Everyone’s so serious about everything. Sure, it’s hard to find things that bring smiles to our faces under the present circumstances, but it’s not impossible.
I hear you, David. A couple of comments in return:
1) I readily admit that you deserve better than this at this stage in your like, though I suppose that could be said about all of us who can perceive how completely malicious Trump and this administration is. Speaking for myself, soon to be 70, yes, I too am angry and stressed, but I feel most sorry for the young people who will live long lives in a country that, for decades to come, will be desperately trying to rebuild its democracy and fight its way back to some level of sanity and normalcy.
2) If that’s a recent picture of you at age 80, you look great.
To the reader who sent the meme at left, I respond as follows:
A few of those who voted for Trump have realized that they made a mistake, but there is certainly no avalanche. The president’s supporters still deeply revere the values we see in Project 2025, and that applies to both the MAGA lowbrows and the amoral rich: the dismantling of the federal government, the consolidation of power in the executive branch, unquestioned loyalty to Trump, the appointment of unqualified (though loyal) hacks to key cabinet positions, reprisals against those who supported prosecution of Trump for attempting to overthrow the U.S. government, the criminalization of abortion, white supremacy, environmental deregulation, the defunding of public education, and certainly the abolition of wokeism/DEI.
In terms of apathy, I have to agree that many Americans believe they are powerless to turn any of this around. For example, a huge portion of this country has turned off cable news in a desperate attempt to preserve its sanity.
What this Navy admiral says is true, but it goes straight over the head of the typical American voter, who is incapable of seeing that Trump is diminished, ill-informed, untruthful, etc.
In large measure, the United States got exactly what it wanted and deserved.
Sure, Trump is hostile to environmental health, but even we progressives don’t care too much about that right now.
That’s because the collapse of the environment is a slow process that’s happening over decades, and may, with luck, be avoided. But the death of the American experiment with democracy is imminent, and may be completed in the next few months or a couple of years.
By the time Trump finishes remaking the United States according to his thirst for absolute power, he’ll have very little public support; even the true MAGA idiots, for the most part, will have realized that they’ve been conned.
But by then it will mean essentially nothing that the support for the world’s newest dictator’s will be so badly eroded. As we look around the globe at the dozens upon dozens of autocracies, the support base of their leaders is totally irrelevant.
This quote from Volodymyr Zelensky reminds us that if we’re looking for heads of state who are actually decent human beings, go to out-of-the way places that are fairly inconsequential in terms of international politics and commerce, e.g., New Zealand, Iceland, and Scandinavia. If you’re trying to find some true monsters, on the other hand, look in the big places: Russia, China, or the United States.
According to what we’re reading, the town hall meetings where Republican congresspeople are coming face-to-face with their voters are filled with extreme levels of anger.
What a surprise. Rooms packed with working-class people who are watching their basic costs rise, the mass destruction of government services, and billionaires walking away with huge tax cuts.
It was precisely these circumstances that saw a great many people in late 18th Century France lose their heads–literally.
Europe hits back hard against MAGA oligarch Elon Musk for meddling in their politics as Tesla sales plummet dramatically in January by a staggering 45%.
And it gets even better… Musk has enraged many Europeans by supporting Donald Trump and aggressively throwing his support behind Germany’s far-right AFD party. Now, Europeans are responding with their wallets.
Only 9,945 Teslas were sold in Europe in January compared to 18,161 in January of last year while its market shared dropped from 1.8 to 1% — a sure sign that consumers are rejecting Musk’s flagship brand as his fascism grows more overt.
The truly shocking metric is that the drop in sales came even as Europeans bought 37% more battery-electric vehicles in January compared to last year. In other words, people want EVs, they just don’t want Teslas.
Of course, Elon Musk is rich enough that the loss of a few billion dollars in the value of his holding in Tesla is meaningless, but it’s still a good message for Trump supporters everywhere. If you’re a local MAGA businessperson, you’d be ill-advised to advertise your position as a hateful moron with flags, bumper stickers, etc.