2020 has been a disaster for the Trump administration, mostly due to its poor handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, tone-deaf response to the murder of George Floyd by police, and excessive use of force against peaceful protesters in Lafayette Park to provide the President with a photo opportunity. Their poll numbers against former VP Biden have been falling, and his first…
‘Law and Order’ Ends Nothing But Democracy
With Trump pulling all the strings from controlling the military and police force, to stacking the courts and effectively censoring the media, he’s setting up an autocracy.
Will Trump 2020 Break Apart the Nation?
What would it take to spark internal conflict within the United States? What plausible scenario would cause a state, or states, to decide that it was worth the risk of conflict to secede? It seems like a ridiculous question. We all know how the Civil War turned out, that Abe Lincoln was a hero for…
Trump and the Right-Wing Media Made the Epidemic Inevitable
“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” H.L. Mencken, The Evening Sun, July…
Conservative Media Has Deliberately Destroyed Our Faith in Experts
“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” H.L. Mencken, The Evening Sun, July…
Thirteen Characteristics of Fascism
What defines fascism? I attempted to answer this by reviewing what scholars and texts on the subject (including Hannah Arendt, Umberto Eco, Jason Stanley, Lawrence Britt, Emilio Gentile, Roger Griffin, Robert Paxton, and the Encyclopedia Britannica) identified as the characteristics of fascism, and compiling a list. The following characteristics are the ones identified most often…
The US is Headed for Single Party Rule
“Tell me why you kept kicking him. You had already won.” “Knocking him down won the first fight. I wanted to win all the next ones too.” —Ender’s Game When former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich first called politics a “war for power” he spelled out the philosophy of the future of his…
LGBT Rights: Last Call in the Weimar Republic
James Kirchick’s recent article on “The Struggle For Gay Rights is Over” is fundamentally wrong on a number of levels, including his central premise that the battle for lesbian and gay rights has been won, and that they should move on and leave the transgender community behind. In truth, lesbian and gay rights are about…
The Origins of the Modern Republican Party
“It did not start with Donald Trump, he is the symptom not the cause.” Barack Obama September 7, 2018 As a naval aviator, one of the first things that they teach you is that catastrophic mishaps do not occur in a vacuum. There is almost always a long chain of human failures leading up to…
Runaway Wealth Inequality Is the Death of Democracy
“Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald During the 2016 Presidential campaign, Bernie Sanders ran on a platform of calling out economic inequality and student loan debt forgiveness. His target audience was primarily millennials, and it resonated well. A primary that was supposed…