77 Comments
Nov 8Liked by Greg Olear

I've come to the conclusion that we need to do two things in response to Trump's actual election. 1) We in the blue states need to cooperate when he and the MAGAs do something reasonable, and tell them to fuck off when it's not. Give sanctuary in blue states to people who Trump will target. Trump and what army is going to pull Nancy Pelosi out of California, Joe Biden out of Delaware and Tish James out of New York. Federalism works both ways boys and girls, time for the blue states to act like it. 2) Watch as life in red states becomes intolerable. Let the MAGAs feel the pain of a minimum wage of $7.25 after Trump takes away food stamps, Medicaid and all the other programs his own people depend on. It will be especially entertaining when his economic malpractice coupled with tariffs drives the prices of everything thru the roof. Since it looks like the MAGAs are going to have total control of the Federal government, let's make sure that they have no one to blame but themselves when everything tuns to shit for them.

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Nov 8Liked by Greg Olear

I agree with the part about the blue states. Really good plan. And yes, I have no mercy for MAGATs and will not cry when they suffer. But, as a resident of (sigh) Mississippi, I will tell you that those who will suffer most are not white MAGATs, but poor black people. They have all been suffering without Medicaid and with poor wages for a long time. But the poor MAGAts would rather suffer themselves than see poor blacks get any help. It's sad and pitiful.

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That makes me so sad. And that's the thing about the country fracturing: there are great people in all of the states, and also shitty people in all the states. The voter suppression is so disgraceful. MS has more Black residents by percentage of population than any other state, and yet it's always far-right white people running the state. Voter suppression is the only reason why.

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It is very, very heartening to see the governors speak out like that. I'm hopeful they can insulate us from some of what's coming. But this is going to be brutal.

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Nov 8Liked by Greg Olear

Thank you 🙏🏼

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Nov 8·edited Nov 8Liked by Greg Olear

Record early voting & long lines on election day yet the total number of voters is about 20M less than 2020 & the man who lost the popular vote by A LOT (and told his cult at a rally this year that they didn't need to vote) has now miraculously won the popular vote? There is something wrong. Biden needs to use the obscene presidential powers SCOTUS has granted to sort this out & prevent the trump/musk apocalyspe. I'm betting musk, trump & putin have been very busy colluding to steal our election. [As an aside: Given his fixation on crowd size, trump would never agree to winning the election while losing the popular vote so putin made concessions.]

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The math doesn't add up. It just doesn't.

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Nov 8·edited Nov 8Liked by Greg Olear

Agreed that it must be a blue wall of states to counter the Orange Degenerate and his supporters in the short term. That might be the beginning of how the US could finally address our dysfunctional system based on an outdated 250 yo constitution that demonstrably doesn't work anymore.

I suggest that the path for such solution is offered as a thought experiment by Alexander Moss in his recent book "A More Perfect Union: Reimagining the United States as a European Union-style Federation"

From his summary:

"As of 2021, polling across several vendors shows roughly 40% of Biden voters and 50% or more of Trump voters would vote to break the country up - stunning figures.

This book takes a "what if" - breaking up the country into new nations - and develops a roadmap for a constitutional amendment that could make this a reality with the least possible disruption."

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Thanks, Craig. I like thought experiments like this.

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I share your anger, Greg. This piece is spot on for how many of us are feeling as regards our leaders. Succinctly put, they brought a knife to a gun fight.

I am so grateful that you will continue to keep up your good works on Prevail and the Five/8 as well as your weekly podcasts, as long as you are taking care of your mental health for your own sake and that of your family's.

BTW, does my monthly $5.99 contribution to the Five/8 (on YouTube) several months ago count as having "joined"? I ask because it shows that I "Subscribed" but invites me to "Join" for $1.99. Thanks for clarifying, if you can.

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Thanks, Lynell. It should count, yes...you have to make sure you're logged in with the right YT account. Sometimes it defaults back to the wrong one, even for me. YT doesn't give me as much control over memberships as I have here, unfortunately.

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All too true, for starters, what can be done to get Biden moving on some protections? Can't he immediately fire Garland, declassify Jack Smith's evidence, appoint a fighter as AG, there are still two months left, every moment counts. Can't sit here watching the slow-motion destruction without doing SOMETHING. Thank you for this great summation. The anxiety gets worse every day, not better.

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Exactly the point, it’s too late! We and Biden should have been doing this for the last four years but we hot lulled into a sense of security. We even thought Kamala could win!!! This plan has been evolving since well before 2020, but it’s been in high gear since J6 and our system allowed trump to run for 2nd term.

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As I understand it, Smith is winding down the cases for the express purpose of writing reports to give to garland before January 20. These should be released, one imagines.

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Nov 8Liked by Greg Olear

Greg, BRILLIANT compilation of great stuff AND wisdom from you too. Fantastic! Thank you. I agree with you and all the rest of these thoughtful and cogent and wise thinkers. Biden meant well, he really did, but failing to move swiftly to prosecute all the coup leaders was fatal. Garland truly was weak and gutless. There should have been Jack Smith on day one, or certainly the day after the impeachment conviction failed in the Senate. And there will be a special place in hell (and the history books) for Mitch McConnell when the rise and fall of the American empire is written. What a feckless, gutless, morally bankrupt individual. He could have stopped this so many times and especially after January 6.

Keep on keeping on, sir. “And let us not be weary in well doing, for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.” Galatians 6:9. I am just trying to figure out when that “due season” will be. I still cannot believe what has happened……..It can happen here, and is….

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Nov 8Liked by Greg Olear

As a septagenarian, I'm a little worried about the "fainting" part. But I'll try to hold out.

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Sorry, McLain, you're not allowed to leave. ; )

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Thanks, Rick. I've been waiting for due season for eight years now, and I hope I get to see it sooner rather than later. This is a madness, what's happening now.

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Nov 9Liked by Greg Olear

Greg, I am older than you, 71 and counting, and I just hope to see sanity and decency and HONESTY and TRUTH in my lifetime. There is none of that now, none.

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Same, Rick. Same.

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Nov 8Liked by Greg Olear

Hear fucking hear Greg Olear!

It seems to me that our incoming POTUS will own SCOTUS, the Senate, and seemingly the House. Also, it seems that he is intent upon replacing all neutral players of significance with his personal loyalist, isn’t he?

Given all of that, can’t he merely at-will rewrite the rules to his favor?

Furthermore, won’t his Court simply skew any glimmer of hopes of righting wrongs to his favor?

My concern goes to the apparent intent of our now incoming past perfidious potus and his soldiers of sedition to basically eliminate our system of checks and balances by stacking our Court/courts, agencies, etc. with loyalists to Trump rather that country and Constitution.

I am one who tends to thrive in the positive (in the light), working through challenges, difficult times, etc. — as we say in the Teams, “only easy day was yesterday” and all that jazz. But, without checks & balances, finding a PEACEFUL way through the dark to the light seems significantly more challenging.

Again, I am curious what peaceful method of righting wrongs might be available for the people to challenge the whims of the now seemingly imperial president given that he can simply write the rules and direct any and all relevant adjudications…???🇺🇸♾️

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Thanks, Dock. With sadness, I direct you to Sunday's piece. We have seen this movie before, and it ends very, very badly.

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Nov 8Liked by Greg Olear

Thank you, Greg. I find it very suspicious that 20m fewer voted this time around.

155 million voted in 2020, and only 129 million in 2016. So far, 137 million voted this year. It's hard to say there was significant voter suppression, but a careful analysis needs to be done.

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Nov 8Liked by Greg Olear

I think it was because fewer people wanted to vote for Trump, but were brainwashed into thinking Harris was the devil, or were too racist/misogynistic to vote for her. They just sat it out.

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Sigh.

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It is rare that total popular vote count goes down four years later, but it does happen, usually after outlier elections: 2008 being the most recent. But, like, we've never had a felon fascist on the ballot before.

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In the end, I think it was a combination of racism and misogyny.

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Just as MSM has given trump a front and center platform for years, Biden is being “courteous” and proceeding as if this will be a peaceful transfer of power. The American democratic way! Really? These people want to burn down Washington as it is and Biden tells us to tap down the rhetoric !?!?!?

Please read Malcolm Nance!

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It will be a peaceful, and final, transfer of power.

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I still say TGIF🎉🎉🎉. Now these clowns have two years to deliver. Then, we come roaring back in the midterms. 👏🏻👏🏻🇺🇸

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Nov 8Liked by Greg Olear

I truly hope so.

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Thanks, Lisbeth. We will roar back, if there are midterms in two years.

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Nov 8Liked by Greg Olear

With all due respect, I think you might want to take some more time to process all of this. You are all over the place on this.

HCR has it right; it's all about the narrative that people based their beliefs on. The problem we need to work on more than anything else is how to defeat a propaganda empire that has billionaires, hundreds of billions of dollars, and 50 years of lies backing it up. That's it. The rest is all just crazy blaming. We all did this. We're all responsible.

Also, we are not "inherently good", but we do have the ability to minimize the most evil of our instincts instead of letting the authoritarians capitalize on them.

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Nov 8Liked by Greg Olear

I absolutely agree that if the billionaire propaganda empire is not destroyed, things can never be set right.

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I was saving the anti-media screed for another day, but you're right, of course. And that is unlikely to change, if ever, and certainly not any time soon. Your last sentence there is very well put, Rick.

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Greg- right on. Thank you for your wisdom and showing us the way. Biden, the FBI and DOJ have let our country down by not going after lawless Trump starting Jan 21, 2021. He has done great things for our economy, pulling us out of Covid. This was not recognized by legacy news, Fox or GOP leaders or MAGA. He did not protect our democracy from within. Who said “it’s a Republic if we can keep it”? Right now we are giving it away.

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Benjamin Franklin said that, I believe. The guy whose face will be replaced by Trump's on the $20 bill, probably.

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Nov 8Liked by Greg Olear

Dear Greg,

DFG followed the Roy Cohn playbook which was never give up and never give in! He told so many lies and MSM never reported the facts and didn’t repeat them enough. He’s taking credit for the stock market, which a lot of his followers are not even invested in . The guy talked about the size of Arnold Palmer’s penis, fellated a microphone several times. This country is full of Dunnig-Kruger people.

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He is a font of bullshit, but the media doesn't report on it, and the people don't seem to mind.

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Nov 8Liked by Greg Olear

This was one of your best, Greg. And you've had a lot. I sort of understand why Biden said what he did--that's what he is capable of doing. And I will not dwell on Harris. It's too painful (I wanted her to win so bad it brings me to tears at the slightest thought.). But I do think she is capable of better. She had nothing to lose by calling out the coming threat for what it is. My best outcome hope is that some (even a few) of the worst MAGA impulses will be thwarted for a while. It's the best we can hope for. Thanks for all your hard work. You and LB were very comforting to me on the recent Five 8. Sincere thanks.

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Thanks, McLain, and thanks for watching. I don't know the answers, but I'm going to try very hard to find them.

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Nov 8·edited Nov 8Liked by Greg Olear

Samizdat is back, baby. Download and save as PDF files the Twitter/X threads you treasure.

There must be 1,000 ways to steal an election. We're witnessing a dozen or more.

Can't shake the feels we have been carefully conditioned to no longer believe our own lying eyes. All they need now that it is digitized and vapor trailed is a cover story. Remember soccer moms, values voters, whitelash, etc? The billions upon billions upon dollars spent to achive a rightwing messaging infrastructure. In most cases, we are trying to communicate on a captured network, where literally they are using the fumes of PROMIS software to reignite far worse data reservations. Half your pals online are targeting you, maybe even your best and dearest causes could be studying and cataloging us.

Louis DeJoy, XPO and Boston Consulting worked tirelessly to modernize Russia Post. It was normal to have mail read and monitored throughout the Soviet bloc.

Today, folks especially in the West are completely unaware that the largely uncensored, private mail of today is modern triumph. XPO+ Frank Luntz crew + Russia Post. Bob Casey

came out hard against malfeasance in DeJoy's mail delivery, but then they had four years to perfect it. In 2020 pro-Trump groups targeted Catholic voters using geofencing.

I've read airgapped machines can now be breached. Voters also take their phones with them. And does anyone remember that time when AG Crypto was like, oh yeah, we were spying on all our Allies post-WWII and beyond, oops, bye now. I grew up watching Get Smart, so don't tell me they can't pull off a switcheroo with Informed Delivery- paper thicknesses, etc. Are these paper ballots watermarked, numbered? We are deeply vested in believing an illusion, and our "opposition leaders" were selected to roll. You can't count vapor. Ask Moscow Mitch.

The creepy technology US taxpayers pay to develop "Hello World" can be used to bring that world to ashes. You know they are years ahead using things not released to the public. And they might not need anything besides "Informed Delivery" and paper ballot swaps. I have to ask myself, is this just a carefully executed giant con with Democrats designed to lose, who put every foot right sort of but cannot overcome demographics.

All they need is a cover story, a vapor trail and maybe a Boris & Natasha very Soviet squirrel joke to seal the deal. Because unlike Ukrainians, they know we won't fight. We've been conditioned not to. And there is the terrible decay of bystander disease- we've witnessed people choked to death on camera.

The language we have been surrounded by with regard to "the media" has been carefully constructed to echo the master's wishes. From Nixon's enemies list, to Bush Sr. and W & Palin working to malign the very existence of factual information itself, definitely using Natural Language Processing to dumb it all down. The "mainstream media" became the "lamestream" media even as media monopolization and consolidation pulled everything to the hard hard right

A pressing need is to transplant the better angels of Twitter to safer online territory.

Art is refuge. It is also a weapon. If you are someone trying to bring your gifts into the world, I wish you strength of purpose and certainty of will. At the moment it may feel all we can do is draw Kilroy Was Here or scribble a Hitler mustache and devil horns on Trump; post a meme.

But you whoever you are, you must tell your story and use it to help the world.

Thank you for your humanity, heart and talent, Greg.

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Just because I am paranoid doesn't mean they are not out to get me.

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Bingo.

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Thanks so much for all of this. It's important to see the whole chessboard, and understand the history. BlueSky is the social media of choice...I had 4k followers when I did the show on Wednesday, and now 5.2k. Good.

I see a future where old-school periodicals make a comeback. Physical objects. Paper. Crazy, right, that paper has more staying power than anything online, which is supposedly forever...

Art may not SAVE US save us, but it can and will save our souls.

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