Whatever we concoct to communicate this, needs to be done fast, quickly, right now, before things can overwhelm the information field. While there are obvious examples for all to see.
A great deal of that informational field is redundant...that is, repackaged; we endlessly repackage the same thing over and over down the social line.
Responding 'inside' peoples' normal agreement, our basic social agreement, can be very effective if you have the patience to find a real opening; that is, one where they actually hear you for what you're saying, not some merely cursory social agreement type of response. Telling people - esp. one to one - what they don't know, that you know they don't know, but they don't know they don't know (not to get too Rumsfeldian) is not easy.
Plague didn't do it. Plague! I maintain that most people would be appalled if they understood the nature of his pardons, then and now...but how to get them to listen? It's more fun to mock soy-boy libs with Jesse Waters, I guess...
I agree, Rick. Hence "mindfucked" in my laundry list. People have never seen footage of J6, for example. People in my own family don't grok that "DEI" is shorthand for what it's shorthand for. Others believe there really is a huge migrant invasion, which is ridiculous. And the legacy media are almost all lost. It's going to be rough skiing, and too many Americans don't even realize we're on skis...
Lisa, I couldn't express it any better myself. This is always a safe space to rail against these horrible people. I like to think it's not quite HALF of Americans that are all those things, but even a third is over 100m people, and that's a lot...
Agree completely with everything you’ve stated! Putin is one of the largest mob bosses on this spinning blue cosmic ball,what’s the vig “juice” owed by Trump going to be?
Nero is not a bad comp: dumb, thick-necked, spoiled child, does nothing while it all burns down. But of all the historical figures of that era, he is most like Herod I: a real estate developer and builder; violent towards his wife; said he was king but was really a puppet installed by a hostile foreign power; jealous as all get-out.
Greg, excellent piece that looks at past warnings in the context of today's realities.
Perhaps some words of comfort, hopefully not head in the sand thinking.
Tim Miller oft advises not to focus on what the 47th Administration says, rather focus on what they do. Massive number of Executive Orders. They remind me of a line from Mel Brooks' great satire " History of the World". To Mel's "I am a stand up philosper" Bea Arthur's character responds "OH a bullshit artist". According to the BBC of the myriad of bullshit, six could be very troublesome, birthright at the top of the list. Joy Vance recently opined that this EO will fail at SCOTUS, it is a step to far, especially as the godfather of conservatism, Antonin Scalia penned the settled law Robert must overturn.
Regarding my opening latin homemade saying, Timothy Synder's seminal "On Tryanny" rule number one " Do Not Obey in Advance" combined the Miller's react to what is done, not spoken promises, actually threats makes for a sane response. Your Prevail gives important insights, reminders of past failures put into today's reality, very useful.
This is not meant as a rebuttal, rather an extension of where we are and what laborers are doing in the fight to save Democracy that is surely facing its biggest not threat, rather challenge. Threats are words,, challenges opportunities to set the ship right.
I was wondering about your Latin phrase as Google wanted to refer me to cake recipes. My extremely rusty Latin could not make it make sense so it being “homemade”now makes google’s confusion understandable.
Thanks, Old Man. I have invented my own Latin phrase, and am relying on Google to translate, which is the same as relying on any AI. Ugh.
"History of the World" is the best Brooks movie IMO, and the most underrated. I first watched it in fifth grade and I have seen it more times than I can count. It's embedded in my brain.
- You look like the pissboy!
- And you look like a bucket of shit!
I agree that these things will fail ultimately, and that we have to guard against losing our minds with outrage at shiny things designed to do that and nothing more. But it's hard to do that, and I think we have to wait and see...there are enough of us who hate these MFers, and they are inept and dumb and hateful and he's old and appears to be decaying before our eyes. So: the future is bleak in the short term, but hopefully only the short term.
Never forget " It’s good to be the King.". Each of us should be our own King, consider it to be a gender neutral term and live the best life we can. BTW, Wise Guys with DeVito and Pispico, for me another classic.
Right there with you, Greg: “I never fully believed that the people of this country would be gullible enough, dumb enough, short-sighted enough, mean enough, ignorant enough, mindfucked enough, or hateful enough to re-elect the Rough Beast.”
Can we extradite Leon to France if they decide to arrest him? I was disappointed in myself for having faith in Americans, but he truly was elected by 31% of eligible voters. 29% stayed home. We still suck.
The voters who stayed home are still voters...not voting is still an active choice. But to your point, I don't think a lot of people are going to like what Trump and his libertarian weirdos are cooking for the country.
This is delayed but after a very "eventful" two weeks! Holy Moly. I hope we can push back without getting saddled with Martial Law. I am ready to do some civil disobedience. I told my oldest to say she never saw it coming.
Time to start a new country with a Constitution that guarantees rights for women, LGBTQ, non-white people, the disabled, and the elderly. The New Confederate States would quickly become a third-world country with no blue state taxes and no military bases or federal government offices to provide good jobs.
"I never fully believed that the people of this country would be gullible enough, dumb enough, short-sighted enough, mean enough, ignorant enough, mindfucked enough, or hateful enough to re-elect the Rough Beast."
Since 2016, the gullibility, dumbness, meanness, ignorance, mindfuckedness, and hate has been baked into the MAGA sphere. This, combined with the idea that people like that (or all of us, frankly), don't like being told what to do, led to the election results. The Dems tried their best to tell people that Trump = fascism = Hitler, but MAGA was never, ever going to believe it, especially since "the boy who cried Hitler" has been a staple in society since 1948. The short-sightedness of all the Dems who stayed home in relation to Gaza, will now get a taste of what that will mean as Bibi looks for more and more justifications to continue slaughtering Palestinians. We may be in a cease-fire right now, but don't expect it to last. It's sadly ironic that Netanyahu seems to be trying to create his own Holocaust in Gaza, and is, so far, succeeding.
I think Trump, or the little minions he surrounds himself with, more likely, KNEW that the EO regarding birth-right citizenship wasn't going to fly. It's a test to see how far he can go before there's serious resistance. Birth-right is in the fucking Constitution! What moron thought that Trump could do away with it with a Sharpie? Some of the other stuff is just as ridiculous, although I've mostly ignored it because just seeing his FACE makes me nauseous now.
Elon is another animal entirely. His Nazi salutes notwithstanding, he's still, and will remain, a childish man-baby who only has the power of what's in his wallet. Twitter is a disaster, Teslas are a disaster, and SpaceX is still 70/30 whether the rockets will explode or not. He's an abject failure just like Trump. He has his fanboys to be sure, but so does Trump, and both of them need their fanboys MUCH more than the fanboys need them. "Power of the People" still exists, and these comparatively lone voices aren't going to change that. We're under minority-rule, and I agree that it must be neutralized. I think we're still up to it. The real test will come if/when Trump decides to use the military at more than the southern border. That's already a step too far, but the military "in the streets" under the Insurrection Act would be something else entirely. We need to wait and see.... AGAIN.
Thanks, Steve. I remember writing a piece on my old site ca. 2017 about the failure of the American imagination. That's the problem with warning about what MIGHT happen. Inertia suggests it won't, and it's easier to fight something that's already happening and can't be denied. So, I guess there's that?
I think the birthright thing is a decoy. They know that will get shot down, but it makes the other stuff seem less horrible by comparison.
Agree about the military. Being a wartime president would interfere with his golf, nap, and TV schedule. It's a lot more work than being a peacetime president. I suspect he knows this and doesn't want to take it on. His sloth might save us.
Musk 🐀 is a ketamine freak with decades of daddy’s apartheid emerald-mine money, and rancid blood money that’s working even better with tRump’s own malignant narcissism… and makes me want to vomit. I’ll stop.
I will go to the grave not understanding why the government dealt with him, gave him all his money, allowed him to buy Twitter, and is kissing his ass now. He should be crushed like any hostile foreign power.
I have asked the question as to who it was at NASA who gave this fascist schmuck, jr. (think Errol as the senior) the green light? I have never gotten an answer!
I love your deep dives, Greg and this is one I’ll have to reread this evening to give it the time it will need to percolate in my brain. I am going to pass it on to my DC cousin who basically grew up in the Library of Congress and who appreciates your thoughts.
For those who thought Americans couldn't do this, I look back on the dumbasses I went to high school with, most of whom became dumber than that over the years, who voted MAGA, or that group of "the biggest collection of white male dumbasses in one place at one time I ever knew" in the Navy, or the figure that the average American reads and comprehends at a 6th grade level and 30% of them can't read and comprehend at a 5th grade level, and - unfortunately! - I wasn't surprised.
Thank you. To your point: it's not about intelligence, per se, it's about how easy to manipulate the poorly educated are. How to get through to them and turn them toward the righteous and away from the shitty? That's the question. So far, MAGA is better at this than we are...but it's always easier to promote hate than love.
I share in your prayers...and I believe we can. Perhaps people just needed a bracing dose of MAGA in all its toxic glory to change course. Perhaps? I hope so...
That should be the MAGA tagline.
Whatever we concoct to communicate this, needs to be done fast, quickly, right now, before things can overwhelm the information field. While there are obvious examples for all to see.
A great deal of that informational field is redundant...that is, repackaged; we endlessly repackage the same thing over and over down the social line.
Responding 'inside' peoples' normal agreement, our basic social agreement, can be very effective if you have the patience to find a real opening; that is, one where they actually hear you for what you're saying, not some merely cursory social agreement type of response. Telling people - esp. one to one - what they don't know, that you know they don't know, but they don't know they don't know (not to get too Rumsfeldian) is not easy.
Plague didn't do it. Plague! I maintain that most people would be appalled if they understood the nature of his pardons, then and now...but how to get them to listen? It's more fun to mock soy-boy libs with Jesse Waters, I guess...
I agree, Rick. Hence "mindfucked" in my laundry list. People have never seen footage of J6, for example. People in my own family don't grok that "DEI" is shorthand for what it's shorthand for. Others believe there really is a huge migrant invasion, which is ridiculous. And the legacy media are almost all lost. It's going to be rough skiing, and too many Americans don't even realize we're on skis...
Lisa, I couldn't express it any better myself. This is always a safe space to rail against these horrible people. I like to think it's not quite HALF of Americans that are all those things, but even a third is over 100m people, and that's a lot...
Agree completely with everything you’ve stated! Putin is one of the largest mob bosses on this spinning blue cosmic ball,what’s the vig “juice” owed by Trump going to be?
TGIF🎉🎉🎉 One week closer to the midterms… (I see trump as more Nero than Claudius)
Nero is not a bad comp: dumb, thick-necked, spoiled child, does nothing while it all burns down. But of all the historical figures of that era, he is most like Herod I: a real estate developer and builder; violent towards his wife; said he was king but was really a puppet installed by a hostile foreign power; jealous as all get-out.
We shall survive. The country survived the Civil War. I can’t see that happening again.
Little challenges will slow the bastard down and our constitution remains strong. BillSerle.com.
Bill, I love your optimism. Truly.
Trump Bans DEIA - Requires Employees to Snitch On Each Other. SNITCH for MAGA-LAND!
See how the Nazis and North Koreans demand people snitch on each other.
https://thedemlabs.org/2025/01/24/snitch-for-maga-land/
Trump himself is a fucking rat, so it's normal he would encourage it.
nos qui victuri sumus, laborare debemus
Greg, excellent piece that looks at past warnings in the context of today's realities.
Perhaps some words of comfort, hopefully not head in the sand thinking.
Tim Miller oft advises not to focus on what the 47th Administration says, rather focus on what they do. Massive number of Executive Orders. They remind me of a line from Mel Brooks' great satire " History of the World". To Mel's "I am a stand up philosper" Bea Arthur's character responds "OH a bullshit artist". According to the BBC of the myriad of bullshit, six could be very troublesome, birthright at the top of the list. Joy Vance recently opined that this EO will fail at SCOTUS, it is a step to far, especially as the godfather of conservatism, Antonin Scalia penned the settled law Robert must overturn.
Regarding my opening latin homemade saying, Timothy Synder's seminal "On Tryanny" rule number one " Do Not Obey in Advance" combined the Miller's react to what is done, not spoken promises, actually threats makes for a sane response. Your Prevail gives important insights, reminders of past failures put into today's reality, very useful.
This is not meant as a rebuttal, rather an extension of where we are and what laborers are doing in the fight to save Democracy that is surely facing its biggest not threat, rather challenge. Threats are words,, challenges opportunities to set the ship right.
I was wondering about your Latin phrase as Google wanted to refer me to cake recipes. My extremely rusty Latin could not make it make sense so it being “homemade”now makes google’s confusion understandable.
Using Google Translate
we who are going to live must work
Thanks, Old Man. I have invented my own Latin phrase, and am relying on Google to translate, which is the same as relying on any AI. Ugh.
"History of the World" is the best Brooks movie IMO, and the most underrated. I first watched it in fifth grade and I have seen it more times than I can count. It's embedded in my brain.
- You look like the pissboy!
- And you look like a bucket of shit!
I agree that these things will fail ultimately, and that we have to guard against losing our minds with outrage at shiny things designed to do that and nothing more. But it's hard to do that, and I think we have to wait and see...there are enough of us who hate these MFers, and they are inept and dumb and hateful and he's old and appears to be decaying before our eyes. So: the future is bleak in the short term, but hopefully only the short term.
Never forget " It’s good to be the King.". Each of us should be our own King, consider it to be a gender neutral term and live the best life we can. BTW, Wise Guys with DeVito and Pispico, for me another classic.
Right there with you, Greg: “I never fully believed that the people of this country would be gullible enough, dumb enough, short-sighted enough, mean enough, ignorant enough, mindfucked enough, or hateful enough to re-elect the Rough Beast.”
Sigh.
Can we extradite Leon to France if they decide to arrest him? I was disappointed in myself for having faith in Americans, but he truly was elected by 31% of eligible voters. 29% stayed home. We still suck.
Can we? Mais oui. Will we? Mais non.
The voters who stayed home are still voters...not voting is still an active choice. But to your point, I don't think a lot of people are going to like what Trump and his libertarian weirdos are cooking for the country.
This is delayed but after a very "eventful" two weeks! Holy Moly. I hope we can push back without getting saddled with Martial Law. I am ready to do some civil disobedience. I told my oldest to say she never saw it coming.
Time to start a new country with a Constitution that guarantees rights for women, LGBTQ, non-white people, the disabled, and the elderly. The New Confederate States would quickly become a third-world country with no blue state taxes and no military bases or federal government offices to provide good jobs.
Secession is very much a possibility now. Like Brynn said: the Yugoslavia model.
🙌
: )
"I never fully believed that the people of this country would be gullible enough, dumb enough, short-sighted enough, mean enough, ignorant enough, mindfucked enough, or hateful enough to re-elect the Rough Beast."
Since 2016, the gullibility, dumbness, meanness, ignorance, mindfuckedness, and hate has been baked into the MAGA sphere. This, combined with the idea that people like that (or all of us, frankly), don't like being told what to do, led to the election results. The Dems tried their best to tell people that Trump = fascism = Hitler, but MAGA was never, ever going to believe it, especially since "the boy who cried Hitler" has been a staple in society since 1948. The short-sightedness of all the Dems who stayed home in relation to Gaza, will now get a taste of what that will mean as Bibi looks for more and more justifications to continue slaughtering Palestinians. We may be in a cease-fire right now, but don't expect it to last. It's sadly ironic that Netanyahu seems to be trying to create his own Holocaust in Gaza, and is, so far, succeeding.
I think Trump, or the little minions he surrounds himself with, more likely, KNEW that the EO regarding birth-right citizenship wasn't going to fly. It's a test to see how far he can go before there's serious resistance. Birth-right is in the fucking Constitution! What moron thought that Trump could do away with it with a Sharpie? Some of the other stuff is just as ridiculous, although I've mostly ignored it because just seeing his FACE makes me nauseous now.
Elon is another animal entirely. His Nazi salutes notwithstanding, he's still, and will remain, a childish man-baby who only has the power of what's in his wallet. Twitter is a disaster, Teslas are a disaster, and SpaceX is still 70/30 whether the rockets will explode or not. He's an abject failure just like Trump. He has his fanboys to be sure, but so does Trump, and both of them need their fanboys MUCH more than the fanboys need them. "Power of the People" still exists, and these comparatively lone voices aren't going to change that. We're under minority-rule, and I agree that it must be neutralized. I think we're still up to it. The real test will come if/when Trump decides to use the military at more than the southern border. That's already a step too far, but the military "in the streets" under the Insurrection Act would be something else entirely. We need to wait and see.... AGAIN.
Thanks, Steve. I remember writing a piece on my old site ca. 2017 about the failure of the American imagination. That's the problem with warning about what MIGHT happen. Inertia suggests it won't, and it's easier to fight something that's already happening and can't be denied. So, I guess there's that?
I think the birthright thing is a decoy. They know that will get shot down, but it makes the other stuff seem less horrible by comparison.
Agree about the military. Being a wartime president would interfere with his golf, nap, and TV schedule. It's a lot more work than being a peacetime president. I suspect he knows this and doesn't want to take it on. His sloth might save us.
Musk 🐀 is a ketamine freak with decades of daddy’s apartheid emerald-mine money, and rancid blood money that’s working even better with tRump’s own malignant narcissism… and makes me want to vomit. I’ll stop.
I will go to the grave not understanding why the government dealt with him, gave him all his money, allowed him to buy Twitter, and is kissing his ass now. He should be crushed like any hostile foreign power.
Exactly Greg!
I have asked the question as to who it was at NASA who gave this fascist schmuck, jr. (think Errol as the senior) the green light? I have never gotten an answer!
I love your deep dives, Greg and this is one I’ll have to reread this evening to give it the time it will need to percolate in my brain. I am going to pass it on to my DC cousin who basically grew up in the Library of Congress and who appreciates your thoughts.
Thanks, SPW.
Unfortunately, it's time to go into the archive and review. The only pieces that didn't hold up are the ones predicting a Kamala victory, alas...
Excellent analysis, Greg.
For those who thought Americans couldn't do this, I look back on the dumbasses I went to high school with, most of whom became dumber than that over the years, who voted MAGA, or that group of "the biggest collection of white male dumbasses in one place at one time I ever knew" in the Navy, or the figure that the average American reads and comprehends at a 6th grade level and 30% of them can't read and comprehend at a 5th grade level, and - unfortunately! - I wasn't surprised.
Thank you. To your point: it's not about intelligence, per se, it's about how easy to manipulate the poorly educated are. How to get through to them and turn them toward the righteous and away from the shitty? That's the question. So far, MAGA is better at this than we are...but it's always easier to promote hate than love.
Scary as hell !
I pray we can overcome this !
The 2025 plan has been percolating for 30 years !
Their plan seems to be foilproof!
I share in your prayers...and I believe we can. Perhaps people just needed a bracing dose of MAGA in all its toxic glory to change course. Perhaps? I hope so...