Sarah is a hero and an example of the courage we all need more than ever now. She is right: trump is a bully and wants us to be afraid. But bullying itself masks insecurity and fear. TACO trump backs down when people stand up to him. Let's be Sarahs!
It was a beautiful country prior to the Heritage Foundation and ultra conservative politics. There are so many ultraconservative organizations funded by whacko billionaires who want to force their agendas on us including dismantling the democratic system. How are the democratic and progressive leaning billionaires contributing to a push back and fighting it all? Every voice there is needs to be accountable if we want change.
I will urge people again, to read Nancy MacLean's book, "Democracy in Chains", in it, she makes clear that organizations like Heritage, Cato Institute, American Legislative Exchange Council, the Mercatus Center, the Donor's Trust, Judicial Watch, and literally dozens more, are NOT "conservative", they are *libertarians* only posing as conservative, and they have completely captured the Republican party.
So much more of this stuff makes sense in light of the information in that book. There is an entire network of these organizations, largely funded by Koch industries, each with its own part in the hierarchy, each dedicated to dismantling the ability of the people to act collectively. It explains why for 25 years, "Republicans" have acted in lock step, they no longer have any interest in bipartisanship, most of the legislation they pass has been model legislation, written by these libertarian think tanks, with one goal, ending democracy.
Their "holy grail" is changing the constitution to make all of this permanent. This is why I believe midterms, are unlikely to happen.
And Koch spearheaded the belief there was no climate change- thus all environmental safeguards are becoming non existent. A group of lunatics and fanatics- stupidly crazy with greed, power and/or cobtrol.
Hoping the courts can l save our elections if its needed.
I don’t think these people belong to any American party or group. - they are anti-American, in that they only believe in their own desire to have more money and power, and their own presumed superiority. They are addicted to money and power, and they lack any moral limits to what they are willing to do to have more.
The saddest part is, they don’t seem to realize that despite their presumed superiority, they are likely hastening the very real risks we are already facing. Some of their ideas and actions down a path to destruction, perhaps of the very world and systems of life that enables them to exist in the first place.
For instance, consider the plan of many of the tech bros to eliminate much of their human labor force with computers and robots. Here is the problem - who buys their stuff if people aren’t earning wages to buy it? More importantly, how can they earn more money if there is no one working to produce goods that once sold become the profit that make wealthy share holders rich. (It’s helpful if we remember that money exists in the US only because employers needed a way to give workers the way to take the value of their wages to stores to exchange it for the goods that before industrialization, would have been produced via household economy for consumption and trade - in short, the value of money is tied to the actual value of bam labor - kind of becomes irrelevant if people aren’t working for wages)
The reason we have so many billionaires today (remember when the rich were just millionaires?) is becomes since 1980, when majority shareholders insisted that corporations they invested in treat the former’s interests as the most important - and of course, those interests were and are to make MORE money, aprox 50 Trillion dollars have been redistributed from the people whose labor produced that money to the Shareholders. In short, these shareholders have getting a growing proportion of the total value of labor (which is the total revenues earned by a corporation minus all costs of production except labors), and the more shareholders take, the less is left for wages, salaries, CEO bonuses, Shareholder pay outs, and profit. And we can guess who is at the bottom of that list - employees, whose wages have stagnated even as the value of their labor has gone up.
The problem is that the shareholder class has, in their growing greed, have been chocking their golden goose, and are about ready to. Low up the whole system. Now they could resort of Corproate nations, and fight against other Corproate nations to get MORE. But that’s potentially high risk and high costs for a growing number of them. And in the meantime, the destruction to environment is making life far less than desirable , even they manage to create little safe space bubbles to live in.
Oh, and the more of population they kill off, the less human diversity that exists, the increasing risk they face of lacking having the biological, cultural or other diversity in their families and communities to survive the inevitable changes in their environment. Especially if they prefer racial or ethnic “purity” (I wonder if Musk realizes that presumably superior offspring could be in trouble of one of theirs inherited dominant traits makes them vulnerable to future changes or biological threats - it carries similar risks as single crop agriculture).
No matter what they are racing to the end. It makes no sense. It’s irrational.
The problem with these guys is that overall, they're not terribly bright, they equate wealth with intellect, and believe their money makes them smarter than everyone else. It's why they all fall for the pseudo-intellectual drivel of that grubby lookin long hair, forget what his name is at the moment....
Yes, you're exactly correct, they haven't thought this through, for some reason they seen to have forgotten how they got where they are in the first place, and that llms aren't a fucking oracle, they learn from us.
Me too, it seems important that people read it, I forst read it in 17, and was even a little skeptical, but NOW? It's really REALLY obvious that it is a big part of what's going on here.
You can connect the dots to all of the court decisions, like Citizens United and others. Also another thing was when Kevin Roberts came out and said there was a "bloodless revolution", I believe it was Buchanan's plan that he was referring to, it's like the "advanced" course in economics, and all of these guys are read in on it.
Definitely keep recommending it, hell, if I had the money, I'd buy a bunch of them and give them out. It's important that people understand the stakes. It's kind of why I don't think elections will happen, these guys aren't leaving except by force....
“Trump is America’s Hitler because Trump and Hitler are not only both psychopaths, but Trump has intentionally followed Hitler’s plan of endless repetition of Big Lies such as that the 2020 election was “stolen” from him. He has repeatedly threatened and criminally acted his way to power through violence and attempts to corrupt the nation’s legal and electoral systems. Like other historic scourges of humanity, Trump has shown that he falls far beneath the hallmark of mutual caring that makes us human.”
Congratulations for making it out of the clown show. However, everything you’re saying is what we all knew about Trump and were shouting out for everyone to ignore. Tell us something we don’t know but only suspect. Who are the people on the inside shaping Trump’s policies(making him think they are his idea)? Trumps is primitive we already know. So, what’s the deal with little Steve M? Have you ever caught Tump rolling his eyes during the ‘laying of hands’ clown ceremony? How deep are the Heritage Foundations people embedded within the WH? Have you ever heard these names mentioned in the WH, ‘Seven Mountain Mandate’, ‘Global Harvest Ministries’, ‘Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF)’, ‘Blackstone Fellows’.? To name a few. Again, congratulations on your escape. Thanks for sharing and speaking out.
Nope not even remotely I grew up around NY he’s always been a joke and a creep. The crazy thing is he’s exactly the “arrogant “ type of New Yorker people not from the metro NY area used to complain about and yet they love him. 🙄
Thank you for continuing to speak truth to seditious power. I admire people who’ve were working for Donald Trump’s administration and who have the courage to speak out and to continue to speak out. You are a patriot!
To all who believe it is and has been only or primarily one party that has been ruining America, I encourage you to look deeper, think harder. Neither party is making this place better. Neither party is helping the average American flourish. The fight of right against left is a false narrative. It’s about the powerful taking advantage of most of us and this happens systematically from both parties, they just have different tactics. They both love big money and big power and endlessly manipulate us into fighting each other when what we need is to curtail their power and reclaim our own. I don’t know how we do that unfortunately. I wish I did. But it seems really clear to me that is the real struggle worth putting our energy into.
And just to be clear while I have no love for either political party, I think Trump is a disgusting human. I take no joy in saying that because I really try to lean into kindness.
I feel like all of us who are not in the top 10 or 20% of wealth and power in this country, so the 80% of us let’s say, need to figure out how to band together because the vast majority of the American people are very much aligned on a great many things, despite the narrative we hear endlessly by mass media. We just have a huge coordination problem because of the power and influence that the top players have. And that allows them to endlessly tell us that we are at war with each other and not in a struggle against them.
“I don’t know how we do that unfortunately. I wish I did. But it seems really clear to me that is the real struggle worth putting our energy into.” That is exactly how I feel and have since 2016. They aren’t listening. If they were, the party that has consistently stood for the working man wouldn’t have thousands switch and go MAGA. Somebody dropped the ball. One example: all of 2024, I got requests for donations to take back the Senate. But in 2022, a NC Supreme Court Justice, Cheri Beasley, ran for Senate, and the National Democrats didn’t help her at all. That seat was winnable, but we are NC. Suddenly, in 2024, we were important. I didn’t send a penny (soon to be gone anyway). My money is local or direct to my candidate. I’d be happy with a real third party if it were the 80% party. We just need a leader. There is one out there.
I’m not exactly sure who you are calling “so called elites”. If it’s Senators and Congress people, I’m actually quite proud of my Senators Merkley and Wyden for the fights they are leading. And I stand behind my reps with the exception of the one R who follows his tribe in spite his constituents.
If it’s your R reps and Senators, this is not NEW behavior, it’s worse in its embrace of their new authoritarian plan, please realize they’ve enabled him ALL THE WAY. And all who supported them supported him.
Hi Sarah. DOGE cuts took 1/3 of the staples at the food pantry, then this past month, they took away a box of macaroni and cheese and a box of spaghetti if you were single. That is six meals. On top of previous cuts.
I am diabetic, so the pasta losses weren’t a big thing for me, but for others, six meals is a lot of food security gone.
Sarah, thank you for continuing to put yourself in the line of fire. I'm certain you will face another round of retribution for this content.
Sarah is a hero and an example of the courage we all need more than ever now. She is right: trump is a bully and wants us to be afraid. But bullying itself masks insecurity and fear. TACO trump backs down when people stand up to him. Let's be Sarahs!
It was a beautiful country prior to the Heritage Foundation and ultra conservative politics. There are so many ultraconservative organizations funded by whacko billionaires who want to force their agendas on us including dismantling the democratic system. How are the democratic and progressive leaning billionaires contributing to a push back and fighting it all? Every voice there is needs to be accountable if we want change.
I will urge people again, to read Nancy MacLean's book, "Democracy in Chains", in it, she makes clear that organizations like Heritage, Cato Institute, American Legislative Exchange Council, the Mercatus Center, the Donor's Trust, Judicial Watch, and literally dozens more, are NOT "conservative", they are *libertarians* only posing as conservative, and they have completely captured the Republican party.
So much more of this stuff makes sense in light of the information in that book. There is an entire network of these organizations, largely funded by Koch industries, each with its own part in the hierarchy, each dedicated to dismantling the ability of the people to act collectively. It explains why for 25 years, "Republicans" have acted in lock step, they no longer have any interest in bipartisanship, most of the legislation they pass has been model legislation, written by these libertarian think tanks, with one goal, ending democracy.
Their "holy grail" is changing the constitution to make all of this permanent. This is why I believe midterms, are unlikely to happen.
And Koch spearheaded the belief there was no climate change- thus all environmental safeguards are becoming non existent. A group of lunatics and fanatics- stupidly crazy with greed, power and/or cobtrol.
Hoping the courts can l save our elections if its needed.
I don’t think these people belong to any American party or group. - they are anti-American, in that they only believe in their own desire to have more money and power, and their own presumed superiority. They are addicted to money and power, and they lack any moral limits to what they are willing to do to have more.
The saddest part is, they don’t seem to realize that despite their presumed superiority, they are likely hastening the very real risks we are already facing. Some of their ideas and actions down a path to destruction, perhaps of the very world and systems of life that enables them to exist in the first place.
For instance, consider the plan of many of the tech bros to eliminate much of their human labor force with computers and robots. Here is the problem - who buys their stuff if people aren’t earning wages to buy it? More importantly, how can they earn more money if there is no one working to produce goods that once sold become the profit that make wealthy share holders rich. (It’s helpful if we remember that money exists in the US only because employers needed a way to give workers the way to take the value of their wages to stores to exchange it for the goods that before industrialization, would have been produced via household economy for consumption and trade - in short, the value of money is tied to the actual value of bam labor - kind of becomes irrelevant if people aren’t working for wages)
The reason we have so many billionaires today (remember when the rich were just millionaires?) is becomes since 1980, when majority shareholders insisted that corporations they invested in treat the former’s interests as the most important - and of course, those interests were and are to make MORE money, aprox 50 Trillion dollars have been redistributed from the people whose labor produced that money to the Shareholders. In short, these shareholders have getting a growing proportion of the total value of labor (which is the total revenues earned by a corporation minus all costs of production except labors), and the more shareholders take, the less is left for wages, salaries, CEO bonuses, Shareholder pay outs, and profit. And we can guess who is at the bottom of that list - employees, whose wages have stagnated even as the value of their labor has gone up.
The problem is that the shareholder class has, in their growing greed, have been chocking their golden goose, and are about ready to. Low up the whole system. Now they could resort of Corproate nations, and fight against other Corproate nations to get MORE. But that’s potentially high risk and high costs for a growing number of them. And in the meantime, the destruction to environment is making life far less than desirable , even they manage to create little safe space bubbles to live in.
Oh, and the more of population they kill off, the less human diversity that exists, the increasing risk they face of lacking having the biological, cultural or other diversity in their families and communities to survive the inevitable changes in their environment. Especially if they prefer racial or ethnic “purity” (I wonder if Musk realizes that presumably superior offspring could be in trouble of one of theirs inherited dominant traits makes them vulnerable to future changes or biological threats - it carries similar risks as single crop agriculture).
No matter what they are racing to the end. It makes no sense. It’s irrational.
The problem with these guys is that overall, they're not terribly bright, they equate wealth with intellect, and believe their money makes them smarter than everyone else. It's why they all fall for the pseudo-intellectual drivel of that grubby lookin long hair, forget what his name is at the moment....
Yes, you're exactly correct, they haven't thought this through, for some reason they seen to have forgotten how they got where they are in the first place, and that llms aren't a fucking oracle, they learn from us.
I keep recommending this book.
Me too, it seems important that people read it, I forst read it in 17, and was even a little skeptical, but NOW? It's really REALLY obvious that it is a big part of what's going on here.
You can connect the dots to all of the court decisions, like Citizens United and others. Also another thing was when Kevin Roberts came out and said there was a "bloodless revolution", I believe it was Buchanan's plan that he was referring to, it's like the "advanced" course in economics, and all of these guys are read in on it.
Definitely keep recommending it, hell, if I had the money, I'd buy a bunch of them and give them out. It's important that people understand the stakes. It's kind of why I don't think elections will happen, these guys aren't leaving except by force....
She is one of the honest and brave ones. I applaud all the women that resigned Trump’s White House because of January 6.
------------------
Dr. Bandy Lee writes:
“Trump is America’s Hitler because Trump and Hitler are not only both psychopaths, but Trump has intentionally followed Hitler’s plan of endless repetition of Big Lies such as that the 2020 election was “stolen” from him. He has repeatedly threatened and criminally acted his way to power through violence and attempts to corrupt the nation’s legal and electoral systems. Like other historic scourges of humanity, Trump has shown that he falls far beneath the hallmark of mutual caring that makes us human.”
https://open.substack.com/pub/bandyxlee/p/donald-trump-like-hitler-is-a-psychopath
------------------
Congratulations for making it out of the clown show. However, everything you’re saying is what we all knew about Trump and were shouting out for everyone to ignore. Tell us something we don’t know but only suspect. Who are the people on the inside shaping Trump’s policies(making him think they are his idea)? Trumps is primitive we already know. So, what’s the deal with little Steve M? Have you ever caught Tump rolling his eyes during the ‘laying of hands’ clown ceremony? How deep are the Heritage Foundations people embedded within the WH? Have you ever heard these names mentioned in the WH, ‘Seven Mountain Mandate’, ‘Global Harvest Ministries’, ‘Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF)’, ‘Blackstone Fellows’.? To name a few. Again, congratulations on your escape. Thanks for sharing and speaking out.
If you want to connect the dots… https://open.substack.com/pub/saintaubynsays/p/religion-division-part-1-from-prophets?r=43z52j&utm_medium=ios
I'm not afraid; I'm ANGRY. No, that's not strong enough. I'm PISSED.
I needed this reminder today. I’m starting to grow weary. This was a rough week.😩
I’m not afraid! How about the rest of you?
Nope not even remotely I grew up around NY he’s always been a joke and a creep. The crazy thing is he’s exactly the “arrogant “ type of New Yorker people not from the metro NY area used to complain about and yet they love him. 🙄
Nope!
To add, imo, billionaires working together could halt this over time. Where are they?
Thank you for continuing to speak truth to seditious power. I admire people who’ve were working for Donald Trump’s administration and who have the courage to speak out and to continue to speak out. You are a patriot!
Thank you for opening up a space for others to tell their stories about how Trump has hurt us.
To all who believe it is and has been only or primarily one party that has been ruining America, I encourage you to look deeper, think harder. Neither party is making this place better. Neither party is helping the average American flourish. The fight of right against left is a false narrative. It’s about the powerful taking advantage of most of us and this happens systematically from both parties, they just have different tactics. They both love big money and big power and endlessly manipulate us into fighting each other when what we need is to curtail their power and reclaim our own. I don’t know how we do that unfortunately. I wish I did. But it seems really clear to me that is the real struggle worth putting our energy into.
Citizens United was wrong. Thanks to SCOTUS John, Clarence and Samuel.
And just to be clear while I have no love for either political party, I think Trump is a disgusting human. I take no joy in saying that because I really try to lean into kindness.
I feel like all of us who are not in the top 10 or 20% of wealth and power in this country, so the 80% of us let’s say, need to figure out how to band together because the vast majority of the American people are very much aligned on a great many things, despite the narrative we hear endlessly by mass media. We just have a huge coordination problem because of the power and influence that the top players have. And that allows them to endlessly tell us that we are at war with each other and not in a struggle against them.
“I don’t know how we do that unfortunately. I wish I did. But it seems really clear to me that is the real struggle worth putting our energy into.” That is exactly how I feel and have since 2016. They aren’t listening. If they were, the party that has consistently stood for the working man wouldn’t have thousands switch and go MAGA. Somebody dropped the ball. One example: all of 2024, I got requests for donations to take back the Senate. But in 2022, a NC Supreme Court Justice, Cheri Beasley, ran for Senate, and the National Democrats didn’t help her at all. That seat was winnable, but we are NC. Suddenly, in 2024, we were important. I didn’t send a penny (soon to be gone anyway). My money is local or direct to my candidate. I’d be happy with a real third party if it were the 80% party. We just need a leader. There is one out there.
Take back the parties, and the democratic party particularly the progressive wing is a lot more closer to the needs of the average person.
I would die rather than fear
I’m not exactly sure who you are calling “so called elites”. If it’s Senators and Congress people, I’m actually quite proud of my Senators Merkley and Wyden for the fights they are leading. And I stand behind my reps with the exception of the one R who follows his tribe in spite his constituents.
If it’s your R reps and Senators, this is not NEW behavior, it’s worse in its embrace of their new authoritarian plan, please realize they’ve enabled him ALL THE WAY. And all who supported them supported him.
I saw Sarah Longwell promote Home of the Brave. I’m so glad you’re a part of it and now I understand the name was aptly chosen.
I saw some interviews you gave and I was blown away by your honesty and candour. Thank you for your voice and courage.
Hi Sarah. DOGE cuts took 1/3 of the staples at the food pantry, then this past month, they took away a box of macaroni and cheese and a box of spaghetti if you were single. That is six meals. On top of previous cuts.
I am diabetic, so the pasta losses weren’t a big thing for me, but for others, six meals is a lot of food security gone.