Absolutely one of the best pieces of writing ever, Mary. You've captured my heartache, my anger, my resoluteness to (somehow) not give into the despair that all that I love about this country is gone forever. Thank you.
Dems definitely do have to offer an economy-based message that is simple and striking enough to penetrate the right-wing disinformation sphere. How about a new right to free lifelong job retraining. This concept is simple enough and exciting enoughcan fit on 100,000 billboards. It can penetrate the right-wing disinformation media bubble. See:
Great idea. I don't know if this particular thing will appeal enough but it's got to be something like that. Something concrete, less ephemeral, less cerebral. Although to be fair Kamala was offering concrete financial gains - didn't seem to matter, maybe because everyone knew she would have to have Congressional approval and that seemed unlikely.
Wow. So important yet simultaneously tone deaf to those in serious suffering drive through some towns: witness homeless mothers trying to even get their kids to school???
How does my idea prevent these issues from being addressed? If better job training helps boost the economy, there will be more money available to help the homeless. Doubtless some of these mothers could be helped by free job training.
That's what The Eagle's music is doing for me right now. They've helped keep me sane through all of this mess. Still struggling but my Substack community peeps help a whole lot too. ❤️🇺🇸💙
Was so disappointed to hear about Joe Scarborough and Mika today bending the knee at Mar-a-Lago. No more Morning Joe for me!! 😡
Thank you. Don, Glenn, Tim and Joe just speak to me these days through their magnificent music. I'd about donate a kidney to go see them Play Live. 😆 Not watching much news since the Election. Not ready for Trump 2.0 just quite yet.
I look for Donald to self destruct. He has been on that path with a vengeance all of his miserable life. The fallout from the death of MAGA will soon be trampled under the feet of the majority of Americans who want to make a decent living so they can live a decent life.
I worked at jobs for 46 years before 2013. I paid into Social Security and Medicare. I will not let someone who never worked a day in their life take those things from me. Reagan and Bush 2 already did take funds from Social Security and never paid it back.
The Republicans have made a horrible mess of everything long enough. And they plan to take over America and destroy the Democratic Party? The Republicans can only destroy themselves.
Well said, Darrell. My husband and I have worked since we were 16. We’ll be 65 in early 2025 and the thought that orange-y will mess with our benefits makes me livid and terrified. I can’t believe this is another four years of daily horror.
The R's will only have themselves to blame. They won't be able to hang the Democrats for all the s*it that's gonna hit the fan for the next two years. Midterms, here we come, lookout! Thank you for your comments.
Comforting comments but how to fix this injustice! Dems in power never made EC go away so puny little SD had as much say so as millions of voters in California. My tax dollars are sent to those people in states that don’t even know what a tariff is or trust their leaders to make excuses for law breakers. In an ideal world we could withhold those funds until they pass a literacy test or at least know how to spell the Constitution.
Let’s thank Mary Trump for her insight into her uncle Donald, the psychopath of today’s generation in politics. She will keep the insight coming about that man’s behavior as he pretends to be the president of the country.
I do not know why he hasn't died. His stress, his demeanor, his diet, his genetics, his Adderall use, the whole lot of it. All my norms are eroding on healthy lifestyle. For the love of god, he doesn't even drink.
Adderall is for adhd?.. Maybe that’s the weave. Nothing wrong with adhd if you learn about it.
Not only are these folks dangerous but are not qualified for these positions. TG.. she flys off and meets with leaders of countries on her own. M calling Putin on his own.
T meeting Putin without anyone present (interpreter, notes) and calling him while Biden is in office!
I have a longtime friend that worked 30 years for Dept of Defense (DOD) under Defense Investigative Service. She did the background investigations. If someone has as they said skeletons in the closet (news) they are compromised. Russia would be able to use them as in blackmail to share security info. I am being very general and only speaking as a citizen and voter. Does this bother anyone?.
One candidate should have been stopped at the gate. He’s not fit for the job. Never been allowed to run. 34 guilty verdicts (felon) and nearly 1,000,000 deaths from COVID.
If I hear one more time about his “intelligence” test.. that’s about what they do with a physical for an insurance application. Short, simple test.
Ok these appointments are to run gigantic agencies. 4 tonight are totally unqualified!
My time is up.
Thank you Mary!
Pls correct me !
Wasn’t it great to see the roaring fire. Telling of what’s to come.
Donald's test is for cognitive damage (eg from dementia or maybe TBI) not IQ.
I imagine it is designed so an otherwise normal person with notably low IQ can still score 100%.
His persistent use of this stupid lie for years tells us something about his victims.
1. They don't care that he lies about it.
2. Many are so clueless they don't recognize those items (eg identify elephant vs giraffe) as not about intelligence.
3. They are isolated. They never see the constant flow of rebuttals.
We have failed to reach MAGAs where they live. Whereas they get into our threads, on low-effort burner accounts that are recycled frequently to foil blocking.
Adderall is not to be snorted and on you tube there are psychiatrists who have evaluated him and his movements and suspect just that. After Dr. Bandy Lee published "The Dangerous Case of Donald J. Trump" 1300 of the top psychiatrists agreed with their diagnosis of malignant narcissist in a petition. You tube is filled with psychiatrists who warn how dangerous this man is and look where we are. I I cannot help it=I'm beyond disgusted especially since Mr. Bone Spurs wants to court martial generals who fought for their country. yet he was too chicken shit. Fought to protect assholes like him.
This is way more than DT. It is our country investing in and celebrating patriarchy, one up one down, ego v eco consciousness. Raping and pillaging. We need a culture shift, a balancing of the masculine and feminine and a ridding ourselves all together of the hyper masculine…..
Notice that uncle Donald has not heretofore gone after his niece because of her "free speech" with an honest opinion. She hasn't lied about anything. She knows him well.
There is no "defamation" here, just the facts and evidence. The man clearly has psychological problems with paranoia.
I've just received a direct message from a substack account impersonating Mary. It was somebody trying to sell Bitcoin.
This impersonator setup an account maryltrump01, and used Mary's avatar.
Mary's true account is maryltrump
The impersonator has also followed me three days earlier
Do not engage with the impersonator and report them to substack. They will try recommend a website for you to goto for more information. The website will install malware on your computing device to monitor and report keystrokes used to sign onto other applications. It also may tag the device to ascertain its geographic locations in the future.
I have sent an email to Mary trump with screen prints of the exchange.
AND, above all else, do NOT share anything with them about yourself. If they ask for something, simply ask why do you want to know, or give false information that does not exist.
The founding fathers of our Constitution built safeguards into it to create checks and balances among our 3 branches of government to avoid abuses by any one branch. One of the most important safeguards against Presidential abuse is the responsibility of the Senate to approve major government appointments by the President.
For Trump to exploit a legal loophole by waiting for the Senate to go on recess so that he can then appoint the most powerful government officials in the land for 2 years without the scrutiny and consent of the Senate would be an abuse of his power.
Given the recent Supreme Court decisions greatly expanding the President's immunity from prosecution for crimes and illegal acts while acting as President, and given the Trump team's declaration that they intend to dispense with the standard criminal and other background checks on prospective appointees, our Country will be edging that much closer to a dictatorship.
The Oxford American Dictionary defines a "dictator" as 1. "a ruler with total power over a country" and 2. "a person who behaves in an autocratic way."
Main problem I see is that Trumpet isn't "waiting for the Senate to go on recess," he is ORDERING the Senate to go on recess for his purposes. And he's not even in office yet!
And Elmo is speaking with foreign leaders as if he is president himself. That bothers me greatly. Two sociopaths at the top. Does anyone know where Jiggly Dongle is?
The Logan Act is ancient but has never been used to prosecute. If it ever were, Trump would be the worst person to try to prosecute. And this SCOTUS & appellate level would be the worst to judge him.
Even if Trump & Elon & others were to be found guilty under Logan Act, it would come far too late. I think the penalty is insignificant too.
For non-Twitter users, we use EImo to refer to EIon in hope of avoiding the attention of his censorbots. I guess there are still a few of the thousands of mods left, and they will be tasked to punish EImo's denigrators. He can be impulsively vindictive.
Note EImo is spelt with a capital i not a lower case L, in a likely futile hope of avoiding the bots.
I've been active on Twitter since 2026 I think, & collected 5k followers without losing my account to coordinated reporting attacks etc. I read the rules carefully, never swear without ***, & try to avoid the easy reportable slurs relating to disabilities that can get pinged.
So many good people have lost their accounts.
EImo is sneaky too, many popular lib accts get subtly degraded - deprioritized in timelines & search without being blocked. I think I'm on a shitlist, I might pay for a month & see if that resets it.
Individual reps need to know their voters are upset about this and will punish them. That is their bottom line - bribes are nice but bribes stop if they lose their voters. Emails & calls matter.
He did the same in his prior administration - temporary "acting" appointees, who were often the result of a cabinet member resigning or being fired. He learned to make things work in his favor, getting more loyal-to-him people in important positions.
He's already been impeached, Paula. He's also been shot at .......... remember? I'm pulling for an arrest for some criminal offense in the near future that he can't talk his way out of.
The Constitution was/is a Gentleman's Agreement written, and accepted by White Property Owning Men... Women, African American, and Indigenous People could not Vote... DJT would have been Tar'd, Feathered, and Driven out of Town... At the very least killed in a Duel... Alas, this old Document is being Stomped-On, and Shredded by DJT & his Minions... DJT, who is not a Gentleman, will try Us All...
I guess we don't have a choice. We so underestimated the national stupidity and blindness and above all the number of women voting against their own interests.
So many of them were brainwashed by the propaganda machine built by Musk's, Thiel's and other million-and billionaire's money. It was an intense and well played effort to spread propaganda into neighborhoods, at state fairs, and at trump's rallies. Yes, stupidity and blindness, but that is how propaganda takes hold. They know who to target. This is called fascism.
I don’t think this is accurate. It’s more like 53% but let’s wait for the final analysis. It was way overstated last time he was elected as well. But us white ladies absolutely could shift this country if we cleared out our codependent fear and fired up our inherent worthiness and power….
I'm struck by the silence of Joe Biden. Our world is being destroyed yet Biden says nothing, does nothing, recommends nothing, suggests nothing. Has he been struck dumb? Isn't he supposed to present some ideas and laws to protect our country? He's acting as if this is just an election he happened to lose. Enough with the gentlemanly facade. Start fighting back for God's sake Joe.
We live on two levels. The daily things we do that still bring us great meaning, while forming and building in our minds and hearts the best paths forward.
Thanks for a timely post that articulates the inconstant, swirling conditions in my heart and mind since election day. Trying to stay in the moment while maintaining awareness of the past, clueless about how to prepare for an uncertain but dire future...wanting to be of service to my friends who are struggling just like I am -- but fumbling to be of service to myself. I remind myself: these are hard, confusing times but be grateful when I can because there's a good chance harder, more confusing times lie ahead.
The opportunity costs have been enormous. The serious problems that need to be addressed are sidelined. Career civil service employees that understand the nuances and have institutional memory and expertise of each agency will be purged. That loss is incalculable. America chose a bunch of rich, white chaos agent frat bros over hope and optimism for our collective future. And America knew what she was buying this time. I’m shattered.
I am truly mystified that there has been no conversation, no articles, no movement to remove this man from the public scene. Surely there are enough intelligent people in the legal profession to figure out some way to bring this man to justice and remove him from public life. The only way to describe the situation that this country faces is that this man is unacceptable.
How can they? He won an election. He is the duly elected President. No way are any of them going to do anything - they didn't when they could. "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing". Seems pretty a propos
If any other election were held anywhere else in this country—mayor, governor board of trustees, whatever—even when duly elected and discovered to be a fraud and a con artist, a liar and a cheat, the mayor or someone could do something to get rid of him. Even when duly elected, there must be ways of eliminating terrible people even in the case of winning the popular vote.
Frances, you know you are kidding, because if you were, God forbid, to do what you josh about, wouldn't you be putting yourself precisely on their level. Our resistance is a resistance of love. And the most loving thing to do is for somebody in Congress with courage and integrity to come to the microphone and demand that Trump renounce his win. Impossible? Greater things have occurred, and we are only demanding the loving thing to do...for everybody., even DJT, ,though he is unlikely to recognize it as love. Because it is UNACCEPTABLE that he be POTUS. Unacceptable.!
IIRC POTUS can be impeached by 51% House vote, and ejected by 60% vote of both chambers. Not sure if those numbers are right but anyway GOP decided to treat it as a pure numbers game so T survived two impeachments.
I was horrified that GOP didn't take the chance to boot him out. Poison pill Pence would have been OK. I'm sure McConnell regrets not making a stand then.
Or maybe he did and lost - votes are usually settled behind the scenes.
The parallels are frightening. And if the expelling of immigrants actually takes place, this will be another Pearl Harbor, though this time it will not be a surprise attack and it will result in far more fatalities.
Stephen, we've had worse people in office than Trump, and still America has survived. Would you rather have Nixon back? What about those millions of people who voted for Trump? What are they seeing that we're not? We can't make them all bad or clueless. We need to move on and prepare for the next election. It's so strange to me that Trump has faced off against two Dem women and won. He's never had to beat a man.
Sophie, I lived through the Nixon years. I was at Seattle University and watched the first Kennedy Nixon debate on a fuzzy black and white television in the nurses quarters at Providence Hospital in Seattle where I was living while attending Seattle U. What a night that was for an Irish Catholic young woman whose people were the working class and despised because of their religious beliefs by the Elites in America.
But I digress. About your point about Nixons badness compared to Trump. Nixon was a minor criminal compared to Trump. There's no comparison. If I'm not mistaken Nixon wanted to pass universal health care. He ended the draft; founded the Environmental Protection Agency in '74; Approved $100 million dollars for the war on cancer, that was huge in the 70's; signed Title IX preventing gender bias in sports at Universities; lowered voting age from 21 to 18; first Pres to visit China, a huge accomplishment then.
Never thought I'd see the day when I'd be supporting Richard Nixon!
Compare these and many more good things done for average Americans by Nixon to the orange ones disregard for any except the elite and himself.
Surveys of US presidential historians have consistently voted Trump near or at the bottom of president rankings. This year a poll of explicitly Republican historians put him in the bottom five.
I wrote a long high school essay on Nixon's Watergate. It was nothing compared to many of Trump's individual antics eg his extortion of Ukraine.
Thanks for this one. You speak for a very large number of people.
It's a shock to most of us to be disillusioned - at the hatefulness and venality of so many of our fellow Americans, at the failure of all the customs and norms and traditions we've believed are the checks and balances that keep this kind of thing from happening.
But if being disillusioned is harsh, it's still better than being illusioned. It's not realistic to think life is fair or that there's always a moral to the story, a comeuppance for the villains, and a happy ending. That's the movies, not the real world.
I'm thinking of this as being akin to receiving a grim but not hopeless medical diagnosis. I'm remembering when my wife was diagnosed with breast and lymphatic cancer and found that she has the BRCA gene that makes her prone to certain types of cancer. The result was three drastic surgeries and 15 months of brutal chemo.
But she got through by accepting the situation but treating it as a starting point, by being determined to get through it, and by doing everything she could to improve her chances and her situation, with the help and support of her support system (me and selected friends and relatives.) That was almost exactly 13 years ago. After she finished chemo, she went to work rebuilding her strength and endurance, both physical and psychological. Since then she has worked at doing what she can to minimize the chances of it coming back, without obsessing about it. I think that now, with us in our sixties, she's stronger and healthier than she was before the cancer.
We've learned in a very hard way that we have a national cancer, severe but not terminal if we do what we need to do. We need to lean on each other, work toward recovery, and remember that although this, too, shall pass, we aren't guaranteed of a timeline for that or of a way we'll be when we're past it. Life is painful sometimes. But we don't have to react passively. We have to take care of ourselves and work on alleviating the cause of the pain.
We are all holding back the night. We have no other choice.
His Heinous and his stormtroopers wants to see how many fucks we give. We self-silence all the time, which is dangerous for democracy. See this recent research on how this affects us here: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/12/121219133334.htm
Regular people like all of us who love you are still in shock. I confess to having been pretty much in fetal position until today, but beginning to unfurl with YOU. I will definitely screw my courage to the sticking place once I have enough mental health muscle. For now, donating to ACLU and Planned Parenthood, etc. as possible.
Also noticing that this horror is forcing us to take less for granted and bring us closer together.
Thank you, dear Mary. You feel like a good friend. Come to dinner if you are ever up here in Vermont.
Your mention of David Kurtz reminded me of another Kurtz- in Apocolypse Now- Dennis Hopper descrbing Kurtz: "his mind is clear, but his soul is mad." Rather a propos.
Absolutely one of the best pieces of writing ever, Mary. You've captured my heartache, my anger, my resoluteness to (somehow) not give into the despair that all that I love about this country is gone forever. Thank you.
Beautifully said. By you and Mary both. I concur. With both of you.
❤️🇺🇸💙
Another song to inspire: "A Hole in the World Tonight." - The Eagles
https://youtu.be/9-NWi0LPo1w?si=i_FCHk-I7p23vsPk
Dems definitely do have to offer an economy-based message that is simple and striking enough to penetrate the right-wing disinformation sphere. How about a new right to free lifelong job retraining. This concept is simple enough and exciting enoughcan fit on 100,000 billboards. It can penetrate the right-wing disinformation media bubble. See:
Dems can win by selling ONE BIG Idea
Lifelong job training for all American citizens
https://kathleenweber.substack.com/p/dems-can-win-by-selling-one-big-idea
reply
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Great idea. I don't know if this particular thing will appeal enough but it's got to be something like that. Something concrete, less ephemeral, less cerebral. Although to be fair Kamala was offering concrete financial gains - didn't seem to matter, maybe because everyone knew she would have to have Congressional approval and that seemed unlikely.
So will the despot then, but that didn't seem to occur to them. They need a "Hero" to save them who is more appealing than the despot.
Dems talked a LOT about the economy and their plans. What was trump’s plan? Tax cuts for the wealthy. That’s it. Until
We can break through the right-wing echo chamber, it doesn’t matter.
Wow. So important yet simultaneously tone deaf to those in serious suffering drive through some towns: witness homeless mothers trying to even get their kids to school???
How does my idea prevent these issues from being addressed? If better job training helps boost the economy, there will be more money available to help the homeless. Doubtless some of these mothers could be helped by free job training.
I grew up with the beach boys, late 60s-80s rock.
I still play internet YouTube and always loved that era.
But the Eagles and a few others have scanned the chasm as few have.
The Eagles have managed to stay relevant through it all.
"Hole..." is an excellent and timely choice for Now.
Good choice Lisa !!!👍🌞
Tom the Cat 😺
There are many more multi decade groups too; stones, acdc, Aerosmith, bon Jovi...I could go on...
But still, anything prior to punk, grunge, etc. is classic to me.
Modern country rock is fine too. Bye
Thank you. ❤️😘🎶
As do I.
That's what The Eagle's music is doing for me right now. They've helped keep me sane through all of this mess. Still struggling but my Substack community peeps help a whole lot too. ❤️🇺🇸💙
Was so disappointed to hear about Joe Scarborough and Mika today bending the knee at Mar-a-Lago. No more Morning Joe for me!! 😡
Thank you. Don, Glenn, Tim and Joe just speak to me these days through their magnificent music. I'd about donate a kidney to go see them Play Live. 😆 Not watching much news since the Election. Not ready for Trump 2.0 just quite yet.
I look for Donald to self destruct. He has been on that path with a vengeance all of his miserable life. The fallout from the death of MAGA will soon be trampled under the feet of the majority of Americans who want to make a decent living so they can live a decent life.
I worked at jobs for 46 years before 2013. I paid into Social Security and Medicare. I will not let someone who never worked a day in their life take those things from me. Reagan and Bush 2 already did take funds from Social Security and never paid it back.
The Republicans have made a horrible mess of everything long enough. And they plan to take over America and destroy the Democratic Party? The Republicans can only destroy themselves.
Well said, Darrell. My husband and I have worked since we were 16. We’ll be 65 in early 2025 and the thought that orange-y will mess with our benefits makes me livid and terrified. I can’t believe this is another four years of daily horror.
I HOPE they only destroy that Party of Evil!
Why Do We Have Duopoly Winner Take-All Political System? We need more Viable Political Choices...
The R's will only have themselves to blame. They won't be able to hang the Democrats for all the s*it that's gonna hit the fan for the next two years. Midterms, here we come, lookout! Thank you for your comments.
Comforting comments but how to fix this injustice! Dems in power never made EC go away so puny little SD had as much say so as millions of voters in California. My tax dollars are sent to those people in states that don’t even know what a tariff is or trust their leaders to make excuses for law breakers. In an ideal world we could withhold those funds until they pass a literacy test or at least know how to spell the Constitution.
It cannot happen soon enough as far as I am concerned.
Let’s thank Mary Trump for her insight into her uncle Donald, the psychopath of today’s generation in politics. She will keep the insight coming about that man’s behavior as he pretends to be the president of the country.
I do not know why he hasn't died. His stress, his demeanor, his diet, his genetics, his Adderall use, the whole lot of it. All my norms are eroding on healthy lifestyle. For the love of god, he doesn't even drink.
Adderall is for adhd?.. Maybe that’s the weave. Nothing wrong with adhd if you learn about it.
Not only are these folks dangerous but are not qualified for these positions. TG.. she flys off and meets with leaders of countries on her own. M calling Putin on his own.
T meeting Putin without anyone present (interpreter, notes) and calling him while Biden is in office!
I have a longtime friend that worked 30 years for Dept of Defense (DOD) under Defense Investigative Service. She did the background investigations. If someone has as they said skeletons in the closet (news) they are compromised. Russia would be able to use them as in blackmail to share security info. I am being very general and only speaking as a citizen and voter. Does this bother anyone?.
One candidate should have been stopped at the gate. He’s not fit for the job. Never been allowed to run. 34 guilty verdicts (felon) and nearly 1,000,000 deaths from COVID.
If I hear one more time about his “intelligence” test.. that’s about what they do with a physical for an insurance application. Short, simple test.
Ok these appointments are to run gigantic agencies. 4 tonight are totally unqualified!
My time is up.
Thank you Mary!
Pls correct me !
Wasn’t it great to see the roaring fire. Telling of what’s to come.
It was so uncomfortable!
Donald's test is for cognitive damage (eg from dementia or maybe TBI) not IQ.
I imagine it is designed so an otherwise normal person with notably low IQ can still score 100%.
His persistent use of this stupid lie for years tells us something about his victims.
1. They don't care that he lies about it.
2. Many are so clueless they don't recognize those items (eg identify elephant vs giraffe) as not about intelligence.
3. They are isolated. They never see the constant flow of rebuttals.
We have failed to reach MAGAs where they live. Whereas they get into our threads, on low-effort burner accounts that are recycled frequently to foil blocking.
Adderall is not to be snorted and on you tube there are psychiatrists who have evaluated him and his movements and suspect just that. After Dr. Bandy Lee published "The Dangerous Case of Donald J. Trump" 1300 of the top psychiatrists agreed with their diagnosis of malignant narcissist in a petition. You tube is filled with psychiatrists who warn how dangerous this man is and look where we are. I I cannot help it=I'm beyond disgusted especially since Mr. Bone Spurs wants to court martial generals who fought for their country. yet he was too chicken shit. Fought to protect assholes like him.
His problem is not any of the vices. It's his brain!
This is way more than DT. It is our country investing in and celebrating patriarchy, one up one down, ego v eco consciousness. Raping and pillaging. We need a culture shift, a balancing of the masculine and feminine and a ridding ourselves all together of the hyper masculine…..
Yes! It is much much more than DT. Thank you for pointing this out Susan.
Thank you. So glad you linked me to your S.
Look forward to reading your work!
Unless Mary is on Donald’s hit list.
Notice that uncle Donald has not heretofore gone after his niece because of her "free speech" with an honest opinion. She hasn't lied about anything. She knows him well.
There is no "defamation" here, just the facts and evidence. The man clearly has psychological problems with paranoia.
I've just received a direct message from a substack account impersonating Mary. It was somebody trying to sell Bitcoin.
This impersonator setup an account maryltrump01, and used Mary's avatar.
Mary's true account is maryltrump
The impersonator has also followed me three days earlier
Do not engage with the impersonator and report them to substack. They will try recommend a website for you to goto for more information. The website will install malware on your computing device to monitor and report keystrokes used to sign onto other applications. It also may tag the device to ascertain its geographic locations in the future.
I have sent an email to Mary trump with screen prints of the exchange.
AND, above all else, do NOT share anything with them about yourself. If they ask for something, simply ask why do you want to know, or give false information that does not exist.
Thanks, Andy.
I received the sane message through a text. Be diligent.
I will bet you dollars to donuts the person who did that is a Trumper.
I’m with ya, June.
Another reason why I stay away from social media and accept no messages for dialogue on substack. Something to think about.
Let me just say…I have NOTHING against substack. I am against social media such as FB, Insta, and that piece of shit app X.
Thank you. I got a text this morning. It seems the follower is setting us up.
Even though i walk through the valley of the shadow of death….
Amen🙏
The founding fathers of our Constitution built safeguards into it to create checks and balances among our 3 branches of government to avoid abuses by any one branch. One of the most important safeguards against Presidential abuse is the responsibility of the Senate to approve major government appointments by the President.
For Trump to exploit a legal loophole by waiting for the Senate to go on recess so that he can then appoint the most powerful government officials in the land for 2 years without the scrutiny and consent of the Senate would be an abuse of his power.
Given the recent Supreme Court decisions greatly expanding the President's immunity from prosecution for crimes and illegal acts while acting as President, and given the Trump team's declaration that they intend to dispense with the standard criminal and other background checks on prospective appointees, our Country will be edging that much closer to a dictatorship.
The Oxford American Dictionary defines a "dictator" as 1. "a ruler with total power over a country" and 2. "a person who behaves in an autocratic way."
Main problem I see is that Trumpet isn't "waiting for the Senate to go on recess," he is ORDERING the Senate to go on recess for his purposes. And he's not even in office yet!
And Elmo is speaking with foreign leaders as if he is president himself. That bothers me greatly. Two sociopaths at the top. Does anyone know where Jiggly Dongle is?
He's violating the Logan Act, just like Trump has been doing. Garland doesn't seem to care.
when it came to Trump, Garland and Biden are SO SO SO to blame. They both did nothing, and I certainly don't expect them to do anything now.
The Logan Act is ancient but has never been used to prosecute. If it ever were, Trump would be the worst person to try to prosecute. And this SCOTUS & appellate level would be the worst to judge him.
Even if Trump & Elon & others were to be found guilty under Logan Act, it would come far too late. I think the penalty is insignificant too.
Elmo?? Or did you maybe mean Elon, as in Musk? And if so, yes, worries me too.
Yes. Musk considers himself to be co-President, given that he practically bought Trump.
Elmo is a GREAT name for musky!
For non-Twitter users, we use EImo to refer to EIon in hope of avoiding the attention of his censorbots. I guess there are still a few of the thousands of mods left, and they will be tasked to punish EImo's denigrators. He can be impulsively vindictive.
Note EImo is spelt with a capital i not a lower case L, in a likely futile hope of avoiding the bots.
BWAHAHAHA!
I've been active on Twitter since 2026 I think, & collected 5k followers without losing my account to coordinated reporting attacks etc. I read the rules carefully, never swear without ***, & try to avoid the easy reportable slurs relating to disabilities that can get pinged.
So many good people have lost their accounts.
EImo is sneaky too, many popular lib accts get subtly degraded - deprioritized in timelines & search without being blocked. I think I'm on a shitlist, I might pay for a month & see if that resets it.
And both Senate and House are Red and are complying. No Separation of Powers.
Yes, apparently there is a hidden clause. I am in deep fear, that they will use it to call a recess
The Senate has to decide they take their oaths seriously and are committed to our constitution and America itself.
We are waiting to see that.
But it takes more than waiting.
We must demand they do so.
Do you think they'll respond to our calls? You don't get it. We don't matter. We have lost democracy.
That’s giving up.
I don’t give up.
Absolutely.
Individual reps need to know their voters are upset about this and will punish them. That is their bottom line - bribes are nice but bribes stop if they lose their voters. Emails & calls matter.
He did the same in his prior administration - temporary "acting" appointees, who were often the result of a cabinet member resigning or being fired. He learned to make things work in his favor, getting more loyal-to-him people in important positions.
Sounds like an impeachable offense to me. Unfortunately this Congress won't do anything about it.
He's already been impeached, Paula. He's also been shot at .......... remember? I'm pulling for an arrest for some criminal offense in the near future that he can't talk his way out of.
I’m convinced those attempts were orchestrated.
Treason isn't a big enough one then?
AFAIK treason only applies to countries the US is at war with. There aren't any right now but California may be the first.
The Constitution means nothing to dipshit. He’ll circumvent it at will. Checks and balances? Ha! Separation of church and state? Non-existent.
SCOTUS has been very bendy lately but they do not blindly rubber stamp Donald's wishes. They do say No.
The Constitution was/is a Gentleman's Agreement written, and accepted by White Property Owning Men... Women, African American, and Indigenous People could not Vote... DJT would have been Tar'd, Feathered, and Driven out of Town... At the very least killed in a Duel... Alas, this old Document is being Stomped-On, and Shredded by DJT & his Minions... DJT, who is not a Gentleman, will try Us All...
It's the loss that pains me the most. Dust ourselves off and start with small things or baby steps to move forward.
I guess we don't have a choice. We so underestimated the national stupidity and blindness and above all the number of women voting against their own interests.
So many of them were brainwashed by the propaganda machine built by Musk's, Thiel's and other million-and billionaire's money. It was an intense and well played effort to spread propaganda into neighborhoods, at state fairs, and at trump's rallies. Yes, stupidity and blindness, but that is how propaganda takes hold. They know who to target. This is called fascism.
FAFO.
Yes, 56% of white women voted for Trump.
I don’t think this is accurate. It’s more like 53% but let’s wait for the final analysis. It was way overstated last time he was elected as well. But us white ladies absolutely could shift this country if we cleared out our codependent fear and fired up our inherent worthiness and power….
I'd bet that many were forced to vote for him by their husbands.
I'm struck by the silence of Joe Biden. Our world is being destroyed yet Biden says nothing, does nothing, recommends nothing, suggests nothing. Has he been struck dumb? Isn't he supposed to present some ideas and laws to protect our country? He's acting as if this is just an election he happened to lose. Enough with the gentlemanly facade. Start fighting back for God's sake Joe.
We can reclaim that part of our brain that was and is injured by the last 9 years but not all of it. Some memories never go away.
Yep. You got it👍
We live on two levels. The daily things we do that still bring us great meaning, while forming and building in our minds and hearts the best paths forward.
Thanks for a timely post that articulates the inconstant, swirling conditions in my heart and mind since election day. Trying to stay in the moment while maintaining awareness of the past, clueless about how to prepare for an uncertain but dire future...wanting to be of service to my friends who are struggling just like I am -- but fumbling to be of service to myself. I remind myself: these are hard, confusing times but be grateful when I can because there's a good chance harder, more confusing times lie ahead.
The opportunity costs have been enormous. The serious problems that need to be addressed are sidelined. Career civil service employees that understand the nuances and have institutional memory and expertise of each agency will be purged. That loss is incalculable. America chose a bunch of rich, white chaos agent frat bros over hope and optimism for our collective future. And America knew what she was buying this time. I’m shattered.
Mary, I cannot imagine how it must feel to think about a relative who is like this. Your strength is inspiring.
I am truly mystified that there has been no conversation, no articles, no movement to remove this man from the public scene. Surely there are enough intelligent people in the legal profession to figure out some way to bring this man to justice and remove him from public life. The only way to describe the situation that this country faces is that this man is unacceptable.
How can they? He won an election. He is the duly elected President. No way are any of them going to do anything - they didn't when they could. "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing". Seems pretty a propos
If any other election were held anywhere else in this country—mayor, governor board of trustees, whatever—even when duly elected and discovered to be a fraud and a con artist, a liar and a cheat, the mayor or someone could do something to get rid of him. Even when duly elected, there must be ways of eliminating terrible people even in the case of winning the popular vote.
I am 86 years of age and I CAN THINK OF A WAY TO GET RID OF HIM! Hey, I never said a LEGAL way.....
I suspect many people are thinking in the same vein. But that's not our way...
If wishes were horses.....sigh.
Frances, you know you are kidding, because if you were, God forbid, to do what you josh about, wouldn't you be putting yourself precisely on their level. Our resistance is a resistance of love. And the most loving thing to do is for somebody in Congress with courage and integrity to come to the microphone and demand that Trump renounce his win. Impossible? Greater things have occurred, and we are only demanding the loving thing to do...for everybody., even DJT, ,though he is unlikely to recognize it as love. Because it is UNACCEPTABLE that he be POTUS. Unacceptable.!
IIRC POTUS can be impeached by 51% House vote, and ejected by 60% vote of both chambers. Not sure if those numbers are right but anyway GOP decided to treat it as a pure numbers game so T survived two impeachments.
I was horrified that GOP didn't take the chance to boot him out. Poison pill Pence would have been OK. I'm sure McConnell regrets not making a stand then.
Or maybe he did and lost - votes are usually settled behind the scenes.
My point exactly. "They didn't when they could." I suspect they are in agreement with what's happening.
Doesn't it seem strange how quiet everyone who could exert influence to save our country are? Doesn't it remind you of 1930s Germany?
The parallels are frightening. And if the expelling of immigrants actually takes place, this will be another Pearl Harbor, though this time it will not be a surprise attack and it will result in far more fatalities.
Stephen, we've had worse people in office than Trump, and still America has survived. Would you rather have Nixon back? What about those millions of people who voted for Trump? What are they seeing that we're not? We can't make them all bad or clueless. We need to move on and prepare for the next election. It's so strange to me that Trump has faced off against two Dem women and won. He's never had to beat a man.
Sophie, I lived through the Nixon years. I was at Seattle University and watched the first Kennedy Nixon debate on a fuzzy black and white television in the nurses quarters at Providence Hospital in Seattle where I was living while attending Seattle U. What a night that was for an Irish Catholic young woman whose people were the working class and despised because of their religious beliefs by the Elites in America.
But I digress. About your point about Nixons badness compared to Trump. Nixon was a minor criminal compared to Trump. There's no comparison. If I'm not mistaken Nixon wanted to pass universal health care. He ended the draft; founded the Environmental Protection Agency in '74; Approved $100 million dollars for the war on cancer, that was huge in the 70's; signed Title IX preventing gender bias in sports at Universities; lowered voting age from 21 to 18; first Pres to visit China, a huge accomplishment then.
Never thought I'd see the day when I'd be supporting Richard Nixon!
Compare these and many more good things done for average Americans by Nixon to the orange ones disregard for any except the elite and himself.
Nixon was Mother Teresa compared to this subhuman rapist.
Beautifully put. Today we are witnessing an idiotic coup d’état in plain sight as the ignorant victims cheer.
Surveys of US presidential historians have consistently voted Trump near or at the bottom of president rankings. This year a poll of explicitly Republican historians put him in the bottom five.
I wrote a long high school essay on Nixon's Watergate. It was nothing compared to many of Trump's individual antics eg his extortion of Ukraine.
I will take Nixon over the subhuman any day! Nixon at least, knew the Constitution and created the EPA. Oh how the standards have plummeted!
Thanks for this one. You speak for a very large number of people.
It's a shock to most of us to be disillusioned - at the hatefulness and venality of so many of our fellow Americans, at the failure of all the customs and norms and traditions we've believed are the checks and balances that keep this kind of thing from happening.
But if being disillusioned is harsh, it's still better than being illusioned. It's not realistic to think life is fair or that there's always a moral to the story, a comeuppance for the villains, and a happy ending. That's the movies, not the real world.
I'm thinking of this as being akin to receiving a grim but not hopeless medical diagnosis. I'm remembering when my wife was diagnosed with breast and lymphatic cancer and found that she has the BRCA gene that makes her prone to certain types of cancer. The result was three drastic surgeries and 15 months of brutal chemo.
But she got through by accepting the situation but treating it as a starting point, by being determined to get through it, and by doing everything she could to improve her chances and her situation, with the help and support of her support system (me and selected friends and relatives.) That was almost exactly 13 years ago. After she finished chemo, she went to work rebuilding her strength and endurance, both physical and psychological. Since then she has worked at doing what she can to minimize the chances of it coming back, without obsessing about it. I think that now, with us in our sixties, she's stronger and healthier than she was before the cancer.
We've learned in a very hard way that we have a national cancer, severe but not terminal if we do what we need to do. We need to lean on each other, work toward recovery, and remember that although this, too, shall pass, we aren't guaranteed of a timeline for that or of a way we'll be when we're past it. Life is painful sometimes. But we don't have to react passively. We have to take care of ourselves and work on alleviating the cause of the pain.
Beautiful comments, Jim.
Jim, thanks for your uplifting message. So happy for you and your wife that she's doing well.
Dear Mary, thanks for the song.
We are all holding back the night. We have no other choice.
His Heinous and his stormtroopers wants to see how many fucks we give. We self-silence all the time, which is dangerous for democracy. See this recent research on how this affects us here: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/12/121219133334.htm
Regular people like all of us who love you are still in shock. I confess to having been pretty much in fetal position until today, but beginning to unfurl with YOU. I will definitely screw my courage to the sticking place once I have enough mental health muscle. For now, donating to ACLU and Planned Parenthood, etc. as possible.
Also noticing that this horror is forcing us to take less for granted and bring us closer together.
Thank you, dear Mary. You feel like a good friend. Come to dinner if you are ever up here in Vermont.
Your mention of David Kurtz reminded me of another Kurtz- in Apocolypse Now- Dennis Hopper descrbing Kurtz: "his mind is clear, but his soul is mad." Rather a propos.
I feel a certainty of doom.
We need a Churchill.
I think Biden was our Churchill. Different war. For the first time in history the media allowed and supported a shadow president in trump