Make America Great Again but making China greater

I leave tomorrow and will be gone for a week. The reason for the trip is to attend the United Methodist Reconciling Ministries Network Convocation held in Madison, Wisconsin. The denomination has removed the harmful language from the rule book that called homosexuality “incompatible with Christian teaching.” That was the basis for gay clergy bans and other bans, which are also now gone. But that does not mean every congregation is welcoming. That is the next step RMN will address. The Convo is a place to talk about it while celebrating through queer theology. I may post a report when I get back. When the Senate was debating the Big Brutal Bill one of the changes they made to the House version was to protect tax credits for wind and solar projects for a year instead of their immediate cancellation. Emily Singer of Daily Kos reported that change was one reason why Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska voted for the BBB. And six days after the Senate passed the bill the nasty guy issued an executive order canceling the credits in 45 days. Murkowski feels betrayed and duped that he “just pulls the rug out from underneath the deal.” He signed an executive order that goes against the bill he just signed. The nasty guy has a hatred of clean energy, likely because his rise to power was funded in part by oil barons, who want to protect their source of wealth and the power it brings them. And the EO will have bad effects on energy bills, with the highest increases in red states, along with increasing global warming. Which reminds me many months have gone by since I last saw a chart of the global average temperature and how quickly it is rising. Lisa Needham of Kos wrote:

President Donald Trump sees the government as having two key functions: to enrich himself and his pals, and to hurt everyone else. His rollbacks of key consumer and worker protections—or his administration standing aside while federal courts roll those back for him—combine both those ignoble impulses. He gets to reward corporate interests and the ultrarich while making life worse for the rest of us. What’s jarring about his moves is that there is no credible argument that doing so helps most Americans. The only underlying justifications are profit and cruelty.

As I understand it, the profit and cruelty are to enforce and maintain the social hierarchy with the ultrarich at the top. Here are the latest efforts in helping the rich and being cruel to everyone else. A ban on paying disabled workers a subminimum wage (as low as 25 cents an hour) was withdrawn. The rule to prevent data brokers from buying and selling your data without your consents is no longer aligned with the “current interpretation of the [Fair Credit Reporting Act].” That’s strange because the current interpretation is being revised. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is being gutted. The Department of Justice has disbanded the team tasked with determining if cryptocurrency exchanges enable criminal activity. That the nasty guy is engaging in corrupt crypto stuff has nothing to do with the DoJ actions. The effort to exempt medical debt from consumer credit reports has been tossed by a judge. And I’ve already mentioned the demise of the click-to-cancel rule. The administration is asking to pause a case requiring insurance companies to keep coverage for mental health and substance abuse treatment. The pause is because they will not enforce the underlying law. The DoJ is reconsidering the rule that raised the limit above which overtime didn’t need to be paid. The nasty guy overturned the minimum wage for federal contractors, dropping it from $15 an hour back to $13.30 (which is higher than the minimum wage for jobs that aren’t a part of federal contracts).

Not a single one of these actions benefits consumers or workers, but every one of them benefits the interests of those who make money by exploiting people. And since that is Trump’s natural constituency, he’s going to do everything he can to help them out. And this is only the beginning.

Oliver Willis of Kos wrote about the report titled “The Price of Retreat: America Cedes Global Leadership to China.” It was released by Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and gathered data from international charities, foreign officials, and US companies. The accompanying press release explains the nasty guy’s failure to have a “whole-of-government” strategy to international affairs has allowed China to to expand its global influence while harming American security and economic interests. A few things were highlighted in the report. One is the haphazard tariff policy. Another is the gutting of international aid. A third is cutting grants to universities and attacking them, which also drives away international talent. That combination allows China to surpass us in intellectual talent. A fourth is dropping the countering of disinformation (closing Voice of America) allowing the free flow of Chinese propaganda. In response approval of the US has dropped by quite a bit in many countries (a chart is included). The nasty guy ran on the slogan “Make America Great Again.” But the effect is to make China greater. In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev started with a couple quotes about the recent election for the National Diet (parliament) in Japan. The Liberal Democratic Party (described as right-of-center, so I wonder what “liberal” means in Japan) does not have a majority in either chamber, the first time that has happened in 70 years. This time the challenge came not from the left, but from the right. From Martin Fackler of the New York Times:

The new nationalist parties have warned of unrestrained immigration and what they describe as excessive gender equality, but analysts say they have succeeded in large part because they tapped into the frustrations of working-age people living in a rapidly graying society. The new parties have succeeded by giving voice to younger voters who feel they are burdened with taxes to pay for the retirement of their parents’ generation, while policies protecting special interests block them from more entrepreneurial efforts to improve their lives.

“Excessive gender equality” (!) Jio Kamata of The Diplomat wrote the far right parties gained seats by focusing on the economy and pushing hatred of “foreigners” – the usual way to rile up the citizens.

According to Cas Mudde and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser, populism is caused when established parties act in ways that reinforce the stereotypes that elites are corrupt and unresponsive.

Kev added Japan’s shift rightward is part of a global trend. Again disinformation was a problem. There are differences, such as Japan’s aging population. And:

Maybe the youth of Japan and the youth of other countries (France, Argentina, the U.S. to a lesser extent, for example) are sick and tired of being sick and tired and they are willing to reach for anything, however ill-informed they may be about their choices.

Jon Allsop of Columbia Journalism Review discussed the mainstream media response to the Epstein scandal.

I can’t avoid the conclusion that some of it has slipped all too eagerly from covering the conspiracy theories around him into indulging them (if, often, only implicitly). I find myself agreeing with a column that Ben Smith, of Semafor, published last night, in which he wrote that the Epstein story “brings out two of the worst traits in journalists and—to really point fingers here—in our audiences. First, the human tendency to fill in gaps with wild theories that flatter our prejudices; second, the bias toward what’s new over what’s known.” (The “larger Epstein belief system,” Smith added, “is QAnon for people who went to college.”) And I heartily cosign his conclusion: that “those of us trying to stay sane ought to keep in mind the distinction between evidence and speculation, fantasy and reality.”

Paul Farhi of The Atlantic discussed the defunding of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and NPR as well as the general attack on the media.

“The independent press in the United States is facing what media outlets in too many other countries with aspiring autocrats have confronted,” the former Washington Post editor Marty Baron told me on Thursday. He compared Trump’s “repressive measures” to those of Hungarian President Viktor Orbán: “The playbook is to demean, demonize, marginalize, and economically debilitate” independent reporting. Ever since he launched his presidential campaign in 2015, Trump has fulminated against “the fake news.” But only in his second term has Trump gone beyond such rhetoric to wage a multifront war on media freedom with all of the tools at his disposal: executive actions, lawsuits, a loyal regulatory bureaucracy, a compliant Republican majority in Congress and a sympathetic Supreme Court. Each of his actions has been extraordinary in its own right; collectively, they represent a slow-motion demolition of the Fourth Estate. The principal question isn’t just whether anyone can stop Trump, but whether anyone in power really wants to.

Ari Shaw of Foreign Affairs wrote about the interdependence of LGBTQ rights and democratic institutions.

LGBTQ rights endure when they are written into or otherwise grounded in national constitutions; culturally normalized across partisan lines; upheld through strong, independent judiciaries; supported by civil society organizations that operate freely; and reinforced by regional or international human rights structures. Ultimately, the stronger a country’s liberal democratic institutions, the better protected the rights of LGBTQ people become. ... Threats to democratic institutions and threats to LGBTQ rights are mutually reinforcing, generating a vicious cycle that strengthens authoritarian control. Illiberal leaders deliberately exploit divisions over LGBTQ issues to consolidate political power, tapping into popular anxieties about changing social norms to build electoral coalitions and maintain public support. They proceed to undermine independent courts, free media, and civil society organizations—sometimes using their moral opposition to LGBTQ rights as justification. When democratic safeguards are weakened, LGBTQ rights lose their protection from further attack. Ensuring that LGBTQ people can live in safety and with equal opportunity therefore requires not only defending their rights but also addressing the crisis of democracy that renders them vulnerable.

Just about perfect, as conspiracy theories go

Just before my trip I finished the book Southernmost by Silas House. It opens with the Cumberland River flooding and (of course) I thought a lot about the recent flooding in central Texas. I had thought the Cumberland River would be near the Cumberland Gap in western Maryland, but it actually flows through Nashville and much of the length of Tennessee. The main character is Asher, pastor at a rural church a ways downriver of Nashville. He and wife Lydia have a son Justin, nine years old. In the flood Asher and Justin rescue a gay couple, Jimmy and Stephen. Lydia won’t let them stay at the house where Justin can watch them. Justin is described as sensitive, carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. Lydia wants to toughen him up and Asher sees no need to do that. Asher is also thinking about his brother Luke, who is gay and was run off by their parents. As a critical moment Asher turned his back on his brother. Jimmy and Stephen try out Asher’s church but the congregation condemns them. Asher realizes he has been preaching judgment when he should be preaching love and acceptance. But the congregation understands God through judgment and refuses Asher’s change in direction. Even Lydia rejects the change; her upbringing is too strong. Asher sees he is losing everything but does not want to lose Justin. He also doesn’t want Justin to learn the judgmental attitudes of his mother. He ends up doing something rash and stupid. The rest of the novel is about how that plays out. While a gay couple is a catalyst to the story, they make only a few brief appearances. Luke appears and only briefly mentions his lover. So this isn’t a story about gay people. It is about straight people coming to terms with how gay people are treated. And about coming to terms with the nature of God and with making a mistake. I enjoyed this book. Asher genuinely cares for Justin. My Sunday movie was Maestra. I had heard of this movie a year ago and only recently found it on Netflix. The name is too similar to more popular shows for good internet searching. The competition La Maestra was established to promote female orchestral conductors. The first one was in Paris in March 2022. This is a documentary about five of the women contestants – Mélisse, originally from Paris, but currently with a conducting job in Iowa City. Tamara from America. Anna from Krakow, Poland and the daughter of a conductor. Zoe from Athens. We get to know the lives of these women in their home countries. We don’t meet the fifth one, Ustina from Ukraine, until just before the competition begins. That’s understandable because the competition was one month after Russia’s invasion. The only one of the judges I recognize is Marin Alsop, a female conductor what had made a big name for herself in Baltimore and does a lot of mentoring of female conductors. In documentaries like this I wonder how they select which contestants to feature. Do they pick a few and hope they win? Do they pick the ones that agree to have cameras in their faces? Do they follow several more contestants than appear in the film and then include the ones that do well? The women talk about issues that face female conductors. The first is the reason why the contest was created – 97% of conductors are men. They wonder whether pregnancy will put a career on hold for a few years and would they be able to take a gig wile breastfeeding. They are told their gestures are too big or that they should smile more and they wonder whether a male conductor would be told the same thing. At the end we are told the contest allowed this woman to be offered this opportunity and that woman was able to take that job, a step up from what they did before. They also said the contest created a community of fellow conductors, less interested in competing and more interested in collaborating. In last Thursday’s pundit roundup for Daily Kos Chitown Kev quoted Charlie Warzel of The Atlantic discussing the MAGA revolt over the refusal to release the Epstein files.

The Jeffrey Epstein saga is just about perfect, as conspiracy theories go. At its core, it’s about a cabal of corrupt billionaires, politicians, and celebrities exploiting children on a distant island—catnip for online influencers and QAnon types who have bought into any number of outlandish stories. Yet for such a dark conspiracy theory, there’s a great deal we know about Epstein’s life and crimes. There are unsealed court transcripts, flight records, victim statements. His black book has been reported on, giving the public access to names of people Epstein is thought to have associated with (though some have said they don’t know why he had their information). There’s real investigative reporting, much of it from the Miami Herald’s Julie K. Brown, who spoke with detectives and victims and provided a fuller account of Epstein’s alleged sex trafficking and the attempts to downplay his crimes. Brown also credits the police officers who continued to press on their own investigation as federal officials seemed to wave it away. The case is real and horrifying, which gives life to all the wild speculation: If this is true, why not that? ... Whatever happens next will be a defining moment for Trump. However strange it seems to measure the Epstein conspiracy theory against, say, the president’s approach to tariffs or his bombing of Iran, this is the stuff Trump’s mythology is based on. Trump has positioned himself as an outsider who shares enemies with his base—namely, elites. It hasn’t mattered to his supporters that Trump is an elite himself; the appeal, and the narrative, is that Trump wants to punish the same people his supporters loathe. In appearing to bury the Epstein list—which, again, may or may not exist—by calling it a “hoax” and pinning it to his “PAST supporters,” Trump is pushing up against the limits of this narrative—as well as his ability to command attention and use it to bend the world to his whims. If Trump and the MAGA media ecosystem can successfully spin the Epstein debacle into a conspiracy theory that helps them, or if they can make the story stop, it would suggest once again that his grip on the party and its base is total: an impenetrable force field no bit of reality can puncture.

And if they can’t successfully spin it? David Wallace-Wells of the New York Times discussed what is known about the Epstein mess, which is quite a bit. Then:

Almost none of this information has satisfied those seeking it, or those seeking still more. And really, how could it? As with so many contemporary conspiracies, the known picture is expansive and uncomfortable enough, with abundant detail arrayed like so much proverbial red yarn. But the logic of paranoid thinking demands ever more cycles of disclosure and running epicycles of analysis. (This is among the many ways it is an extremely good match for the age of social media.) And what is missing in the Epstein story isn’t exactly more information — it’s more meaning. Is there more to see here, beyond the striking fact of a suspiciously wealthy and curiously well-connected sex offender? Or perhaps less, with Epstein turning out to have been more a shady influence hustler and savvy estate planner than some world-historical man of mystery? We get a classic conspiracy theory, we’re often told, when disempowered people try to make sense of a disordered world, seizing on a story that gives them a comforting sense of control, at least as analysts of an otherwise overwhelming system producing improbable or inscrutable outcomes.

In the comments of Sunday’s pundit roundup are a good cartoon and meme about the Epstein mess. The cartoon was from Marc Murphy. It is titled “The Real Epstein List” and shows a dozen female faces with black bars across the eyes to prevent identification with their names and ages, which range from 14-16. Murphy added:

This is the list. I hate that it falls to me to make this as clear as I can. Every sex act with these children was rape. Rape. It’s a moral and leadership and political problem, yes. But before all of these, it was a rape.

Murphy said it because, alas, the media sources I’m exposed to (and I can’t imagine any other source doing any better) ignore the underage girls that are why this is a scandal. A meme posted by exlrrp shows the nasty guy and Epstein, each with an arm around the waist of a woman. The text says, “Wow I can’t believe Epstein killed himself before realizing it was all a hoax.” That sentence is attributed to Elon Musk. In today’s roundup Greg Dworkin quoted Dan Pfeiffer of Message Box discussing why he changed his opinion on the nasty guy’s involvement in the Epstein case. The full article explains his reasoning.

Trump’s behavior is so bizarre, so unhinged, and so counter to his short-term interests that the most likely explanation for his actions is that Trump either believes or knows that he is mentioned in the Epstein files in ways that are even more damaging than the blowback he is getting for not releasing the files. This is, of course, speculation. There is no evidence that Trump was an Epstein “client.”

Congressman Brendan F Boyle, writing in The Bulwark:

The question that will soon be before my party is: Should we provide our votes to fund the government—and they need our votes—knowing that Republicans may very well undo, on a strictly partisan basis, any deal we’ve made with them? I certainly don’t speak for every Democrat, but I believe we must be prepared not to do so. No one wants a shutdown, but agreeing to a deal that can be revoked whenever Trump demands it isn’t responsible. It only teaches the other side that they can do it again and again. Guided by Russell Vought, Donald Trump has set out to seize complete control over federal spending. Meanwhile, the administration is already impounding—that is, illegally withholding—billions in congressionally approved funds for public services and infrastructure across the country. We’re already in a slow-motion government shutdown. We cannot allow this blatant power grab to continue. We need to ask ourselves: Is Congress going to defend its responsibility to set and safeguard federal spending? Or are we just going to roll over?

I think this is an issue because a budget vote can be filibustered and a rescission vote to cancel previously approved spending can’t be. If I have that right then my earlier writing of a couple months ago about the death of the filibuster was not accurate. Reporting during the passage of the Big Brutal Bill also implied the filibuster is still alive. In last Friday’s Cheers and Jeers column for Kos Bill in Portland, Maine quoted late night commentary. Here’s one:

"This really highlights Trump’s dilemma. He’s desperate to tamp down the drama, but his entire career has only taught him how to heighten the drama. You can’t spend your whole life as the messy b*tch from a reality show and then suddenly say, ‘Can we have some decorum here, please?’ ” —The Daily Show's Jordan Klepper

Brian Mann of NPR went to Santiago, Chile to explore the country’s low birth rate, much lower than in the US, though the US rate is dropping and many of the reasons are the same. The birth rate in Chile is 1.6, well below the 2.1 rate of a stable population. Many social systems – the economy, labor market, and pensions – are based on a new generation big enough to replace the older ones. These systems will have problems if the new generation is notably smaller. Some of the reasons for the low birth rate: Younger women want fewer kids or don’t want kids at all, seeing them as a burden and great expense. Or they are delaying having kids until later in life after they are well established in their careers. To them being a mother means a loss of freedom and a loss of body autonomy. The number of women earning college degrees and entering the workforce is rising. They are rejecting the idea that the purpose of a woman is to give birth to and take care of children. They have almost erased teen pregnancy in the last 20 years. Immigration could relieve some of the problems of a low birth rate. But Chile is following the US opinion that immigration, even from elsewhere in South America, is seen as an invasion. They fear what makes the Chilean national character will be extinguished. Of course, conservative political leaders decry the loss of the mother-child bond. They propose policies to encourage women to have more children. The influential Catholic Church also preaches motherhood. Women respond by saying the government and the Church will not change their decision.

A liar, ineffective, or compromised

I leave for a short trip tomorrow afternoon. I probably won’t post again until Sunday or Monday. Then next Wednesday I leave again for a week. Abe Streep, in an article for ProPublica posted on Daily Kos, discussed the sale of federal lands in the West. A requirement to sell land, which I had mentioned, was thankfully pulled from the Big Brutal Bill. While land conservation groups, along with hunters and hikers, are cheering they must still be wary. Sen. Mike Lee of Utah has been pushing for a federal land sale since he came to the Senate in 2010. The basic reason is the government has no need to hold on to it (conservation groups, hunters, hikers, and lots of other people who use federal land would disagree). Congress passed the Federal Land Policy and Management Act in 1976 and in 1980 Reagan campaigned on returning federal land to the states. Many Western states have a high percentage of land owned by the government. I think I remember seeing that the feds own 87% of Nevada. Streep provides a history of the efforts to sell or protect federal land. The desire to sell federal land got a boost recently from “coastal elites” who recognized building on former federal land could help ease the housing crisis. Utah is short 61K housing units and Nevada is short 118K units. Why not sell federal land near cities to build affordable housing? That isn’t so easy. Sell the land for what developers are willing to pay for it – perhaps $200K an acre – and costs are already too high for affordable housing. The Bureau of Land Management can sell it for the low price of $100 an acre (and they can sell it for whatever they want to promote the common good). But there are few takers. One problem is the law gets in the way, partly because its terms are not well defined, partly because the processes don’t favor the goals, and partly because developers make a whole lot more money from expensive houses than affordable units. Some deals have been made but are proceeding slowly. In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin has a lot of quotes of people discussing the Epstein case. I’ll mention only one of them. Sahil Kapur quoted an article in the New York Times that quoted Natalie Winters, co-host of Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast:

She summed up the movement’s sense of betrayal this way: “I just think it’s frankly very grifty to have spent your entire career promoting, even if it weren’t the Epstein thing directly, but the idea that there is this deep state, the idea that there’s this unelected class of, you know, banker, corporation, countries, intel agencies, blah, blah, blah. And then finally, you have the power to expose it, and either you’re not because there’s nothing there, it which case it makes you a liar – and I don’t believe that – or you’re ineffective, or you’re compromised.” This twisted tale has raised fundamental questions about the limits of Mr. Trump’s abilities to control the conspiratorial forces he has plied in his pursuit of the presidency.

Down in the comments exlrrp posted a meme:

So Ghislaine Maxwell is in prison for a “made-up hoax by Obama, Comey, and Biden”? MAGAs, are you that stupid to believe your cult leader?

Maxwell was Epstein’s assistant and it seems the woman took the fall for much of what Epstein did – then again Epstein was in prison for those crimes and there was a lot of discussion on whether he committed suicide or was murdered so the details of his career would not be revealed in court. TheKingOfPies posted a cartoon showing an elephant and donkey:

Elephant: Trump’s fighting in other countries’ wars!?! Trump’s tariffs really are taxes Americans pay!?! Trump won’t release Epstein’s list of clients!?! Donkey: Are you just realizing Trump’s lies or are you admitting Trump lies?

When the nasty guy moved back into the White House Rosie O’Donnell moved to Ireland. Perhaps to distract from the Epstein scandal he called her a “Threat to Humanity” and said he would try to revoke her citizenship. GoodNewsRoundup of the Kos community posted the full text of O’Donnell’s rebuttal. Here’s a bit of it:

you call me a threat to humanity— but I’m everything you fear: a loud woman a queer woman a mother who tells the truth an american who got out of the country b4 you set it ablaze you build walls— I build a life for my autistic kid in a country where decency still exists you crave loyalty— I teach my children to question power

A week ago Emily Singer of Kos reported Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott called a special session of the state legislature to demand they make the state Congressional House districts even more gerrymandered in hopes of blunting the expected loss of seats to Democrats next year. Some Republicans in that Congressional delegation are concerned that in an attempt to make more Republican majority districts their margin in each district will be smaller, giving Democrats a better chance to win. Democrats say this is a craven political move to distract from the central Texas floods. Also a week ago Lisa Needham of Kos reported the nasty guy and his cabinet redefined a “federal public benefit” to prevent undocumented immigrants from accessing a wide range of resources. Previously, if a program such as Head Start or a food bank was administered at the community level the recipient didn’t get it directly from the federal government. That meant undocumented immigrants could apply. The new definition says that if the program is funded with federal money undocumented immigrants were banned from receiving the benefit. It means all these programs have to ask for documentation. It also means immigrants can’t use federally funded education and food programs mentioned plus are banned from many health and mental health clinics. Why make this change?

The administration has not been shy about using the tools of violence to push immigrants out of public life. But deploying soft power like this, by withholding resources, is just as dangerous—so of course they’re doing it.

They’re doing it because they can, because they want to make life for immigrants as difficult as possible, because they relish in being cruel. Biden and his Federal Trade Commission created the click-to-cancel rule. Canceling a subscription online must be as easy as signing up. A company can’t make signing up easy, done with a single click, yet extremely difficult to cancel. Needham reported of course, companies hate it, so they ran to a favorable court, this time the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals. This was a safe court because it has only one judge appointed by a Democrat.

One of the bases for the ruling was that the FTC failed to do a preliminary regulatory analysis, required when a rule’s impact on the economy would exceed $100 million. Of course, the only way companies can complain that making it easier to cancel things would cost at least nine figures is to acknowledge that trapping people into paying for services they can’t cancel is a significant moneymaker.

The 8th Circuit gave its decision five days before the click-to-cancel rule was to go into effect.

The myth of the self-reliant, salt-of-the-earth American

Last Thursday Emily Singer of Daily Kos reported that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had instituted a policy that any departmental expense greater than $100,000 required her approval. That meant FEMA could not do its usual pre-positioning of its Search and Rescue crews ahead of the central Texas floods. The floods happened on a Friday and Noem didn’t give her approval until the following Monday. A DHS tweet bragged that by Tuesday FEMA had deployed 311 staffers to help with state-led rescue efforts. On Thursday Noem was on “Fox & Friends” and declared CNN’s reporting of the delay was fake news. Abrahm Lustgarten, in an article for ProPublica posted on Kos, discussed the flooding and said things will get worse. The effects of global warming are just getting started. Each small increase in average temperature means a large increase in the amount of water the atmosphere can hold, leading to a large increase in the destructiveness of the storms when that water is released. Lustgarten wrote that President Lyndon Johnson was briefed about the coming climate crisis way back in 1965. Here we are ten presidents later still discussing the problem and doing very little about it. And the current guy in the Oval Office has revoked funding for data collection and research into what the climate is doing. Kos of Kos wrote another article on a topic I’ve written about a few times.

One of the most enduring conservative myths is that of the self-reliant, salt-of-the-earth, rural-dwelling American who pulls himself up by his bootstraps, wrestles a steer before breakfast, and builds his own house out of patriotism and chewing tobacco because, by god, they sure do love America! If that were ever true, it hasn’t been for a while. These days, rural America is largely dependent on the federal government it claims to hate. In fact, far from self-reliant, rural America is subsidized by blue states. And it’s not even close.

Kos discussed several of the government programs rural areas depend on because so many young people have fled to the cities over the decades. The big ones are, of course, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

Government benefits are a good thing, so none of this is inherently bad, per se. But it does mean those rural areas are dependent on the very social safety net that Republicans are gleefully hacking apart with their cuts on Medicaid, food assistance, and the like. They’re also poorer than expensive urban regions, so they rely more on federal food assistance to eat. But hey, that’s what these voters asked for. Rural areas lean heavily Republican, and farming-dependent counties voted for Trump at an eye-popping average of 78%.

George B. Sánchez-Tello, in an article for Capital & Main posted on Kos, reported on ICE and Border Patrol agents at MacArthur Park in Los Angeles. The park is in an area where a lot of people from Central and South America live and it has a lively scene. The agents thought the could sweep through the park and easily make their quota for the day. But the park was nearly silent.

The previous day, warnings appeared — single sheets of paper taped to light poles, trees and fences around the park — warning locals to stay away. They cited rumors of possible ICE raids at MacArthur Park. Word also spread on Instagram, as well as other social media apps such as Signal, Telegram and WhatsApp.

The park wasn’t completely empty. Local Spanish-language television crews were ready to film. Photographers from various newspapers were there. Dozens of organizers from anti-ICE rapid response teams and legal observers there there too, some using megaphones to warn people to stay away and to tell people their rights. By the time the agents had completed their sweep across the park they were surrounded by hundreds of people. Some yelled, “ICE out of L.A!” Many recorded the confrontation on their phone, livestreaming straight to social media. The agents retreated without making any arrests. Normal life in the park resumed. Signs had been taped to poles in the park:

Military Members Is this what you signed up for? Will you feel proud about what you’re being ordered to do when you look back on it? If you have concerns about mobilizing against civilians, you’re not alone. You have options. You have rights.

Lisa Needhan of Kos discussed the legal challenge to the nasty guy’s executive order banning birthright citizenship when parents are undocumented. The Supreme Court had ruled that lower courts (I think there were three of them) could not place a nationwide injunction against the EO without a class action suit. The previous injunctions were not based on class action cases. So the ACLU filed a class action case, covering the nation. And Federal District Judge Joseph Laplante quickly certified the case as one for a class of plaintiffs and issued a nationwide injunction. Isn’t that what the Supremes told him to do? Well, certifying a case as covering a nationwide class has rules that must be scrupulously followed. These rules take time. And Laplante couldn’t possibly have followed all the rules so scrupulously in so little time. Of course, it was Justice Alito that wagged that finger.

Getting nationwide relief this way is complicated, but it’s necessary. The plaintiffs are fighting the Trump administration, but lower court judges have also found themselves locked in a battle with a lawless Supreme Court, which essentially decided that lower courts are enemies who must be stopped from thwarting Trump. But the lower courts are the ones that are following the rule of law. Someone’s got to.

Oliver Willis of Kos wrote the nasty guy ranted on Truth Social that his base should not be criticizing AG Pam Bondi about the Jeffrey Epstein case. One reason is, contrary to claims the files don’t exist, the nasty guy claimed they were “written” by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. So his base should not waste their time on Epstein, “somebody that nobody cares about.” That Truth Social post brought out something quite rare – many more negative responses than positive. The base was not pleased. In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Heather Digby Parton of Salon:

The appointment of Patel and Bongino — as well as Bondi, who jumped into pursuing the scandal with both feet, promising far-right influencers that she was personally overseeing the investigation — made MAGA true believers believe they were about to get their hands on what Glenn Beck called “the Rosetta Stone of public trust.” These new appointees were the very ones who had been chasing this scandal for years, and they were now in a position to blow the lid off the whole thing. All those who had mocked the MAGA movement as kooks would soon be proven fools. The Justice Department’s memo was a slap in the face to the MAGA faithful. They were stunned. And when Trump rudely dismissed their concerns in a cabinet meeting and then admonished them on Truth Social in a long rant blaming former President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, demanding that his followers focus on the scandals he wants them to focus on, the crushing betrayal was personal. Never before has a Trump post received such a massive negative response on his own platform. Even his most loyal influencers, including popular MAGA commentator Benny Johnson and Fox News, were hostile. Trump’s loyal base has taken all that heat for so long, defending Trump through everything, and now it appears their Dear Leader is just another deep state operative covering up the crimes of his accomplices — and possibly his own. They are confused and angry and inconsolable. Have they had a mass epiphany and collectively awakened to the fundamental dishonesty and corruption of the man they worshipped for the past ten years? It’s hard to believe.

bear83 of the Kos community reported the Grand Canyon Lodge on the North Rim was destroyed by wildfire on Sunday. It was built in 1937. Dozens of other structures, including individual cabins, were also destroyed. The fire was started by lightning on July 4. It was initially managed as a controlled burn to clear away what could fuel a larger fire. But nine days later low humidity and strong winds and the fire was no longer under control. bear83 wrote that DOGE and the Department of Agriculture, which oversees the Forest Service, terminated a lot of jobs, including people who would have helped prevent and fight wildfires. The nasty guy had said the Los Angeles fires wouldn’t have been so bad if communities would clear the combustible undergrowth. Which the crew at the North Rim were trying to do with perhaps not enough staff to do it safely. The North Rim website has a photo gallery of before. I was at the North Rim as part of a family vacation decades ago. We stayed at the campground near the lodge, though I’m sure we went past it to peer down into the canyon. On the long drive from the main road a large deer jumped onto the road and paused. We had to brake quickly and did not hit it. I’ve been to the South Rim a couple times, much more recently, though still decades ago. The Grand Canyon is a beautiful and impressive place. In Wednesday’s pundit roundup Greg Dworkin of Kos quoted a tweet by Matthew Cappucci, commenting on a tweet by Marjorie Taylor Greene. First Greene:

I am introducing a bill that prohibits the injection, release, or dispersion of chemicals or substances into the atmosphere for the express purpose of altering weather, temperature, climate, or sunlight intensity. It will be a felony offense. I have been researching weather.

She’s the one claiming that Democrats can control the weather and she’s referring to jet contrails that Robert Kennedy Jr. is calling chemtrails, the release of chemicals into the atmosphere to do dastardly things. Cappucci’s response:

It’s not a political statement for me as a Harvard-degreed atmospheric scientist to say that elected representative Marjorie Taylor Green doesn’t know what the hell she’s talking about. She’d be equally qualified to fly a Boeing-737, practice nuclear medicine or train zebras.

Dworkin quoted Jack Jenkins and Smietana of Religion News Service discussing the recent IRS announcement that churches can endorse political candidates from the pulpit. This is in response to a lawsuit brought by two Texas churches and religious broadcasters.

Americans — including religious Americans — generally take a dim view of political endorsements in the pulpit. According to an analysis of 2023 polling provided to RNS by the Public Religion Research Institute, majorities of all major religious groups oppose or strongly oppose allowing churches and places of worship to endorse political candidates while retaining their tax-exempt status. That includes white evangelicals (62%) as well as Black Protestants (59%), white mainline or nonevangelical Protestants (77%), white Catholics (79%), Hispanic Catholics (78%), Hispanic Protestants (72%) and Jewish Americans (77%). Researchers noted opposition to the idea among white evangelicals remains virtually unchanged since 2017, when they last polled on the topic. There was one outlier, however: People labeled by PRRI as “adherents” to Christian nationalism — people who agree with statements such as “the U.S. government should declare America a Christian nation” — were statistically more likely (45%) to support endorsements from the pulpit, with only a narrow majority (51%) opposed.

Dworkin added that pastors are wary of splitting their congregations so tend to avoid blatant politics. In the comments is a cartoon by Bill Bramhall. It shows a job interview and behind the boss is a sign saying, “Disclosure: The content of this interview will be used to build a chatbot we will hire instead of you.” In Thursday’s roundup Kev quoted John Timmer of Ars Technica:

From a distance, the gathering looked like a standard poster session at an academic conference, with researchers standing next to large displays of the work they were doing. Except in this case, it was taking place in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill, and the researchers were describing work that they weren’t doing. Called "The things we’ll never know," the event was meant to highlight the work of researchers whose grants had been canceled by the Trump administration. ... Many of the grants were focused on STEM education, and it's extremely difficult to imagine that people will be better off without the work happening.

In Friday’s roundup Dworkin included a tweet from Echelon Insights:

Where do most American voters fall on the political compass? Using nine questions on cultural issues and nine questions on economic issues, we mapped voters onto a political compass.

This is the start of a thread on X I don’t have access to. However, here’s the summary of the results:

Liberals, both economic and social: 43% Populist, economically liberal and socially conservative: 22% Conservative, both economic and socially conservative: 31% Libertarian, economically conservative and socially liberal: 5%

Dworkin added:

This is why Democrats on occasion (and warily) try to recruit populists. Conservatives won’t play and libertarians are too few. But the name of the game is a majority.

Aaron Astor tweeted:

Ever wonder why the CDC is based in Atlanta? The reason: its forerunner was the WWII-era Office of Malaria Control, based in Atlanta to fight malaria around rapidly growing US military communities in the South.

In the comments Zoli Osaze posted a cartoon by Lalo Alcaraz showing an ICE agent confronting a farm worker holding a box of produce on his head.

Agent: Keep your hands up! Worker: Don’t worry, they’re busy holding up your economy.

Something tells me you hated seeing the villains lose

Emily Singer of Daily Kos reported Netanyahu, the guy some believe is waging genocide in Gaza, has nominated the nasty guy for the Nobel Peace Prize. The reason for the nomination is the work on the Abraham Accords, to get Arab countries to recognize Israel. Singer included a cartoon by Clay Bennett showing the Prize Selection Committee seeing this nomination and breaking into laughter. Singer noted the nasty guy rants in his speeches about not getting this prize. Then she listed many reasons why he should not get it. The mass deportations and Alligator Alcatraz are only one reason.

Safe to say, Netanyahu’s nomination was pure theater—an effort by the Israeli leader to make Trump happy so that he allows Netanyahu to continue his war against Hamas.

I have a few posts about the big cuts in Medicaid and the requirement that able-bodied people need to work to qualify. Alix Breeden of Kos reported that Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Secretary of Labor was on Fox News to say that American citizens are willing to do all available jobs, including the ones that illegal immigrants currently do. Breeden noted that many of those immigrant jobs “have a long history of low pay and abusive work conditions.”

Forty-two percent of crop farmworkers are foreign born and not authorized to work in the U.S., according to the Department of Agriculture. Undocumented immigrants have been known to live in bug-infested shacks as they work long hours on farms for little pay. This push to put Americans in the fields comes amid the Trump administration’s brutal push to expel undocumented—and even some documented—immigrants from the U.S. And with the administration telling Americans to turn to the fields if they want to keep their Medicaid coverage, it seems as if Trump and his crew are aware of their dire need to fill the labor shortage they’re fomenting.

Ayesha Rascoe of NPR played a clip of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins saying mass deportations will continue as the agricultural workforce moves towards more automation and, an important point, “a 100% American workforce.” Rollins added, “There are 34 million able-bodied adults in our Medicaid program. There are plenty of workers in America.” Rascoe doesn’t say but I suspect that a good number of those able-bodied adults already have jobs that don’t pay a living wage yet are considerably easier than farm work. Manual Cunha Jr., president of the Nisei Farmers League, knows Rollins proposal will not work. It has been tried before. Americans don’t want those jobs. As for ICE raids, they create a labor crisis. The raided farm is not the only one affected. All the area farms are harmed. The entire San Joaquin Valley will be hit hard. Rascoe spoke to Robin Rudowitz, vice president at KFF, a health policy research and news organization. She reported that 60% of Medicaid recipients are already working and many of them who aren’t have an illness, a disability, have caretaking responsibilities, or have a job. In general Rudowitz says keeping track of who is working and who isn’t will not be easy. States are not set up for it. Gig workers have a hard time reporting their work. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the new requirements will save the government money because people will lose coverage. When the work requirements were in effect in Arkansas they did not contribute to an increase in employment. In last Friday’s Cheers and Jeers column for Kos Bill in Portland, Maine quoted late night commentary. Here’s one:

“The problem in our country isn’t the sliver of able-bodied people who are somehow coasting on the medical coverage they may or may not use, but the millions and millions of people in this country who work f*cking hard at full-time jobs and still need food and medical assistance. That’s the system that’s broken." —Jon Stewart, on the Republican "Screw the poor" law

Last Friday Singer reported on the fallout of the Epstein files scandal. FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino strongly disagreed with AG Pam Bondi’s actions and may have quit. FBI Director Kash Patel had harsh things to say about Bondi. All this ire is because last February Bondi said the Epstein client list was “sitting on my desk right now to review,” then saying a week ago no such list exists. She was either lying then or lying now.

But the latest Epstein files debacle is sending MAGA into a tailspin as they try to come to terms with the fact that the Trump administration is telling them that the conspiracy theories they’ve pushed for years are false.

Google searches for Epstein are up 1,200% last week, more than those who searched for tariffs. CNN’s Harry Enten said this is “a massive unforced error” by the administration. I don’t keep track of the MAGA conspiracy theories, so I have an obvious question: Why did the news send MAGA into a tailspin? In Monday’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted several people who might answer that question. Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Inquirer

Despite the thousands of trees that were chopped down in 2024 to inform voters that the presidential election hinged on egg prices, the reality is that millions of voters were motivated by their belief that a Trump restoration would confirm all their wildest, bitter beliefs about cosmopolitan elite Democrats and their immorality and disdain for “the real America.”

A tweet from Mike Nellis:

Multiple MAGA influencers are openly arguing they can't release the Epstein list because it'll help Democrats win the midterms, which is... quite the admission of what's happening here.

When Epstein was found dead in his prison cell back in 2019 the conspiracy was that the names on his client list were not released because it was full of Democrats. Refusing to release the list and denying it doesn’t exist after all these years implies the list is full of Republicans with the nasty guy as one of the frequent customers. Jeffrey Epstein was in prison because he was accused of sex trafficking, providing sex workers (some underage) to a wide clientele, including Prince Andrew of Britain. Dan Pfeiffer of The Message Box

My initial reaction was pure schadenfreude — an enjoyable distraction from democracy circling the drain. I assumed the Epstein furor would be just another passing summer storm for Trump. Before long, his flunkies would fall back in line because that’s what flunkies do. Trump has survived criminal convictions, impeachments, and countless scandals that would have ended other political careers. Surely, he’d survive this one without much damage. Now, I’m not so sure. The Epstein scandal is unlike any Trump scandal before. It looks like the kind of scandal that has undone second-term presidents. I’m not saying MAGA is dead, but if he can’t quell the furor over the Epstein files, Trump could end up very damaged in ways that affect the midterms, the 2028 presidential election, and the long-term future of the movement.

A tweet from Sarah Longwell:

The “why didn’t the Biden administration release the Epstein files” dodge ignores the fact that Biden and his cabinet didn’t run on releasing the Epstein files. But Trump’s family members and cabinet members (Kash, JD, Bondi, Noem, et al) made it a central campaign promise.

In the comments exlrrp posted a meme showing, I think, Tobey Maguire playing Peter Parker talking to one of Peter’s friends (sheesh, those movies were 20 years ago!) explaining the reach Epstein had.

Peter: The Epstein list needs to be released. Friend: But Peter, it would literally destabilize the world. 2/3rds of Congress & a large portion of the world’s most powerful people would be imprisoned. ...society would at least partially collapse. Peter: I already said I’m for it, you don’t have to sell it to me.

In Saturday’s roundup Dworkin quoted Brian Beutler of *Off Message* discussing the Epstein scandal:

Do many of them take genuine interest in getting an answer to that question: Are Trump’s minions covering it up, or did they just exploit the sexual abuse of children to help get their guy elected? Or do they mostly think the whole issue is sordid and beneath them… To square their objectives, Democrats will have to stop wishing away distractions from their best issues, and start asking whether and how those issues slot into existing online fixations.

To change the subject, from the Washington Post:

For months, President Donald Trump and his homeland security secretary have said the Federal Emergency Management Agency could be eliminated. But as the president visited Texas to view the impact of last week’s deadly floods, administration officials say abolishing the agency outright is not on the agenda. A senior White House official told The Washington Post that no official action is being taken to wind down FEMA, and that changes in the agency will probably amount to a “rebranding” that will emphasize state leaders’ roles in disaster response.

In the comments are most Epstein cartoons (and more flood cartoons, the nasty guy wanting the Nobel Peace Prize cartoons, and nasty guy as Superman cartoons). There is also a cartoon posted by Toonerman that plays on goodbye phrases I used in my childhood that begin, “See you later, alligator.” I’ll let you find the updated response. NotKennyRogers tweeted, “People who have come out in support of Elon Musk’s new American Party:” He then lists several names, including Mike Pence. “That’s pretty much all I need to know about Elon Musk’s new American Party.” I’ve heard reports that Musk wants this party to be centrist, to capture the “80%” annoyed with both parties. But if Pence and these other guys support it, this new party won’t be centrist. Remember Musk didn’t like the Big Brutal Bill because it didn’t cut social programs enough. Alex Samuels of Kos reported the nasty guy was the one who declared the latest Superman movie to be too “woke” and that he should play the part. He even posted a meme with his head on Superman’s body as shown in advertising posters. It went over about as well as the AI images of himself as pope. In the comments of Sunday’s roundup there are more Epstein cartoons and memes, including one posted by exlrrp with words I think said to a reporter:

Nasty guy: Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? Us: Why not, you’re still talking about the 2020 election.

Victoria Fielding posted a cartoon created, I think, by Nick Henderson. It shows a car with a big “Get big government off my back” bumper sticker. The car is being swamped by the flood and a man is holding on while waving to a FEMA rescuer. Max Espinoza of BabylonBros imagines a conversation between MAGA and Superman, who ends it saying, “Something tells me you hated seeing the villains lose!” This was to be posted yesterday evening. But as I working on it Blogger stopped working, so it had to wait.

Social media algorithms lead to swallowing the red pill

The ten handbell concerts I saw over the last four days were quite wonderful. I’m pleased livestream technology exists so that I could watch them. I got to know Anne Curzan through her weekly That’s What They Say segment on Michigan Public. The series has been going on for 13 years. Through the show I’ve learned a lot about the origin of many words and phrases – this morning’s discussion was about “pet peeves.” Curzan has a PhD in linguistics and has taught at the University of Michigan for at least thirty years. Over the last year the series mentioned Curzan has a new book and I just finished reading it. The book is Say’s Who? A Kinder, Funner Usage Guide for Everyone Who Cares About Words. Yeah, the word “funner” is in the title where I would have expected “more fun.” She has a chapter on that. In each of the 33 chapters she discusses some aspect of modern American English. She delves into the rules of grammar, who said they were rules, and why the rule does, doesn’t, or never did apply. Some of the topics are making verbs from nouns, how “literally” has come to also mean “figuratively,” the difference between “less” and “fewer,” whether “data” can be treated as singular, how to use the semicolon, and when the passive voice is appropriate. In the first chapter she introduces two words: Grammando, a combination of “grammar commando” as the voice in one’s head insisting on the correct bit of grammar. And wordie, the voice that marvels at new ways of using the language, even when the example doesn’t fit in the rules. Our language is always changing. These two voices are frequently at odds in our heads and in what we say to others. Curzan’s general take on grammar battles is: Does the meaning come through? Beyond that, keep your grammando quiet. Yes, there are more formal situations where a writer (and editors) need to be more conscious of the rules. But Curzan shows, in chapter after chapter, many of the “rules” have been out of date for a long time. The most important chapter to me is the one on PC language, the attempts to use a more inclusive language. And here I’ll quote the book:

Debates about language are almost always about more than language. In this case, debates about inclusive and sensitive language are about who has the power to call linguistic shots about what language is and isn’t inclusive and sensitive. It’s fundamentally a power struggle between groups that have historically held most of the political, economic, and social power – what I’m going to call having the biggest microphone – and historically marginalized groups whose voices are becoming more and more centered in the broader public discourse. It’s not that some of the language that today is deemed offensive is newly offensive; it’s that people who have been denigrated by this language have gained more power to call the language out as offensive. They have a bigger microphone than they have had in the past.

Curzan then noted the marginalized people have to be conscious of how they speak because there could be dire consequences. A wrong word could cost a job – or a life. The socially powerful “have had to worry less about consequences – making it seem like freedom of speech is the same as freedom from consequences for getting it wrong.” I found all of this fascinating – until about three-quarters of the way through the book. Then the repetitive nature of the arguments – the explanation of what’s really going on, the check of historical sources, the appeal to a quieter grammando – got to be a bit wearying. All of it was still interesting, but I enjoyed it less. I recommend the book if you are one who cares about words. Lisa Needham of Daily Kos reviewed all the ways Robert Kennedy Jr. is making the various parts of his Department of Health and Human Services have a more difficult time doing their jobs. I’ll let you read the rest and quote just the conclusion:

Fewer safety inspections, fewer guardrails on drug approvals, and conspiracy-fueled attacks on vaccines. Turns out, “Make America Healthy Again” means just the opposite.

And, I thought, “Make America Great Again” also means just the opposite. Nadra Nittle and Mariel Padilla, in an article for The 19th posted on Kos, discussed how easily young male teens on social media get hooked into misogyny. The society as a whole can make these boys feel insecure. Do they measure up to the expected profile of masculinity? Will they grow up to be man enough? They have “insecurities about their physiques, jawlines and even their hair.” So the boys, who feel no one knows them well, go into social media to find out what they can do to be more masculine. They might watch a “gym-bro” video on how to start increasing muscle size They might try videos on “looksmaxxing” to enhance their appearance. From there social media algorithms take over. Rachael Fugardi is a senior research analyst with the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project, which tracks extremism.

Fugardi said that algorithms force-feed sexism to young people. “So much of this misogynistic content isn’t being searched out,” she said. Research from the United Kingdom revealed that 10 percent of boys ages 11 to 14 encountered harmful content, such as misogyny and violence, within 60 seconds of going online.

The videos might start with guides to gym workouts, or a bit of comedy in ways that rack up page views, but then start slipping in the misogynistic content. Even that might start small, as in the problems of being a weak “beta male” rather than an “alpha male.” And it goes downhill from there, eventually into violence against women. Along the way they are exposed to the claim that feminism curtails men’s rights. “They have swallowed the ‘red pill’ — a manosphere metaphor for embracing a reactionary and male supremacist worldview.” Fitness influencers resonate with the boys because of “Pew Research Center’s finding that 43 percent of teenage boys feel pressure to be physically strong.” Geoff Corey, director of Advocates for Youth’s sex education project AMAZE explained:

They are looking to make friends, to look better, to win over girls or become better people. Then, they discover that it seems like the only people creating content geared towards men are people who give them an easy answer for what they want, and that easy answer somehow leads to trickery, violence, unhealthy behaviors, bottling up emotions.

The counterpart to those videos are the ones promoting “tradwives” or the traditional wife who is quite satisfied with the role of making a wonderful home for her man. The women film themselves whipping up snacks from scratch while wearing stylish outfits with expertly applied makeup.

“Male supremacy appeals to women as well. And, of course, the white supremacist project demands the participation of White women in the production of White babies,” said Pasha Dashtgard, director of research at the Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab (PERIL) at American University. The tradwife movement “is for men,” he stressed. “It’s not for women. It’s cosplaying what men think would be the ideal woman.”

Sreshta Erravelli, 17, and who finished 11th grade and thinks the manosphere is nonsense, observed:

Rather than teach that rejection is a part of life, the manosphere links rejection to weakness, causing boys to lash out when girls don’t reciprocate their feelings, she said. “You’re calling girls weird names just because she didn’t give you her number the first 20 times you asked.”

What to do about it? Jessica Berg of Rock Ridge High School in Virginia created a gender studies class that uses history to show students how patriarchy became the norm. She has plenty of recent examples. The class has also taught the young women to advocate for themselves. Dashtgard has created resources to help the public “recognize radicalization before it occurs and engage youth without condemning or humiliating them.” Fugardi wants social media companies to do more to enforce their existing rules on content moderation and demand they protect youth over prioritizing profit. AMAZE has videos that present alternatives to the manosphere. Julie Scelfo, founder of Mothers Against Media Addiction has suggestions for how parents should help their kids. View content with them. If they repeat sexist ideas, ask where they heard them and talk about the meaning of the messages. I’m glad that AMAZE is producing alternative videos. I think more liberal groups need to do the same so that social media algorithms will turn to them as well. Recently I wrote that the 988 National Suicide & Crisis Lifeline will, as of July 17, no longer provide a direct link for LGBTQ (especially the T) to get help from sensitive counselors. That help is currently supplied by the Trevor Project. I’ve since learned that since the Trevor Project is being booted out of the government system it is also losing its government funding, a good size chunk. The Trevor Project will still exist, back to privately funded, to help LGBTQ youth in crisis. Paul Berge drew a cartoon appropriate to the situation. I first saw it in Between the Lines in their previous issue. I normally like to describe cartoons, but this one I won’t because I want you to see the full impact for yourself. Trevor Project LGBTQ Crisis Hotline: 1-866-488-7386 or text START to 678-678

America has grown too comfortable with violence and cruelty

The national handbell seminar begins tomorrow. I’m not attending in person. Even so, it will be livestreaming three concerts a day starting with one tomorrow evening. The concerts will feature a selection of the best handbell performers. I don’t know how much this will affect my blogging time. I may post regularly or I may not post again until Sunday or Monday. Lisa Needham of Daily Kos reported that 144 employees of the Environmental Protection Agency sent a letter to administrator Lee Zeldin objecting to new agency policies. Another letter in March complained of the illegal dismantling of core agency functions. In response to the latest letter Zeldin put all who signed (some were anonymous) on leave. This is a violation of First Amendment rights of free speech. Needham spent much of the rest of the article explaining in what cases employees do and don’t have free speech rights. In this case they clearly do. What caught my attention in this article is the last few paragraphs:

Trump treats the presidency like an extension of his person, and his Cabinet has adopted that same framing: People voted for Trump, which means they preapproved anything he chooses to do. Any disagreement, therefore, means you are not respecting the will of the voters. It isn’t surprising, with that mindset, that the administration is coming for the free speech rights of public employees. After all, how dare they speak out against Dear Leader? Just because the GOP has signed on to Trump’s cult of personality doesn’t mean that federal workers have to do so as well.

Brett Kelman, in an article for KFF Health News posted on Kos a month ago, reported many American doctors are moving to Canada. One big reason is because, as Kelman paraphrased one of the doctors, “Too much of America has simply grown too comfortable with violence and cruelty.” There are a lot of reasons inside the big one. The nasty guy becoming more authoritarian. The deep cuts to Medicaid. Appointing Robert Kennedy Jr. to lead and dismantle federal health agencies. On the other side of the border, applications to be licensed in Canada has increased more than 750% in the last seven months compared to a year ago. Some are saying they are moving specifically because of the nasty guy. Also, Canadian provinces have relaxed some licensing regulations in recent years to allow easier migration. A Canadian physician recruiting company said they saw a 65% increase in inquiries from January to April and is now contacted by up to 15 American doctors a day. Another company helps doctors to get licensed in other foreign nations. They had previously worked with doctors with wanderlust, seeking adventure. Now it is more intentional about getting out of the US. Doctors who have made the move feel less stress, do less paperwork, and have no fear of burying patients in medical debt. And in the US we already don’t have enough doctors. When Musk slashed his way through federal agency personnel some of the talk was we’ll just replace all those workers with AI. Some of the most vocal people, like Musk, have shown they are anti-human and would rather deal with technology. So a month ago Needham reported that two AI tools have been installed at the Food and Drug Administration. And both of them suck. FDA Commissioner Martin Makary gushed over the new tools, as did Jin Liu, deputy director for Drug Evaluation Sciences. One of the tools isn’t connected to anything – like medical journals or even other computers – so it can’t manage basic tasks. The other was asked questions about publicly available information and answered incorrectly. We may get half-baked AI anyway. Also from a month ago Needham discussed another way the nasty guy is threatening universities. It is telling the organizations that do the accrediting that universities are in violation of federal anti-discrimination laws. In Needhan’s example the nasty guy claims Columbia doesn’t meet the standards for accreditation because of the way it treated Jewish students. The threat – the Notice of Violation – includes no information on what Columbia needs to do to comply. There are only the threats if it doesn’t. Columbia is finding out that although it bent the knee to the nasty guy it will still be attacked. It can’t do enough to stop the attacks (except maybe cease operations).

The government doesn’t accredit any school and therefore can’t yank any accreditation. The federal government does certify accreditors, but while it's likely that the leftover remains of the Department of Education could approve new accreditors, getting rid of the existing ones isn’t that easy. These are vague, meaningless attacks that don’t have a lot to do with the actual requirements for certification of accreditors. As the Council of Regional Accrediting Commissions explained in a statement about Trump’s executive order, the Higher Education Act establishes due process requirements for recognition of accreditors, including reviews from multiple offices within the Department of Education. And it included a pointed reminder that “concerns about accreditor recognition can be escalated to federal court.”

There’s another reason why the nasty guy is attacking the accreditors. They were a big part of the demise of Trump University. In the comments of a pundit roundup on Kos Paul Fell posted a cartoon shows a waiter has delivered a dead bird, type unknown but definitely not appetizing. The customer says, “Waiter! This isn’t what I ordered!” The waiter holds up a sign saying “2024 election” and says, “Wanna bet?” Fell added:

As Americans keep finding out all the disastrous, cruel, & frankly anti-American things Trump & Republicans are doing, even MAGAts are saying this isn't what they voted for. Don't believe them. This is *exactly* what they voted for.

A meme related to the devastating Texas flood posted by exlrrp shows a photo of the president of Mexico. Below it is the text:

Mexico’s president just sent rescue teams to Texas. After all the hate. After all the anti-immigrant policies. After all the racism towards brown people. She still helped. She still showed up. She still did the right thing. To a red state that wouldn’t do the same for her. That’s leadership. That’s power. That’s a woman.

I’ve written about Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene claiming that Democrats can control the weather and that it must stop. Fiona Webster posted a cartoon by Lalo Alcaraz titled “Weather Control Machine” and showing a truck labeled “Big Oil” that is spewing a lot of pollution.

They built the wrecking ball now swinging at them

Myriam-Fernanda Alcala Delgado, in an article for Capital & Main posted on Daily Kos, discussed the Los Angeles volunteer organization Unión del Barrio. The group got their start in 1992 after the beating of Rodney King. They are a community patrol network to monitor law enforcement activity that might be dangerous to residents in vulnerable neighborhoods. These days they monitor ICE. Volunteers look for cars with tinted windows and masked license plates. They patrol neighborhoods looking for ICE. They also respond to tips about current ICE activity. They do some verification before issuing public alerts. They are very careful to keep to the speed limit and obey all traffic signs. They don’t want ICE or law enforcement a reason to stop and engage with them. Sometimes ICE leaves an area because they have lost the element of surprise. But ICE is changing tactics in response to volunteer patrols. Instead of morning operations ICE shifted to later in the day when volunteers are at work. They have also started using decoys – one ICE vehicle leads patrols one way while ICE operations go another. The group got a letter from Sen. Josh Hawley saying they are supporting civil unrest and aiding criminal conduct. The letter demands they “cease and desist.” Unión del Barrio says the letter is simple intimidation and won’t stop them. Carrie Levine, in an article for Votebeat posted on Kos, talked about an executive order involving new rules for voting machines. From this article I didn’t figure out whether the new rules promoted the nasty guy, promoted democracy, or were impartial. The article is more about the problems implementing the new rules. From what I can figure out, one problem is that federal accredited laboratories have not yet certified voting machines to the new standards, which can take years. In the meantime, the current standards are quite good and lead to accurate results. But devious actors can say the current machines don’t meet the new standards, spreading doubt on the election results. Another problem is the move to the new standard does not come with money to make that happen. Replacing voting equipment can cost millions. A while back I talked about ways authoritarians stay in power. One way is to hold elections that the opposition party is well represented on the ballot but just can’t seem to ever win. Thom Hartmann of the Kos community and an independent pundit wrote an essay in response to words by James Carville. Carville warned that as the nasty guy sees a decisive Republican loss in the coming 2026 midterms he may try something extreme to hold onto power. Hartmann is equally concerned, but doesn’t think the extreme action will be martial law or a national emergency. Instead, according to journalist Greg Palast, a Great Purge will be enough. The purge has been authorized by five corrupt conservatives on the Supreme Court. It involves scrubbing names from voter rolls. One part is removing names and Hartmann lists several ways that is happening. Another part is the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act introduced by Republicans (who else?). One provision is if the name on the birth certificate is different from the passport or driver’s license a person can’t register (or reregister). The biggest group this affects is married women who take their husband’s last name. Others affected are transgender. The other half of the problem is that most Americans don’t have a birth certificate readily available or know where it is. The reason for the law is a racist myth. There are claims that millions of undocumented immigrants vote. When dedicated sleuths work to uncover evidence of that claim they can produce in court they come up empty, while defendants can show similar state laws prevent thousands of legal voters from voting. These tactics go back to before the 2000 election. In that one George Bush II was able to claim victory in Florida, and thus the White House, because his brother Jeb, governor of Florida at the time, had purged tens of thousands of black voters from the rolls. Republicans continue to use purging because it works. “That’s not election security. That’s systemic suppression.” And it happens before a vote is cast. If it doesn’t work? There is always ICE, answerable only to the nasty guy and with a growing number of concentration camps to use. Kos of Kos wrote that two Alaskan lawmakers, one a Republican, wrote a hand-wringing op-ed in the New York Times about the Big Brutal Bill with the headline, “Alaska cannot survive this bill.” Kos lists the horrors of the bill – lost health coverage, food assistance, school funding, and more. The nasty guy campaigned on all that carnage. And 54% of Alaskans voted for him anyway. Strange that the small-government crowd is the most dependent on assistance from the government. The state’s politicians, Sen. Lisa Murkowski in this case, scramble to shield their constituents from the cuts the citizens voted for. The pattern is getting old.

So, yes, Alaska is right to be scared. The bill will devastate them. But they aren’t innocent. They helped build the wrecking ball—and now they’re shocked to find it swinging in their direction. Actions have consequences.

In Saturday’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin had several quotes worth mentioning. Norm Ornstein of The Contrarian talked about how Democrats were tripped up when the nasty guy’s campaign was able to cast several issues in terms of fairness. There was a female swimmer who tied for fifth place with a transgender swimmer, but got the sixth place trophy. Another case was student loan forgiveness that was portrayed as unfair to those who had worked hard to pay off their student loans.

Democrats who did not want to sacrifice anyone for temporary political advantage supported trans athletes as a matter of fairness and decency were easy to portray as being too woke to recognize the perceived unfairness.

Matt Fuller tweeted a link to a story on Notus and wrote:

That letter from 16 vulnerable House Republicans — about how they won't vote for the Senate's Medicaid cuts — is a pretty crazy read today. Everyone on this letter voted for the bill.

Paul Waldman of The Cross Section also talked about Republicans and the Big Brutal Bill:

So why are they doing this? One can certainly imagine a less radical version of this bill, one that moved in the same direction but not so far and fast, much as the legislation they passed in Trump’s first term did. That kind of bill might not be a political winner, but it wouldn’t be such a huge loser either. Why not go that route? They’re not giving away their shot [not quite the Hamilton lyric] The answer is that this isn’t about the politics, it’s about the substance. You don’t like weather-vane politicians, always checking the polls to see how they should vote? Well here you go. They are willing to take the political risk, even the certainty of future defeat, because they believe so strongly in what this bill does. They despise Medicaid and have contempt for everyone who uses it. The same goes for SNAP, aka food stamps. They desperately want to cut taxes for the wealthy, and always have. They don’t just want to roll back Biden-era climate policies, they want to destroy the entire green energy and manufacturing sectors of the economy. ... That’s just part of what’s in the bill, but the point is that this is the fulfillment of their fondest policy wishes. If it costs them their House majority and maybe even their Senate majority as well (a long shot, but not impossible), they’re willing to do it. Because they believe in it.

I’m on the email lists for Demand Progress and Move On. Both are very good at sending me frequent emails about the latest outrage from the nasty guy (and there are lots). All of them ask for money. Some ask me to sign a petition first, though I’ve gotten no feedback on whether any of the petitions have been effective – from what the nasty guy and Republicans are doing they probably aren’t. I also get letters from various prominent Democrats as well as the national committees, all asking for money. I get texts on my phones from Democratic candidates around the country hoping I would be a part of their team (as in donating money). So this tweet from Dan Pfeiffer resonated:

I understand the short term incentives involved, but the fact that every bad thing that Trump does is immediately followed by 1000 fundraising texts from every person in the Democratic Party has some long term consequences for the party’s relationship with its base.

In the comments ResJudicata22 posted a cartoon by Drew Sheneman. A MAGA man says, “Gender-Affirming care is unnatural!” Around him words point to various parts of his body, words such as, “Hair plugs, Beard coloring, Viagra,” and for his shoes, “Lifts.” Tracy posted another cartoon by Sheneman. This one shows the nasty guy telling young kids, “I’m cutting your school lunch program to pay for tax cuts and bombs. If you’re hungry, join the Army.” Another commenter noted that lowest level Army pay is below a living wage. In the comments of Sunday’s roundup Rented Mule posted a meme:

I didn’t grow up reciting “with liberty and justice for all” every morning at 7 am just to be called radical for actually wanting liberty and justice for ALL.

A cartoon posted by thendis-nye, creator unknown, shows a man on the phone as out the window is a formal garden with a fountain. The man says:

They’re all gone!? My pool’s dirty! Who’s going to cook for me and clean my house? Who will trim the hedges and take care of the estate grounds!? No one told me this would affect me!

And a cartoon by Garth German show a man with elephants:

Man: Why should we spend $60 billion to help Ukraine?! Elephants: Yeah! Damn Straight! Man: Think of all we could to if we spent that $60 billion helping Americans instead! Elephants: (uproarious laughter) Elephant1: This guy thinks we’ll spend money to help Americans... Elephant12: Hee Hee Elephant3: Here’s the plan to cut Medicaid, Social Security, and SNAP.

In today’s roundup Dworkin included a tweet by Melanie D’Arrigo that quoted a tweet by Aaron Rupar. First Rupar, referring to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, billionaire.

Bessent on Medicaid cuts: "The able-bodied Americans are not vulnerable Americans ... people can get off Medicaid and get a job that has good healthcare benefits ... I don't think poor people are stupid. I think they have agency."

D’Arrigo adds:

30% of American jobs do not offer health benefits, and 49% of employed workers can't afford healthcare without going into debt. Every American is a vulnerable American when healthcare is restricted, tied to employment, and for-profit.

Keeping democracy is a constant, high-stakes battle

My weekend movie was Saturday afternoon when I went to the Detroit Film Theater (and enjoyed some of the Detroit Institute of Arts) for the documentary Secret Mall Apartment. In the 1990s Providence, Rhode Island was getting rather run down. The mills that had provided its wealth had closed. So the city decided to build a shopping mall, Providence Place, at the edge of a good neighborhood where people on the other side saw it more as a barrier than a benefit. Many artists and musicians had taken over the old mill buildings not far from the new mall. They were quite annoyed that city planners saw their area as the next place to gentrify, and evicted them. One of those was the artist and art teacher Michael Townsend. As Townsend watched the mall being built, a place with unusual planes and angles, he saw a space that he identified as unusable. In 2003 he crawled through the in-between spaces of the building and found it. He and seven friends turned the space, about 750 square feet, into an apartment. They hauled furniture up there (through a route a bit more direct than crawl spaces, but still difficult) and turned it into a place to stay. They used a palm size camera to film their work and those films were an integral part of this movie. I think they had residences elsewhere, but that was never specifically said. They managed to live in the mall undetected for four years. This was an act of defiance against gentrification, their private clubhouse, and a place to plan their art. Townsend and his team were also working artists, and generous with their art. One of their big things is tape art – using rolls of blue and green painter’s tape to construct outlines of figures on walls. They were regular visitors to a children’s hospital, decorating rooms and hallways with whimsical figures and helping the little patients create their own ideas. These were intentionally temporary, easily pulled off the wall when no longer wanted. Here’s their tape art website. The main page of the site includes a photo of Townsend. Check out their murals page. The team also took their tape art to Oklahoma City for the tenth anniversary of the bombing there and to New York to commemorate those who lost their lives in 9/11. These people have their hearts in the right place. Townsend was the only one known to the public when their hideaway was discovered. The mall banned him for life for trespassing. When this documentary was premiered it was at the cinemas in – Providence Place. I’m sure Townsend was the guest of honor. I quite enjoyed this one. I read through the transcript of the June 10, 2025 episode of Gaslit Nation titled How a Christian School Kid in Indiana Saw the Fall of Democracies Coming. Gaslit Nation is hosted by Andrea Chalupa. Her guest in this episode is Chrissy Stroop. Chalupa introduces her this way at the top of the webpage:

Chrissy is a leading voice in exposing the Christian nationalist movement, the exvangelical uprising, and the growing marriage between the American and Russian far-right. She also happens to be a trans woman with a PhD in Russian history and a wild journey that took her from a fundamentalist Christian school in Indiana to teaching in Moscow.

And like this during the episode.

[She is] an analyst on global affairs as well as the American Ex-vangelical Movement, as well as Christian Nationalism and Russia. She's an advocate for religious deconstruction, LGBTQ+ rights and social justice.

The episode begins with the story of a woman who came to the US as a fetus. Chalupa reminds us that the media sees immigrants as a hostile invader rather than an individual human story of someone seeking a better life. Chalupa describes the bill the nasty guy just signed (still in process when this episode was recorded) as the “concentration camp” bill. It allocates “a staggering $160 billion to expand state terror and intensify their anti-immigrant crackdown.” The current ICE budget is $8 billion. The new bill keeps that funding and adds $15 for deportation and $45 billion for new camps. That increases ICE’s power by 20 times. This is how MAGA plans to stay in power. Stroop got her PhD in Russian History. After the Cold War there wasn’t much use for it, which is why she taught in Moscow for a while. She noticed that in Florida the big education push was to make sure everyone related to colleges and universities are on the same page. Not said so loud is that the same page is the state ideology. It’s what the Nazis did when they came to power. Now Linda McMahon, Secretary of Education, is using the term. A goal of dismantling public education is so that students would be funneled into Christian education (which implies conservative Christian views). These same Christians are a big supplier of resources for homeschooling. Stroop discusses her own conservative Christian education. As a student she was constantly told liberals are evil because they kill babies (allow abortion). Gay people want special rights. If a country disobeys God it will be punished. If it follows God’s will it will flourish. To get God’s blessing abortion must be banned, the queers must be kept at bay, and the political system must align with God’s will. There is a world of Christian broadcasting and Fox News carries similar ideas. Stroop tells the story of recognizing she is trans. She had hints, but didn’t figure it out until she was living in Moscow at age 33. She stopped going to church and began to have a few queer friends. That journey is what helped her reject the teaching of her youth. Her time in Moscow also helped her see the similarities between Russia and far-right Americans. Chalupa said Putin’s 2013 anti-gay laws were pivotal in the global fascist war against democracy. Because of the law Madonna and other superstars began to boycott Russia. There was one notable exception – the nasty guy held his 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. By his actions the nasty guy was telling Putin I’ve got your back and I know you have mine because my businesses depend on you and Russia. Putin invaded Crimea in 2014 and the nasty guy was elected in 2016. Christopher Steele (of the Steele dossier) noted something must have happened to the nasty guy during that pageant. Stroop reminds us that the nasty guy is currently targeting immigrants. But they won’t do that forever. You say the wrong thing, such as praise the Palestinians and condemn Israel, and they arrest you. They’re trying to Christian Nationalize the universities as well as the K-12 education system. They may not be able to get rid of all public schools, but they’ll try to Christianize what’s left. Since they think public education should not exist that remnant will be as bad as they can make it. Conservative Christian schools and conservative homeschool programs resist government standards because the parents have certain things they don’t want their children to learn, such as evolution and comprehensive sex ed. And human rights. They say that’s a secular concept. Human rights aren’t to be used for things that don’t contribute to human flourishing. Human dignity means one is not gay and not trans. If one is those things one is doing dignity wrong. Yeah, that very much depends on ones definition of “flourishing.” The gay and trans people I know flourish when they are allowed to be gay and trans. As a child getting a Christian education, Stroop felt out of sync a lot of time. One thing that guided her out was a subscription to Ranger Rick Magazine given to her by her moderate grandmother. That magazine is pro environment. At the end of the episode, starting at minute 45, Chalupa discusses the Gaslit Nation Action Guide, which has its own page.

Donald Trump is not the cause of America's fascism crisis. He's a symptom. Trump reflects a deeper disease of corruption, institutional failure, and widespread indifference. We can no longer afford to look away. We're in a moment that calls not just for outrage, but for action.

So study the action guide. The June 24 episode of Gaslit Nation has guest Anne Applebaum. She’s a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and author of Gulag, Iron Curtain, Red Famine, Twilight of Democracy, and Autocracy Inc. Host Andrea Chalupa’s grandfather, a Holodomor survivor, is cited in Red Famine. In 2023 Poland ousted the far right Law and Justice party. By razor-thin margins they retook power this year, only 18 months later. “Democracy isn’t a destination. It’s a constant, high-stakes battle.” We will all be in this struggle for the next few decades. Neither side will achieve a definitive victory. Applebaum commented on the nasty guy’s attack on Iran. The regime in Iran is waging two wars. One is against the US and Israel and has been going on for four decades. The other is against its own people. About the same time the bombs fell there was a crackdown on the opposition. Even though the bombs cause death and destruction and the crackdown causes more, the opposition is delighted with the mess. The nasty guy did not have Congressional approval for his attack. He did not explain why he did it nor convince the public for its need. There is no groundswell of opinion (well, there is... against him). He didn’t say whether uranium had been moved before he struck or what the bombs really accomplished. He hasn’t defined any strategy for Iran, the Middle East, or the world. That’s all a red flag. Perhaps he engaged in war because it is war. Perhaps because he likes the Fox News reporting. Perhaps he thinks he’ll look strong. Chalupa asked how the strike in Iran might affect Russia. As part of her reply Applebaum said:

Putin thinks a lot about other autocracies, and he's concerned about the survival of other autocracies because he thinks of himself as being part of a global war of ideas against liberal ideas, against democratic ideas, but also against the rule of law, against accountability and a win for the other side. In other words, the fall of a sister regime would be interpreted in Moscow is bad for them.

Maybe propping up the Iran regime is in Russia’s interest. But Syria fell because both Iran and Russia have been weakened. And Russia would not be taken seriously if it tried to be a broker in the Iran-Israel war. Even so, Russia maintains ties with and offers help to autocrats in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba in addition to Iran, China, and North Korea. Turning to the situation in the US, Applebaum said we can’t ever be completely lost into autocracy. One dictatorial family ruled Syria for 50 years, then it collapsed. Nothing is irreversible. What happens tomorrow depends on what we decide today. The US has has autocratic periods in the past, such as the rise of the Klan and Huey Long ruling Louisiana in the 1930s as an autocrat. An autocrat at the federal level at this scale is new. One type of corruption is financial. The only purpose of the nasty guy’s cryptocurrency is being a pathway to bribe him. He can’t do anything else with it. The other type of corruption is taking over government institutions and making them loyal to himself and not the Constitution. Right now American politics isn’t about discussing policy it’s about the nasty guy’s taking over institutions, the nature of the state. It’s about do we and the candidate believe in democracy or not? Is government to help or harm? We have to think differently to organize to stop that. In 1945 in Europe most Communist parties tried to take over with minimal violence. In Hungary this was known as salami tactics. Make a little change. Let the opposition adjust. Make another little change. Do it until the opposition is squeezed out. Many people won’t notice the individual steps. Orbán, Hungary’s current dictator, is doing the same thing. This is the most common way democracies fall. That’s not the method the nasty guy, with the help of DOGE, has been using in the US. His method makes progressives feel overwhelmed. The Soviet takeover of Eastern Europe was also all at once. Their takeover focused on education and culture, in hijacking the way people think. When they captured Berlin in May 1945 their first step was to take over the radio station, moving in German communists. Another early step was replacing kindergarten teachers. The nasty guy isn’t particularly interested in this. But the people around him are. American science is admired around the world. So why attack scientific institutions? It’s to hijack the way people think, to mold culture in their own image. That didn’t work in the Soviet Union, nor in Poland and Hungary. They didn’t win people’s minds. People assumed what the government said was a lie. They got their information from other places. Destroying institutions is easy. Getting people to change their thinking to conform to government ideas is quite hard. They can do a great deal of damage, but they won’t win. Those in the government will completely believe their ideology. When it doesn’t work they’ll blame spies and traitors. In the Soviet Union there were waves of harsh repressions. Those didn’t work either. So they would liberalize a little bit and that would prompt a popular uprising. Somebody began to see the value of obeying the law, of following the regime, wasn’t worth the low returns. Protests would be organized. The fall of communism in Poland was negotiated. There were already people who could take over the functions of government. In each of those countries by the 1980s few people believed the ideology or accepted the government, which had little legitimacy. Orbán faces his strongest opponent in the next election. He has massaged the system rather than smashing it. Has he made enough changes to the Constitution that he can’t be defeated electorally? Will he allow himself to lose? How far would he go to prevent a loss? What happens to the companies, the dominant ones in Hungary, connected to himself and his family and friends? Once Orbán is gone all the government institutions will have to be examined to see how to make them neutral again, how to make them belong to the nation rather than the party.