking action.
Thank you for what you are doing. Being frightened is a natural, human response. It shows you care about things that matter! I have been through a lot of stuff already in my life, and grew up w parents who had lived through depression and WWII. You get through it one day at a time, by leaning on each other. Keep going - we'll do this together!
It’s all scary… And We will recover together. We will not turn away, we will turn to each other. We will work hard, make new friends, and create new ways of doing things as we go forward. Together.
In addition, I wonder what evidence there is that fossil fuel traders and accomplices in Congress or the SWhite House or among Federal Departments and Agencies with privileged timely access to the gyrations of Trump's lies have been exploiting their inside knowledge to make lots of money from the short term ups and downs of fuel prices. (in prediction markets and oil contracts for example). The more disasters and burdens Trump inflicts on people around the world, who are mostly innocent of doing any wrong, the more opportunities there are for the "worst of the worst" - the real ones not the targets of Trumpian vindictiveness - to make money corruptly.
Thanks, Simon, for the good polling news. I wish Mr. Morris would add corruption to the issues he asks about. I suspect it matters more than people suspect, especially to the young voters who feel as if the system is rigged against them. When Democrats are back in power, I think they'll need to make cleaning up corruption a major push.
I called my congressman and senators to say NO more funding for ICE or this war. I also said that the president is not in touch with reality, I think that's very dangerous, and I wish they'd begin to talk regularly about this issue. I'm writing postcards to Virginia voters about redistricting.
FIVE PINOCCHIOS! The serial Cheater-in-Chief boldly lies again yet the markets worldwide respond. However, on the flip side, NATO seems to have wizened up and making the decision NOT to join in Trump's FAKE WAR. And yet, the "Trump Administration to Pay $1 Billion to Energy Giant to Cancel Wind Farms" is anathema to the looming worldwide energy crisis. Let's get rid of these old guys who are living in the gas-guzzling 80s.
Of all of the articles that you cite in your "little waltz through all of the 'good' news," the single statement that really caught my attention among the parade of horribles was by German President Steinmeier: "Just as I believe there will be no going back in relations with Russia to before February 24, 2022, so too do I believe there will be no going back in transatlantic relations to before January 20, 2025." We all know that Trump is a destroyer, but the potential duration of this devastation even after he leaves the scene still shakes me to my core. But I retain hope and will definitely be participating in Saturday's largest single-day demonstration in U.S. history and will continue to work towards a crushing rejection of Republicans in November.
In order to begin to regain some respect with the EU and the rest of the world once we get through this nightmare and regain the reins of sanity, we must have real consequences for King Clown and his band of nasty clownsters. Even then, it will take a few election cycles where the GOP is out of power.
and of course, much stronger guardrails passed by Congress. Term Limits for SCOTUS.
But that's in the future. We build it step by step. No Kings III is in front of us now. Encourage your friends and associates to join in. Let's make this YUGE!
Called my MoCs. Stop the war, Pass a new war powers act because Article One of the Constitution. Fund DHS minus ICE. Don't forget Epstein.
Perhaps a controversial statement but I believe it to be true: this nightmare we are living through is a backlash to the reelection of Barack Obama. His reelection, not his first election, was a message to the white male hierarchy that their lock on power was gone. I have never felt threatened by Obama’s election because I am not a white male. In fact, I viewed it as the embodiment of the American ideal. The high watermark of our beloved country. To be clear sharing power doesn’t mean I won’t vote for a white male. If he were the best candidate I would be on board completely. It’s just so ironic or pathetic that the reaction to Obama has been the most vile, worst caricature of the white, gentile, heterosexual male.
"I have never felt threatened by Obama’s election because I am not a white male. In fact, I viewed it as the embodiment of the American ideal."
I am a white male and I do not feel threatened by women or people of color as the chief executive. There are millions of us.
However, in the current climate, given that Trump defeated two females and lost to a white male, I will be considering race and gender as a factor in my vote this year. Not absolute, but part of the calculus. It saddens me that is so.
I didn’t say there aren’t millions of you and I am thankful you are one of them. As is my husband and the husbands of many (but not all) of my friends. Nonetheless I have also witnessed the anger, most notably at a church dinner in 2009 that shocked me and I have never forgotten it. Beet red anger that was hardly contained. I have also lived it as a woman who has worked in corporate settings for nearly 40 years. Sorry if this reply seems defensive. Believe me, my experience saddens me more than anything.
I understand. Mysogeny and racism, the scourge of civilization. Rational argument will not change people's hearts. I think it goes to a primal wound of insecurity, but it is more complicated than that.
We, the privileged white males, have to model equity in our relations and stand up for others. I guess I was the one being defensive. Look at the polls. White men are the biggest group of Trumpers.
I agree, except I think it not just him. (And the dynamic and inspiring Michelle Obama, who also upsets them terribly.) I think it is pure White racial panic that America will soon be less than 50% White. President Obama made them have to face that sociological reality, and in particular their reaction to it. Voters who thought they “didn’t have a racist bone in their body” had to find something other than race to explain why President Obama made them so uneasy, and eventually they settled on “libs are woke satanic anti-White America-hating election-rigging hypocrites.” Trump told those voters, “you have been wronged and I will make the libs cry for your amusement.”
Thanks so much for the detailed post and analysis, Simon. I just SMDH at how lying about really important things has become so normalized. Lying about negotiations would have been an administration-toppling scandal 20 years ago. Now, it's just, meh... The damage Trumpism has done to politics is staggering. The only way to fix it is for the new leaders we elect to have the utmost integrity and to remind everyone that from 2008-2016 we had a leader that mostly reflected our best values.
That is actually a distinct possibility, and there's probably a bit of both going on. He is so utterly corrupt to his core, that I always default to a character defect versus a physical defect :-)
I am a little confused is the Senate reworking a bill that will include every agency within DHS except for ICE. If so, will it have to go back to the House then to Trump who probably won't sign it without the SAVE ACT? My head is spinning!
Apparently, Senate Rs have (maybe) convinced Trump to reach a deal with Senate Ds to fund FEMA, TSA, Coast Guard--everything but ICE/CBP for FY 26. Then they think they can go back in a separate bill and get ICE/CBP funding through the reconciliation process, which requires only a majority vote instead of 60 votes. If they do that, it's unlikely Ds can stop it--unless at least three Rs refuse to vote for it, which seems unlikely. If either or both of those funding bills is the same as what the House passed, then no need for a re-vote there.
Worse yet, some Rs are talking about trying to get the SAVE Act passed through reconciliation. Lots more hurdles there since there's no obvious tie to spending, which reconciliation requires. But they're looking at it and poking around. It may come down to the Senate Parliamentarian ruling on whether any or all of SAVE can be done through reconciliation.
Speaking of which, great article this morning (either WaPo or NYT) about Kansas, which tried its own version of SAVE (though slightly less restrictive since people were allowed to register by mail--instead of in person--and just send in their citizenship documents) over a decade ago. A federal judge finally stopped it when data showed it prevented 31,000 American citizens from being able to register to vote because they didn't have passports or access to birth certificates. On the flip side, it prevented only 28 non-citizens from registering--and most of those were not intentional attempts at voter fraud. So, that's what's in our future if SAVE passes.
The Morris numbers are enlightening. Mostly positive, but Dems being underwater (still) on Crime/Public Safety, Border Security, and Deportations is too bad. Maybe we haven't recovered from Defund the Police and Pres Biden's border chaos yet, because empirically, it shouldn't be the case (low crime rates and Biden and Obama both had more deportations than Trump). Even though those issues aren't top of mind in this poll, it gives us direction on what can be shored up. And those aren't genuine (empirically supported) bad areas for Dems. It seems to be related to image/presentation. All good.
A couple of thoughts about the Supreme Court potentially invalidating mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day:
(1) If the Supremes do this, blue and purple states should sequester these ballots, count them, and make the results public, along with key demographics of the voters who the Court has claimed must be disenfranchised, including their military status. In any instance where the result would be changed by allowing the disenfranchised voters to be included, the states should certify as the winner whoever would have won with disenfranchised voters included. It is time for open defiance of the partisan overreach by this "court."
The Constitution makes very clear who is responsible for elections. The states are given sole responsibility and Congress is given the power to overrule the states if they do anything untoward. There is no role provided in the Constitution for either of the other two branches to get involved, except in cases where the entity with final authority (Congress) imposes conditions that the states find unconstitutional. Separately, the states should solicit testimony from voters who sent in their ballots early enough that if the PO was functioning properly, they should have been received in time, and assuming those numbers are significant, the PO, which is run by a notorious MAGA hack, should be investigated, and those shown to be involved in any slowdown should be prosecuted, under state law, if necessary.
(2) The main argument the GOP has made in asking the Court to strike down the acceptance of late-arriving ballots is that this is necessary to restore faith in the integrity of our elections. If this is the grounds the Court uses to justify making that decision, it should be used as the basis for a flood of lawsuits against every voter suppression law in the country, since every one of those laws corrodes faith on *our* side of the aisle that our elections are free and fair, and the Constitution demands equal protection under the law, which is clearly violated when only one side's reasons to doubt the integrity of our elections is honored.
Moreover, unlike the GOP's lawsuit, voter suppression is clearly defined as unconstitutional in all its amounts and forms by the 14th amendment with language that forecloses all possible wiggleroom and weaselry by the judicial branch. In fact, when the Court immediately tried to misread and destroy the 14th after it passed, Congress used its powers clearly granted under the Constitution (and if Alito's command of English is so poor as to be unable to understand that, ICE should be sent to break down *his* door) to prohibit the Court from ruling on voting rights cases that sought to narrow the 14th's protections. When it comes to the right to vote, we must fight them on the beaches, in the fields and in the streets, in the hills, and never surrender--the fate of the entire world depends on it.
I (and probably others) listened to Malcolm Nance this morning, and he believes the so-called "pause" in attacking domestic energy facilities is just in preparation for capturing Kharg (I might be spelling it wrong) and other islands in the Persian Gulf. He's trying to prevent a market collapse before his invasion, and then I guess count on the actual consequences not being too severe for energy supplies from the Gulf. This appears to be his need to look "strong". Nance thinks the invasion will happen this weekend.
But if they do this, to what end? They might capture the islands, but they are going to try to hold them then? Why? Also, Iran gets a vote. They might not do much to stop an invasion, but instead mine the islands, attack later on, and attack other infrastructure in the Gulf. I doubt anything good is going to come from this.
Per Simon's points about Trump’s lies about Iran, an NPR host made a trenchant observation about this last night: "Whoever thought we would ever be in a place where we had to wonder whether the *Iranian* government or our own was telling the truth, let alone a predisposition to believe the *Iranians* are being more truthful."
I'd liken it to a Star Trek episode in which the Klingons are revealed to be the ones really speaking truth to power, while the crew of the Enterprise is exposed as having been spouting Federation propaganda from the jump. Not in our universe they aren't.
It’s all so overwhelming. How will we ever recover from all the harm that is being caused to so many people. I feel scared all the time. I don’t understand why Trump is being allowed to do the things he is doing. It is infuriating.
I know, Laura. We will recover together as long as we all do what we can do. If you can call your Senators and Representative today that will help you feel a little less scared because you will be doing something. I hope you can make it to a No Kings event on Saturday. Being with more people who share your values will help. I hope you feel less overwhelmed soon! We need you!
Yes I call my Senators and congressman daily. I’m actually the organizer of my No Kings this Saturday. I protest every Saturday at two different protest and I have done postcarding and signed petitions and have tried to get people involved! I know I would be feeling more despair if I was not taking action.
Thank you for your kind words.
I find the work of Paul T Shattuck “Stay Human. Shape Tomorrow” very supportive. He speaks to the emotional side of these times quite skillfully.
https://paultshattuck.substack.com/p/trump-is-afraid-of-you?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
You are a rockstar! Thank you for all your work!
Thank you for what you are doing. Being frightened is a natural, human response. It shows you care about things that matter! I have been through a lot of stuff already in my life, and grew up w parents who had lived through depression and WWII. You get through it one day at a time, by leaning on each other. Keep going - we'll do this together!
It’s all scary… And We will recover together. We will not turn away, we will turn to each other. We will work hard, make new friends, and create new ways of doing things as we go forward. Together.
Yes! It is very hard to watch the destruction, and it will be harder to fix, but none of us has to do it alone. And we won’t stop.
In addition, I wonder what evidence there is that fossil fuel traders and accomplices in Congress or the SWhite House or among Federal Departments and Agencies with privileged timely access to the gyrations of Trump's lies have been exploiting their inside knowledge to make lots of money from the short term ups and downs of fuel prices. (in prediction markets and oil contracts for example). The more disasters and burdens Trump inflicts on people around the world, who are mostly innocent of doing any wrong, the more opportunities there are for the "worst of the worst" - the real ones not the targets of Trumpian vindictiveness - to make money corruptly.
totally, 100% they are cashing in. Add that to the list of investigations.
Thanks, Simon, for the good polling news. I wish Mr. Morris would add corruption to the issues he asks about. I suspect it matters more than people suspect, especially to the young voters who feel as if the system is rigged against them. When Democrats are back in power, I think they'll need to make cleaning up corruption a major push.
I called my congressman and senators to say NO more funding for ICE or this war. I also said that the president is not in touch with reality, I think that's very dangerous, and I wish they'd begin to talk regularly about this issue. I'm writing postcards to Virginia voters about redistricting.
agree, I dunno why the emperor's nudity is not being mentioned. Denial is strong - but I do think cracks are forming.
FIVE PINOCCHIOS! The serial Cheater-in-Chief boldly lies again yet the markets worldwide respond. However, on the flip side, NATO seems to have wizened up and making the decision NOT to join in Trump's FAKE WAR. And yet, the "Trump Administration to Pay $1 Billion to Energy Giant to Cancel Wind Farms" is anathema to the looming worldwide energy crisis. Let's get rid of these old guys who are living in the gas-guzzling 80s.
They sure do seem to have plenty of money for stuff they want.
Of all of the articles that you cite in your "little waltz through all of the 'good' news," the single statement that really caught my attention among the parade of horribles was by German President Steinmeier: "Just as I believe there will be no going back in relations with Russia to before February 24, 2022, so too do I believe there will be no going back in transatlantic relations to before January 20, 2025." We all know that Trump is a destroyer, but the potential duration of this devastation even after he leaves the scene still shakes me to my core. But I retain hope and will definitely be participating in Saturday's largest single-day demonstration in U.S. history and will continue to work towards a crushing rejection of Republicans in November.
In order to begin to regain some respect with the EU and the rest of the world once we get through this nightmare and regain the reins of sanity, we must have real consequences for King Clown and his band of nasty clownsters. Even then, it will take a few election cycles where the GOP is out of power.
and of course, much stronger guardrails passed by Congress. Term Limits for SCOTUS.
But that's in the future. We build it step by step. No Kings III is in front of us now. Encourage your friends and associates to join in. Let's make this YUGE!
Called my MoCs. Stop the war, Pass a new war powers act because Article One of the Constitution. Fund DHS minus ICE. Don't forget Epstein.
Reminder from my first political hero, President Clinton……
There’s nothing wrong with America that can’t be cured by what’s right with America
Steady as she goes, one foot in front of the other…this isn’t permanent unless we let it be.
🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
Yes, as one of MY heroes, the legendary basketball coach Pat Summitt used to say: "Left; Right; Breathe; Repeat"
No one beats Beckett for observations on the human condition, which, whether I like it or not, is responsible for where we are:
"There's man all over for you, blaming on his boots the faults of his feet."
Anyone who would “negotiate “ with Donald Trump is ipso facto a fool.
so much for the five day cease fire...
We can take courage, determination, and hope from Simon’s words, “we have a country to save and an election to win”, that helps us to stay focused.
Perhaps a controversial statement but I believe it to be true: this nightmare we are living through is a backlash to the reelection of Barack Obama. His reelection, not his first election, was a message to the white male hierarchy that their lock on power was gone. I have never felt threatened by Obama’s election because I am not a white male. In fact, I viewed it as the embodiment of the American ideal. The high watermark of our beloved country. To be clear sharing power doesn’t mean I won’t vote for a white male. If he were the best candidate I would be on board completely. It’s just so ironic or pathetic that the reaction to Obama has been the most vile, worst caricature of the white, gentile, heterosexual male.
Exhausted but determined, I carry on.
"I have never felt threatened by Obama’s election because I am not a white male. In fact, I viewed it as the embodiment of the American ideal."
I am a white male and I do not feel threatened by women or people of color as the chief executive. There are millions of us.
However, in the current climate, given that Trump defeated two females and lost to a white male, I will be considering race and gender as a factor in my vote this year. Not absolute, but part of the calculus. It saddens me that is so.
I didn’t say there aren’t millions of you and I am thankful you are one of them. As is my husband and the husbands of many (but not all) of my friends. Nonetheless I have also witnessed the anger, most notably at a church dinner in 2009 that shocked me and I have never forgotten it. Beet red anger that was hardly contained. I have also lived it as a woman who has worked in corporate settings for nearly 40 years. Sorry if this reply seems defensive. Believe me, my experience saddens me more than anything.
I understand. Mysogeny and racism, the scourge of civilization. Rational argument will not change people's hearts. I think it goes to a primal wound of insecurity, but it is more complicated than that.
We, the privileged white males, have to model equity in our relations and stand up for others. I guess I was the one being defensive. Look at the polls. White men are the biggest group of Trumpers.
Without Obama there would be no trump
I agree, except I think it not just him. (And the dynamic and inspiring Michelle Obama, who also upsets them terribly.) I think it is pure White racial panic that America will soon be less than 50% White. President Obama made them have to face that sociological reality, and in particular their reaction to it. Voters who thought they “didn’t have a racist bone in their body” had to find something other than race to explain why President Obama made them so uneasy, and eventually they settled on “libs are woke satanic anti-White America-hating election-rigging hypocrites.” Trump told those voters, “you have been wronged and I will make the libs cry for your amusement.”
Gas prices in Seattle are $5.00 a gallons.
Thanks so much for the detailed post and analysis, Simon. I just SMDH at how lying about really important things has become so normalized. Lying about negotiations would have been an administration-toppling scandal 20 years ago. Now, it's just, meh... The damage Trumpism has done to politics is staggering. The only way to fix it is for the new leaders we elect to have the utmost integrity and to remind everyone that from 2008-2016 we had a leader that mostly reflected our best values.
I keep wondering if he is lying or delusional. Like, did he meet an expert in negotiating with Iran and thought he met a negotiator *from* Iran?
That is actually a distinct possibility, and there's probably a bit of both going on. He is so utterly corrupt to his core, that I always default to a character defect versus a physical defect :-)
I am a little confused is the Senate reworking a bill that will include every agency within DHS except for ICE. If so, will it have to go back to the House then to Trump who probably won't sign it without the SAVE ACT? My head is spinning!
Apparently, Senate Rs have (maybe) convinced Trump to reach a deal with Senate Ds to fund FEMA, TSA, Coast Guard--everything but ICE/CBP for FY 26. Then they think they can go back in a separate bill and get ICE/CBP funding through the reconciliation process, which requires only a majority vote instead of 60 votes. If they do that, it's unlikely Ds can stop it--unless at least three Rs refuse to vote for it, which seems unlikely. If either or both of those funding bills is the same as what the House passed, then no need for a re-vote there.
Worse yet, some Rs are talking about trying to get the SAVE Act passed through reconciliation. Lots more hurdles there since there's no obvious tie to spending, which reconciliation requires. But they're looking at it and poking around. It may come down to the Senate Parliamentarian ruling on whether any or all of SAVE can be done through reconciliation.
Speaking of which, great article this morning (either WaPo or NYT) about Kansas, which tried its own version of SAVE (though slightly less restrictive since people were allowed to register by mail--instead of in person--and just send in their citizenship documents) over a decade ago. A federal judge finally stopped it when data showed it prevented 31,000 American citizens from being able to register to vote because they didn't have passports or access to birth certificates. On the flip side, it prevented only 28 non-citizens from registering--and most of those were not intentional attempts at voter fraud. So, that's what's in our future if SAVE passes.
The Morris numbers are enlightening. Mostly positive, but Dems being underwater (still) on Crime/Public Safety, Border Security, and Deportations is too bad. Maybe we haven't recovered from Defund the Police and Pres Biden's border chaos yet, because empirically, it shouldn't be the case (low crime rates and Biden and Obama both had more deportations than Trump). Even though those issues aren't top of mind in this poll, it gives us direction on what can be shored up. And those aren't genuine (empirically supported) bad areas for Dems. It seems to be related to image/presentation. All good.
this is about us being supportive of "those people" - it's a manifestation of the white supremacy that has overtaken the GOP.
A couple of thoughts about the Supreme Court potentially invalidating mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day:
(1) If the Supremes do this, blue and purple states should sequester these ballots, count them, and make the results public, along with key demographics of the voters who the Court has claimed must be disenfranchised, including their military status. In any instance where the result would be changed by allowing the disenfranchised voters to be included, the states should certify as the winner whoever would have won with disenfranchised voters included. It is time for open defiance of the partisan overreach by this "court."
The Constitution makes very clear who is responsible for elections. The states are given sole responsibility and Congress is given the power to overrule the states if they do anything untoward. There is no role provided in the Constitution for either of the other two branches to get involved, except in cases where the entity with final authority (Congress) imposes conditions that the states find unconstitutional. Separately, the states should solicit testimony from voters who sent in their ballots early enough that if the PO was functioning properly, they should have been received in time, and assuming those numbers are significant, the PO, which is run by a notorious MAGA hack, should be investigated, and those shown to be involved in any slowdown should be prosecuted, under state law, if necessary.
(2) The main argument the GOP has made in asking the Court to strike down the acceptance of late-arriving ballots is that this is necessary to restore faith in the integrity of our elections. If this is the grounds the Court uses to justify making that decision, it should be used as the basis for a flood of lawsuits against every voter suppression law in the country, since every one of those laws corrodes faith on *our* side of the aisle that our elections are free and fair, and the Constitution demands equal protection under the law, which is clearly violated when only one side's reasons to doubt the integrity of our elections is honored.
Moreover, unlike the GOP's lawsuit, voter suppression is clearly defined as unconstitutional in all its amounts and forms by the 14th amendment with language that forecloses all possible wiggleroom and weaselry by the judicial branch. In fact, when the Court immediately tried to misread and destroy the 14th after it passed, Congress used its powers clearly granted under the Constitution (and if Alito's command of English is so poor as to be unable to understand that, ICE should be sent to break down *his* door) to prohibit the Court from ruling on voting rights cases that sought to narrow the 14th's protections. When it comes to the right to vote, we must fight them on the beaches, in the fields and in the streets, in the hills, and never surrender--the fate of the entire world depends on it.
I (and probably others) listened to Malcolm Nance this morning, and he believes the so-called "pause" in attacking domestic energy facilities is just in preparation for capturing Kharg (I might be spelling it wrong) and other islands in the Persian Gulf. He's trying to prevent a market collapse before his invasion, and then I guess count on the actual consequences not being too severe for energy supplies from the Gulf. This appears to be his need to look "strong". Nance thinks the invasion will happen this weekend.
But if they do this, to what end? They might capture the islands, but they are going to try to hold them then? Why? Also, Iran gets a vote. They might not do much to stop an invasion, but instead mine the islands, attack later on, and attack other infrastructure in the Gulf. I doubt anything good is going to come from this.
Per Simon's points about Trump’s lies about Iran, an NPR host made a trenchant observation about this last night: "Whoever thought we would ever be in a place where we had to wonder whether the *Iranian* government or our own was telling the truth, let alone a predisposition to believe the *Iranians* are being more truthful."
I'd liken it to a Star Trek episode in which the Klingons are revealed to be the ones really speaking truth to power, while the crew of the Enterprise is exposed as having been spouting Federation propaganda from the jump. Not in our universe they aren't.