Book Face (political posts)

[canpakes]

.
A Facebook post from Lori Gallagher Witt, in 2018:

I'm a liberal, but that doesn't mean what a lot of you apparently think it does. Let's break it down, shall we? Because quite frankly, I'm getting a little tired of being told what I believe and what I stand for. Spoiler alert: not every liberal is the same, though the majority of liberals I know think along roughly these same lines:

1. I believe a country should take care of its weakest members. A country cannot call itself civilized when its children, disabled, sick, and elderly are neglected. PERIOD.

2. I believe healthcare is a right, not a privilege. Somehow that's interpreted as "I believe Obamacare is the end-all, be-all." This is not the case. I'm fully aware that the ACA has problems, that a national healthcare system would require everyone to chip in, and that it's impossible to create one that is devoid of flaws, but I have yet to hear an argument against it that makes "let people die because they can't afford healthcare" a better alternative. I believe healthcare should be far cheaper than it is, and that everyone should have access to it. And no, I'm not opposed to paying higher taxes in the name of making that happen.

3. I believe education should be affordable. It doesn't necessarily have to be free (though it works in other countries so I'm mystified as to why it can't work in the US), but at the end of the day, there is no excuse for students graduating college saddled with five- or six-figure debt.

4. I don't believe your money should be taken from you and given to people who don't want to work. I have literally never encountered anyone who believes this. Ever. I just have a massive moral problem with a society where a handful of people can possess the majority of the wealth while there are people literally starving to death, freezing to death, or dying because they can't afford to go to the doctor. Fair wages, lower housing costs, universal healthcare, affordable education, and the wealthy actually paying their share would go a long way toward alleviating this. Somehow believing that makes me a communist.

5. I don't throw around "I'm willing to pay higher taxes" lightly. If I'm suggesting something that involves paying more, well, it's because I'm fine with paying my share as long as it's actually going to something besides lining corporate pockets or bombing other countries while Americans die without healthcare.

6. I believe companies should be required to pay their employees a decent, livable wage. Somehow this is always interpreted as me wanting burger flippers to be able to afford a penthouse apartment and a Mercedes. What it actually means is that no one should have to work three full-time jobs just to keep their head above water. Restaurant servers should not have to rely on tips, multibillion-dollar companies should not have employees on food stamps, workers shouldn't have to work themselves into the ground just to barely make ends meet, and minimum wage should be enough for someone to work 40 hours and live.

7. I am not anti-Christian. I have no desire to stop Christians from being Christians, to close churches, to ban the Bible, to forbid prayer in school, etc. (by the way, prayer in school is NOT illegal; *compulsory* prayer in school is - and should be - illegal). All I ask is that Christians recognize *my* right to live according to *my* beliefs. When I get pissed off that a politician is trying to legislate Scripture into law, I'm not "offended by Christianity" -- I'm offended that you're trying to force me to live by your religion's rules. You know how you get really upset at the thought of Muslims imposing Sharia law on you? That's how I feel about Christians trying to impose biblical law on me. Be a Christian. Do your thing. Just don't force it on me or mine.

8. I don't believe LGBT people should have more rights than you. I just believe they should have the *same* rights as you.

9. I don't believe illegal immigrants should come to America and have the world at their feet, especially since THIS ISN'T WHAT THEY DO (spoiler: undocumented immigrants are ineligible for all those programs they're supposed to be abusing, and if they're "stealing" your job it's because your employer is hiring illegally). I believe there are far more humane ways to handle undocumented immigration than our current practices (i.e., detaining children, splitting up families, ending DACA, etc).

10. I don't believe the government should regulate everything, but since greed is such a driving force in our country, we NEED regulations to prevent cut corners, environmental destruction, tainted food/water, unsafe materials in consumable goods or medical equipment, etc. It's not that I want the government's hands in everything -- I just don't trust people trying to make money to ensure that their products/practices/etc. are actually SAFE. Is the government devoid of shadiness? Of course not. But with those regulations in place, consumers have recourse if they're harmed and companies are liable for medical bills, environmental cleanup, etc. Just kind of seems like common sense when the alternative to government regulation is letting companies bring their bottom line into the equation.

11. I believe our current administration is fascist. Not because I dislike them or because I can’t get over an election, but because I've spent too many years reading and learning about the Third Reich to miss the similarities. Not because any administration I dislike must be Nazis, but because things are actually mirroring authoritarian and fascist regimes of the past.

12. I believe the systemic racism and misogyny in our society is much worse than many people think, and desperately needs to be addressed. Which means those with privilege -- white, straight, male, economic, etc. -- need to start listening, even if you don't like what you're hearing, so we can start dismantling everything that's causing people to be marginalized.

13. I am not interested in coming after your blessed guns, nor is anyone serving in government. What I am interested in is the enforcement of present laws and enacting new, common sense gun regulations. Got another opinion? Put it on your page, not mine.

14. I believe in so-called political correctness. I prefer to think it’s social politeness. If I call you Chuck and you say you prefer to be called Charles I’ll call you Charles. It’s the polite thing to do. Not because everyone is a delicate snowflake, but because as Maya Angelou put it, when we know better, we do better. When someone tells you that a term or phrase is more accurate/less hurtful than the one you're using, you now know better. So why not do better? How does it hurt you to NOT hurt another person?

15. I believe in funding sustainable energy, including offering education to people currently working in coal or oil so they can change jobs. There are too many sustainable options available for us to continue with coal and oil. Sorry, billionaires. Maybe try investing in something else.

16. I believe that women should not be treated as a separate class of human. They should be paid the same as men who do the same work, should have the same rights as men and should be free from abuse. Why on earth shouldn’t they be?
I think that about covers it. Bottom line is that I'm a liberal because I think we should take care of each other. That doesn't mean you should work 80 hours a week so your lazy neighbor can get all your money. It just means I don't believe there is any scenario in which preventable suffering is an acceptable outcome as long as money is saved.”

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

[Chap]

A Facebook post from Lori Gallagher Witt, in 2018:

I'd be interested to hear if anybody markedly disagrees with any of those points. If so, it would be good if they could quote the part they disagree with, and explain briefly why.

I am not interested in generalised ravings about 'woke communist lunatics', by the way.

[huckelberry]

This is so good. I completely endorse it exactly as it is written. From the first word to the last.

Frank Villani

We want our damned country back. Your neighbor is not your enemy. The teacher down the street. The farmer in Iowa. The Black mother in the Bronx. The white guy driving a pickup truck in Kentucky. The immigrant pouring concrete in August. The boy holding another boys hand. The MAHA mom reading the ingredients on a cereal box. None of them is your enemy.

We have been sold a magnificent steaming pile of BS. We have been told that America is two hungry tribes crouched on opposite sides of a river, sharpening knives, waiting for the opportunity to wade across and murder one another.

The great political scam of our time was convincing 340 million people who share a country, schools, roads, rivers, grocery stores, hospitals, fears, children, mortgages, illnesses, dreams and funerals that we have nothing in common. That we are enemies.

There is an enormous amount we agree on. We want clean water. Clean air. We don’t want corporations filling our children’s bodies with poison. We don’t want plastic in our oceans, our soil, our blood and our babies. We want food that is actually damned food. We want our children educated. We want to be able to go to the doctor without wondering whether the bill will bankrupt us.

We want a decent job. We want Social Security when we’re old. We want politicians to stop using public office as an ATM. We don’t want political violence. We don’t want our government owned by billionaires. We want our votes to matter. We want a country where the law applies to the rich bastard in the penthouse as surely as it applies to the poor bastard standing before a judge.

And while we’re being made afraid of one another, somebody is picking our damned pockets. The billionaires figured something out before the rest of us did: Anger, fear, loneliness, and resentment are business models. And Donald Trump understood the product better than anybody. Grievance. Barrels and barrels of grievance. Bottle it. Brand it. Sell it.

Tell a man whose factory disappeared that an immigrant stole his country. Tell a struggling mother that some other struggling mother is getting something she isn’t. Tell rural America the cities despise them. Tell the cities rural America wants to destroy them. Tell white people Black people are coming for them. Tell Black people every white neighbor is secretly waiting to put them back in chains.

Keep everybody suspicious. Keep everybody angry. Keep everybody separated. Rape us one by one. Then watch as Trump and the billionaires walk through the wreckage taking everything. We all see it.

Democracy will be saved by finding the places where we already agree and building from there. Citizenship is not a subscription service. Democracy is not something delivered to your doorstep. You don’t get to order it from Amazon. You don’t get to complain that democracy is dying while sitting on the toilet scrolling Instagram. Democracy requires something from us. Time. Courage. Attention. Neighbors. Argument. Forgiveness. Work.

And sometimes the willingness to stand up and say No. No, you will not make me hate my neighbor. No, you will not make me afraid of somebody because they pray differently or vote differently or love differently or were born somewhere else. You will not convince me that cruelty is strength. You will not convince me that corruption is patriotism. You will not convince me that billionaires need another tax break while teachers buy their own damned pencils. No, you will not divide us and then sell off the pieces to the oligarchs.

Reimagine the country. Rebuild the democracy. Rework the communities. Find each other again. Fight like hell for the enormous territory we share. Because beneath all the noise and BS and algorithms and campaign advertisements, there is still a country here. Ours.

Thank you, Jersey Girl.

[Jersey Girl]

This is so good. I completely endorse it exactly as it is written. From the first word to the last.

Thank you, Jersey Girl.

You're welcome. These are all accessible on Facebook. How I wish I'd written the above! It resonates with me in a way that none of the other commentary has.

I think I linked to Heather Delaney Reese' youtube channel on this thread. I prefer to read her. Here's her recent Bookface post. She says she got a lump in her throat. I don't think we can afford that. We need to steel ourselves, vote, and stand strong whatever that may mean to each of us as individuals and citizens. Dig in our heels as it were and not let this guy play wag the dog with us or our sense of peace. Seems to me the real fight will be fought in the courts. It'll take time.

It's a Lovely Life by Heather Delaney Reese

Earlier today, barely 33 days before the midterm elections, Donald Trump admitted that there might not be any line he isn’t willing to cross to make sure that he and his party win the elections in November. In a TIME Magazine interview that was published just this morning, Donald Trump said that he is keeping his options open when it comes to ways that he could interfere with the midterm elections, saying he isn't ready to "rule anything out or in," before adding something even more concerning: "You mean the Insurrection Act? I've never used it. I could use it. A lot of people think I should use it."

What Donald Trump was hinting at, or threatening to do, was to send ICE to our polls and invoke the Insurrection Act to unleash a complete assault on our laws surrounding free and fair elections. Even though Donald Trump seems to think this could possibly be an approved use of that Act, federal law specifically prohibits stationing troops or armed federal personnel at election locations. Those laws protect our elections from corruption, interference, and intimidation. But that does not matter to our President. He does not care about rules or the law, and he does not actually care about any of the people running for election, even though they are from his own party. His only concern is being able to hold onto the unchecked power he has accumulated during his second term in office.

The interview itself was done this past Monday afternoon, September 28, inside the Oval Office. TIME's senior political correspondent Eric Cortellessa and editor-in-chief Sam Jacobs spent 75 minutes with Donald Trump, asking him questions on a wide range of subjects. The president fumbled his way through many of them without actually giving any real answers. He would start to respond, wander off into something completely different, and then just say whatever happened to be on his mind. But there was one detail about this interview that he probably didn’t think much about, or maybe was even excited about. This was Donald Trump’s 56th TIME Magazine cover, which makes him the most featured person in the publication's history. As irony would have it, his feature on this cover broke the record he had shared with another president, Richard Nixon.

I have written about a lot of disturbing things over the past year and a half. There have been the raids in Minneapolis and the people who have been harmed, or worse, by ICE. I have written about the war Donald Trump started. The racist propaganda he has shared. The cruelty he has inflicted. We’ve been through him tearing down the East Wing of the White House and destroying institutions. I could keep going on and on. But hearing him threaten our elections so carelessly gave me a lump in my throat. This isn’t the first time he has done this, and it won’t be the last. But there was something different about what he said throughout this interview that was very unsettling. This was a different side of Donald Trump, one who struggled to answer even basic questions and who appears to believe there is nothing that can stop him from acting on his worst impulses. It made something else painfully clear. We already knew we were entering the most dangerous period of his presidency, but after this interview, that danger is now right in front of us.

The Insurrection Act was created back in 1807 to give the president special powers in emergency situations to do something not normally allowed: deploy active-duty military personnel on American soil to conduct law enforcement. It was never meant to be used for personal gain or as a weapon against the American people so that the president can, in essence, win a war against his own country. It wasn’t created so that a sitting president or his party could interfere in an election to prevent the opposing party from winning.

That wasn’t the only thing he said in that interview that showed how far he plans to go. When he was asked what would happen if Democrats take control of Congress in November, Trump said, "They'll probably go after me, and I'll go after them." The president is already forecasting the hell he intends to put our country through for the next two years if the American people exercise their right to vote and change the balance of power in Congress. He is preemptively declaring war against the very people he was elected to represent. We knew Trump would not back down quietly. But it was still difficult to hear someone who holds the fate of more than 340 million people, and by extension even more throughout the world, speak so callously about what he intends to do if the election does not go his way.

Trump also went after the Supreme Court, and more specifically the three justices that he appointed, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. He was upset with them because they ruled against him on tariffs, mail-in ballots, and birthright citizenship. "Yeah," he said when asked if he regrets nominating them. "What can I do? I put them in. They voted against me too often. I was very, I gave them the position of a lifetime, and they vote against me often." He then twisted the actions of justices who follow the law and who don't bow down to the president's whims and wishes, describing their actions in terms of loyalty instead of their oath of office. "The Democrats stick like glue, those three, they virtually never vary," he said. "And while I don't like it, there's something I admire about it: there's loyalty. So they have loyalty to Barack Hussein Obama." Donald Trump forgets that the Supreme Court is not Barack Obama’s, a president who has been out of office nearly 10 years now, and it is not his. It was never supposed to belong to the president or any other man or woman. It belongs to the people and to our Constitution.

Thinking about the record that Donald Trump officially broke today, being on the cover of TIME Magazine and passing Richard Nixon, who TIME itself noted “repeatedly broke his own record as the Watergate scandal progressed,” may have been the best message ever delivered without saying a single word. Because much like Trump, Nixon did not earn those covers through proud accomplishments. He earned them because the country was consumed by the crisis he brought to his presidency. As the scandal deepened and his administration crumbled, the magazine kept documenting the fall. And now Donald Trump just passed him.

That is the real story from this interview. The parallels between the two just keep growing, and they go far beyond similar cover counts. Nixon began his second term in January of 1973 with a 67 percent approval rating, riding a landslide reelection, much like what Donald Trump likes to brag about. By August of that year, as Watergate unraveled and inflation gripped the country, his approval had fallen to 31 percent. Trump's approval, according to the Associated Press and NORC poll conducted this week, now sits at 31 percent, with 69 percent of the country disapproving. Nixon's collapse was driven by scandal and a failing economy. Trump's presidency is following the same path. Between the Epstein files, a war he started without congressional authorization, and an affordability crisis, Donald Trump and Nixon share more similarities than differences.

When the TIME reporters told Trump that his own polling shows historic lows, he said what he always says: "They're fake numbers," and added, "I would beat anybody running today by 20 points." Donald Trump lives in denial. His entire life, he has spun facts or outright lied about them, and he has faced very little pushback. But what he is doing is eerily familiar to Nixon's final weeks in office, when the people around him described how he stopped being able to distinguish between the version of reality he created and wanted others to accept as truth and the real version closing in on him. We are watching that general disconnection play out once again.

Nixon’s resignation wasn’t that far in the past from when I learned about Watergate in school in the late eighties and early nineties. Many of the adults in my life vividly remembered that tumultuous time in the history of our country. I remember my teachers presenting it like a once-in-a-lifetime event that had a clear beginning, middle, and end. We were taught that the system, that the checks and balances, had worked. The president broke the law, he was caught, and he resigned before he had to become the first president actually impeached and removed from office. Democracy survived.

I remember one teacher in particular who loved watching WWII movies and playing presidential trivia games. He described how they had been shocked but not entirely surprised while it was actually happening. He was always careful to explain that Watergate wasn’t a single moment in time. It was a new chapter in American politics and a reminder that we always have to keep our eyes on politicians because power can corrupt even good people, but power given to somebody evil is something else entirely. That kind of power can bring down an entire government. I thought I understood what he meant when he gave that warning to our class, but it wasn’t until Donald Trump’s first term that I fully understood what he seemed to understand, and what so many had forgotten. We are constantly walking a line to keep power checked, even with the best administrations, because the threat doesn’t always come from the president. It can come from anyone in close proximity to them. A cognitively deteriorating president could be manipulated into believing and doing anything with the right people by their side.

TIME journalists also asked Trump a very specific question that showed exactly who he is in many ways. He was asked, why should his White House renovation projects matter to Americans who are struggling to pay their bills? It was a straightforward question that he should have had an answer rehearsed and ready to give. Instead, he talked about the building itself as if it would somehow help families make sense of their own financial reality. "The White House was a dump," he said. "It hadn't been painted in, it was just a disgraceful dump. The doors were falling off. The locks were broken." He tried to make it sound like he was somehow using his own money to litter the White House with gold plasterwork, gilded frames, and tchotchkes scattered around the Oval Office. He talked about wanting to make the Oval Office a federal landmark so that no future president could remove the gold he put on the walls. He called the White House "a symbol of our greatness." But he never once addressed what it feels like to be a family choosing between groceries and gas. He never answered the question because he mentally couldn’t. He was lost in his own talking points and his deep desire to talk about the things that matter to him, and his fellow Americans simply weren’t among them.

Near the end of the interview, he appeared visibly frustrated as he turned on the reporters. "You haven't asked me one f--king positive question," he said. "All of this. What about this? What about that? All negative." He then added, "Well, I hope I get a decent story. I don't think, you know, it's hard to get a good story. Every question's a hit. I don't know what the hell's wrong."

It was the final moment of the interview that said the most. Eric Cortellessa asked Trump what he will miss most when his presidency is over. He answered immediately: "This beautiful room."

Nixon, for all his crimes, at least understood in the end that the office did not belong to him. When he lost the support of the country and then Congress, he knew what was coming, and he left. That is not an option for Donald Trump and never would be. He isn’t the President to serve his country. He is the President because he thinks this is his country and everything in it belongs to him.

In 1974, Nixon's approval hit the floor. That November, Democrats gained 49 seats in the House and four in the Senate. They called them the Watergate Babies, a wave of young, reform-minded representatives who came to Washington to hold their government accountable. Voter turnout in that midterm was driven by people who had watched their government lie to them and decided they had seen enough. We are once again in that moment. 33 days from now, we have the chance to do what those voters did all those years ago. Not just to send a message, but to take back the House, and maybe even the Senate, and to also show the president and the next man like him that this is our country and that we are done being fed lies. We will be demanding the truth and reclaiming our power. That is why I still have hope for America. And you should, too.

I'll see you tomorrow,
Heather See less

[Dr. Shades]

Why are Tom's ears on backwards?

[Some Schmo]

Why are Tom's ears on backwards?

He's been hypervigilant since Trump came back: eyes forward, ears turned back.

He knows ICE thugs could be anywhere ready to shoot him unlawfully.

[Jersey Girl]

8 hours ago. Emphasis mine. Too good not to direct attention to it.

It's a Lovely Life by Heather Delaney Reese

At 1:35 this afternoon, the President of the United States carefully walked toward the podium, staring down at his feet with each deliberate step he took, inside the newly renamed Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace, the building formerly known as the U.S. Institute of Peace. For the next 28 minutes of what was being called a celebration of the “Golden Age of Science,” he awarded medals to his friends, insulted the loyal followers who attend his rallies by declaring, of today’s guests, “We have an extremely high IQ audience for a change. For a change. It’s very nice,” and then went on to proclaim that America invented almost everything important.

“We tamed electricity, invented the light bulb, developed the airplane, harnessed the atom, unleashed the power of personal computers, created the internet, pioneered super intelligence, and invented almost everything else of genius and great importance anywhere in the world.”

The actual scientists in the room knew that most of those breakthroughs involved researchers from across the globe, but nobody corrected him. The people in the room were too busy applauding for themselves and each other. That is just what you do these days, in Donald Trump’s America, when the President of the United States holds yet another special event to bestow the nation’s highest scientific honors on his enablers and donors.
To Elon Musk, the man who spent more than 275 million dollars helping Donald Trump get elected, he awarded the National Medal of Science. He called him “our modern-day Thomas Edison.” Not wanting to feel left out, Donald Trump was also presented with an award, just not one that he actually earned. Instead, he was given his late uncle John Trump’s National Medal of Science in a wood frame.

During the 30-minute event, he announced more than 6 billion dollars in public and private money that will be going to science and technology, even though his own administration has gutted federal research funding and restructured the National Institutes of Health, all while he and his administration are actively driving scientists out of the country through their reckless immigration restrictions.

There was something else about this ceremony that was fundamentally wrong. Five of the six people who received medals today were immigrants. Elon Musk was born in South Africa. Sergey Brin was born in Russia. Jensen Huang and Lisa Su were both born in Taiwan. Satya Nadella was born in India. The only person born in the United States to receive an award was Michael Dell. The President of the United States stood in a room filled with people who had come to this country from somewhere else, accumulated massive wealth, and helped shape the modern tech industry, and he celebrated them as national treasures, praising their contributions to America, and then handed them the nation’s highest scientific and technological honors, all while his own Vice President had spent the morning restricting the immigration pathways that have allowed generations of scientists, engineers, and innovators to build their lives and careers in this country.

Even worse, JD Vance publicly accused Microsoft of abusing employment-based immigration programs, and suspended the company’s participation in a program they use to sponsor foreign workers for permanent residency. That was just this morning, but this afternoon, Donald Trump was presenting Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella, with the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. Nadella was born in India and came to the United States as a student, eventually working here on an H-1B visa. That is the Trump Administration con led by the Great American Conman himself, Donald Trump. Trump puts on these theatrical events to flatter his wealthy donors and powerful allies, while JD Vance announces corruption crackdowns that allow the administration to present itself as tough on manufactured crime coming from foreign workers.

These were not the only messages that were sent to our migrant communities today. Just a few hours after Trump’s remarks at the pseudo-science event, at 4:30 PM, the President of the United States posted this on his personal social media platform, Truth Social:

“The once Great State of Minnesota is being taken over by Somali Immigrants. There is Violence, Murder, and Mayhem all over the State. The people of Minnesota must fight back. You have been robbed, and abandoned by your State Government. Your Governor is an incompetent thief who doesn’t want to get involved. He just wants to get out of town with as much as he can steal, and then, lead a quiet life. The Somalians should not be allowed to get away with what they are doing. They view you as weak and stupid people. Fight back Minnesota, fight back! If you need, the Federal Government will come to your rescue. Governor Tim Walz, and Mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, must immediately ask for Federal help, and leave the rest to us! President DONALD J. Trump”

At 1:35 PM, immigrants are geniuses in Trump’s eyes, who deserve the nation’s highest honors. At 4:30 PM, immigrants are now violent criminals who are “taking over” a state, and the people of Minnesota need to “fight back” against them. I don’t know if we have ever seen a president of the United States direct an entire state of people to attack or, in his words, “fight back” against a relatively small community of people who came to the United States for the very same reason most of our ancestors did. For safety, the chance to raise children in the “land of opportunity,” and to build a better future for themselves and future generations that follow. Whatever Donald Trump intended by those words, he still said them. It is heartbreaking to even try to imagine what it means for Somali families in Minnesota to hear the President of the United States describe their community as a threat and tell their neighbors to fight back. Many have lived through hardships most of us could never begin to comprehend, hardships that forced them to pack up their entire lives, leaving behind everything they have ever known and people they love, just to find a place where they and their children could live in safety and have a chance at a better future.

Some immigrants are useful to Trump and his sycophants. He loves the wealthy ones who fund his campaigns, make him look legitimate and powerful on the stage and do what he tells them to do. Those immigrants get medals. The other immigrants are useful too, just in a different way. He uses them as scapegoats, and as weapons against political enemies and other people he doesn’t like. He also loves to use them to terrify his base into staying loyal. This is just the start of what Donald Trump is going to do to other blue states as well, because he considers them his enemies and the greatest threat to his power.

This was another day when I struggled to choose what to write about because there was so much thrown at us all at once. We also learned that the Secretary of “War,” Pete Hegseth, recommended, and Trump later approved, what would be the first U.S. military execution in 65 years, and the first by military firing squad since 1945. They chose the most visually violent method available to send a message that the president holds the power to decide who lives and who dies. Death Penalty Action released a statement saying, “There is nothing Donald Trump loves more than the power to kill.” It was later revealed that the execution would be livestreamed for the public to watch.

Here in Southern California, there is still a lot of talk about Donald Trump’s disturbing words about Iran potentially taking out San Diego and Los Angeles. But now there is growing concern about the increasing ICE raids that have once again been unleashed here. I heard a conversation this morning from a woman and what appeared to be a group of her friends where they were talking about all of the things they had lived through and how devastating it was to now have to spend their retirement years fighting for their country’s survival.

They appeared to be in their 70s and they rightfully all looked so pained and concerned. It made me think again about how much older Americans have given up of the peace and quiet they were promised in the later years of their lives so that they could fight for what’s right, and for a just country for the generations that come after them. These are supposed to be their golden years. Time with grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Time to enjoy the world they spent their whole lives building. Instead, they’re having to spend their days protesting, and organizing the resistance to this authoritarian takeover.

Some of them were old enough to remember parts of World War II or at least the aftermath. Some of them had parents and grandparents who stormed Normandy, liberated camps, and came home, never speaking about the horrors that they saw. Many of them marched during the civil rights movement and were in grade school at the same time that Ruby Bridges walked into William Frantz Elementary in New Orleans.

They fought for women’s rights and equality. They fought against racism and they lived through Vietnam. They lost friends and loved ones to that war, and they had children who fought in the Gulf Wars. If this is you, please know that your sacrifices then and now are not forgotten, and I recognize how much it’s taking for you to stand up once again.

We are twenty-five days away from the midterm elections. All of the corruption and cruelty that we’ve been talking about, every night, for over a year and a half, comes down to what happens in November. If we take back Congress, we take back the ability to hold this administration accountable. If we don’t, they will have unchecked power for a very long time. We’ve already seen what they’re willing to do, and it will only get worse. Once we get through this election, our attention needs to switch to rebuilding our country and making sure this never happens again.

Jamie Raskin is already thinking about just that with the bill he introduced, called the “Preserving and Remembering the History of Trump and other Tyrants Act.” The bill would direct the Smithsonian to collect and preserve artifacts documenting the rise of government propaganda, corruption, and authoritarianism during Trump’s two presidencies, including the thirty-foot banners of Trump’s face that hang from federal buildings in Washington, D.C., and the propaganda signs the Trump administration has prepared to place outside the Smithsonian. It would also preserve photographs, videos, and personal accounts from Americans who resisted what Raskin describes as the rise of authoritarianism, all as part of a permanent exhibition at the National Museum of American History. Raskin explained why this matters: “Unlike President Trump’s project of censoring, whitewashing and fictionalizing American history, my legislation will forever preserve his manifestations of authoritarian narcissism and his propagandistic assault on American history and American democracy.”
Rep. Raskin is not the only one pushing back in creative ways.

This week, inside the European Parliament building in Strasbourg, a sculpture was unveiled called “Orange Plague.” Standing over 8 feet tall, this sculpture of Donald Trump is made of copper and covered in twenty-three-carat gold leaf. It shows the President completely naked and sitting on the back of a man who struggles to carry him while Trump holds a golf club in one hand and a balance of justice in the other, with his eyes closed. It was created by Danish artist Jens Galschiot and was inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” A Danish member of the European Parliament facilitated it being displayed and said, “If someone is so easily offended that they cannot accept this sculpture being displayed in the European Parliament, then they have no business on the world stage.”

The words posted with it say the following:
THE ORANGE PLAGUE
I am sitting on the Back of a man.
He is sinking under my burden.
I will do anything to help him.
Except step down from his back.
-The King of Injustice

The rest of the world sees him for exactly who he is. A con man. The great American con man. They aren’t afraid to put the truth, gilded and naked, for everyone to walk past and see. We shouldn’t be afraid, either. That statue is a reminder that even the most powerful people in the world can be exposed for who they really are, and that no amount of gold can hide the truth forever. When our votes are counted next month, we will finally stop carrying the weight of a naked Trump and start exposing him for who he really is. That is why I still have hope for America. And you should, too.
I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather See less

All about the statue in question:

https://galschiot.com/en/work/the_orange_plague/

[Jersey Girl]

Methinks someone may have hit the psychological nail on the head. Wow.

From October 22, 2026

Michael Jochum
is in Arvada, CO.

I used to wonder how it was possible that Trump could have won in 2016, and then again in 2024, given how emotionally toxic and depraved he is.

I don’t wonder anymore. I think he won for that exact reason. Because he carried at least one broken shard to reflect the broken shards in millions of others.

If you’re a racist, you found your guy. If you’re a misogynist, you found your guy. If money is your only religion, you found your guy. If your heart is armored shut, you found your guy. If you mock the disabled, you found your guy. If intelligence makes you insecure, you found your guy. If you’re a sexual predator, you found your guy. If you trade in humiliation and conspiracy and filth, you found your guy. If you’ve never done a single hour of emotional inventory, you found your guy. If you cheat, stiff contractors, bankrupt your obligations, and call it savvy, you found your guy. If you lie as easily as you breathe, you found your guy. If cruelty feels like strength, you found your guy. If white grievance is your comfort food, you found your guy. If your ego is a black hole no title can fill, you found your guy. If warmongering fuels your ego, you found your guy, If empathy feels like weakness and dominance feels like oxygen, you found your guy.

If he’d only carried one or two of these pathologies, he might have been dismissed as just another loud, damaged man. But he carried a buffet of them. That was the appeal. Millions could locate themselves somewhere in the wreckage. They didn’t have to agree with all of it. They just had to recognize a piece of themselves in it.

It was never really about him. It was about the validation. The absolution. The permission. He didn’t invent the resentment; he amplified it. He didn’t create the cruelty; he normalized it. He gave millions the intoxicating relief of hearing their ugliest impulses echoed back at rally volume.

Trump is a symptom. The deeper illness is collective. If there’s one sentence that defines his power, it’s this: “He says the things I’m thinking.”

And that’s the part that should chill us.

Because what does it say about us that so many were thinking those things? That tens of millions of Americans harbored resentments so deep, so seething, that they were simply waiting for a demagogue to baptize them as virtue? That after decades of supposed progress on race, gender, and equality, so many white men felt so threatened, so displaced, so furious, that cruelty became a political platform?

Maybe we were living in a fool’s paradise, mistaking silence for healing, politeness for progress.
Now the mask is off. Now we know.

And knowing is a far more dangerous place to stand.

– Michael Jochum, Not Just a Drummer: Reflections on Art, Politics, Dogs, and the Human Condition.