Trump — who ordered 13 executions — furious as Biden halts 'federal killing machine'

(Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz)

Carl Gibson

December 24, 2024

ALTERNET

President Joe Biden recently commuted the sentences of nearly all federal death row inmates with less than a month remaining before he leaves the White House. Now, President-elect Donald Trump is raging at the lame-duck president on social media.

The Daily Beast reported that Trump took to his Truth Social account to blast Biden for the wave of commutations, in which Biden freed 37 inmates who Trump would have been able to execute beginning on January 20. In the post, the president-elect referred to the freed inmates as "the worst killers in our Country."

"When you hear the acts of each, you won’t believe that he did this. Makes no sense," Trump posted. "Relatives and friends are further devastated. They can’t believe this is happening!"

READ MORE: To thwart Trump killing spree, Biden urged to commute death penalty cases

"As soon as I am inaugurated, I will direct the Justice Department to vigorously pursue the death penalty to protect American families and children from violent rapists, murderers and monsters," Trump wrote in a subsequent Truth Social post. "We will be a Nation of Law and Order again!"

The Beast quoted Amnesty International Executive Director Paul O'Brien, who praised Biden for preventing Trump from carrying out future executions in his second term. During his first term as president, Trump ordered the executions of 13 federal death row inmates – a record high.

"It is near certain that Donald Trump will re-start the federal killing machine where he left off, and we remain concerned about the human rights of those who are still on federal and military death row," O'Brien stated.

Heather Turner, whose mother was killed by a bank robber that received one of Biden's commutations, called the outgoing president's commutation a "gross abuse of power" and said that Biden and his supporters "have blood on their hands." But according to the Beast, retired police officer Donnie Olivero, whose law enforcement partner was killed by one of the commutation recipients, stated that Biden "has done what is right" and acknowledged that carrying out the inmate's execution "would have brought me no peace."

READ MORE: 'Historic and courageous step': Biden applauded for commuting 37 death sentences

Biden's commutations were for all federal death row inmates, save for three: Dzokhar Tsarnaev, who carried out the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013; Dylann Roof, who massacred nine people at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015 and Robert Gregory Bowers, who killed 11 people at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 2018.

“Make no mistake: I condemn these murderers, grieve for the victims of their despicable acts, and ache for all the families who have suffered unimaginable and irreparable loss,” Biden stated upon issuing the commutations. “But guided by my conscience and my experience as a public defender, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Vice President and now President, I am more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level."

"In good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted," he added.

Click here to read the Beast's full article (subscription required).

'Vigorously pursue': Trump vows to ramp up executions after Biden commuted death sentences

Travis Gettys
December 24, 2024 

RAW STORY


Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump makes a campaign stop at manufacturer FALK Production in Walker, Michigan, U.S. September 27, 2024. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

Donald Trump vowed to "vigorously pursue the death penalty" immediately upon his inauguration.

The president-elect reacted to President Joe Biden commuting the sentences of 37 of the 40 federal prisoners on death row with a social media attack Tuesday morning, saying Biden's decision "makes no sense."

About two hours later he issued his own pledge.

"As soon as I am inaugurated, I will direct the Justice Department to vigorously pursue the death penalty to protect American families and children from violent rapists, murderers, and monsters," Trump posted on his Truth Social website. "We will be a Nation of Law and Order again!"

Trump, who is a convicted felon himself, posted a screenshot to a New York Postreport whose headline read that Biden commuted the "death sentences of child killers and mass murderers 2 days before Christmas," providing lurid descriptions of their crimes and photos of their victims.

"Biden, who opposes the death penalty, lowered each of the 37 sentences to life in prison without parole," the report stated. "He did not say why specifically he considered the original penalties unjust."

The report further stated that "Christmas also came early" for one convicted killer and noted that another was "getting some holiday cheer" from the president, whose term ends next month. It reminded readers that Biden had pardoned his own son earlier this month and commuted the sentences of nearly 1,500 people who had been temporarily released from prison during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"The retiring president on Dec. 1 issued a blanket pardon for his own son Hunter Biden, 54 — wiping the slate of his June conviction of three federal gun felonies and his September guilty plea to $1.4 million in tax fraud from foreign business dealings in which he repeatedly involved his father," the Post reported.

'Be consistent': GOP rep. faults Obama and Marxism as Biden leaves racists on death row

David Edwards
December 24, 2024 

RAW STORY

Claudia Tenney (Fox News/screen grab)


Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) faulted Barack Obama's former White House staffers after President Joe Biden declined to commute the death sentences for three federal inmates, including two racist murderers.

During a Christmas Eve interview with Fox News host John Roberts, Tenney griped about Democrats like Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, who supports abortion rights but opposes the death penalty.

"So the sanctity of life is not something that she holds dear to innocent children in the womb," the New York Republican told Roberts.

Tenney went on to question Biden's Catholic faith because he declined to commute the death sentences of white supremacist murderer Dylann Roof, Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, and synagogue shooter Robert Bowers.

"Biden claims it's his Catholic faith. How do you spare some and not others just because they look like they were politically motivated?" she opined. "If you're going to believe in the death penalty or not believe in the death penalty, you have to be consistent. And obviously, Joe Biden was not consistent in this."

Tenney suggested Obama "holdovers" at the White House and Marxism were behind the commutations.

"I hate to say this, but it's probably some Marxist-leaning Democrats, Obama holdovers that are staffers because we know that Joe Biden is basically checked out and is not even really doing the work in the White House," she asserted. "But also, why is this guy still the president of the United States when he's incapable of committing, you know, doing this work?"

Watch the video below from Fox News.

Biden commutes sentences for 37 of 40 federal death row inmates

Agence France-Presse
December 23, 2024 

U.S. President Joe Biden on Monday commuted the death sentences of 37 of 40 federal inmates, taking action ahead of the return of Donald Trump (ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP)

U.S. President Joe Biden on Monday commuted the death sentences of 37 of 40 federal inmates, taking action ahead of the return of Donald Trump who oversaw a sweeping number of lethal injections during his first term.

With less than a month left in office, Biden had faced growing calls from death penalty opponents to commute the sentences of those on death row to life in prison without parole, which the 37 will now serve.

The move leaves only a handful of high-profile killers who acted out of hate or terrorism facing the federal death penalty -- for which there has been a moratorium under Biden.

"These commutations are consistent with the moratorium my Administration has imposed on federal executions, in cases other than terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder," Biden said in a statement.

"I am commuting the sentences of 37 of the 40 individuals on federal death row to life sentences without the possibility of parole," he said.

The three inmates who will remain on federal death row include Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who helped carry out the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, and Dylann Roof, an avowed white supremacist who in 2015 shot and killed nine Black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina.

Robert Bowers, who killed 11 Jewish worshippers during a 2018 mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, will also remain on death row.

Those commuted included nine people convicted of murdering fellow prisoners, four for murders committed during bank robberies and one who killed a prison guard.

"Make no mistake: I condemn these murderers, grieve for the victims of their despicable acts, and ache for all the families who have suffered unimaginable and irreparable loss," Biden said.


"But guided by my conscience and my experience...I am more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level," he added.
- Trump death penalty expansion -

Biden campaigned for the White House as an opponent of the death penalty, and the Justice Department issued a moratorium on its use at the federal level after he became president.


During his reelection campaign, Trump spoke frequently of expanding the use of capital punishment to include migrants who kill American citizens and drug and human traffickers.

There had been no federal inmates put to death in the United States since 2003 until Trump resumed federal executions in July 2020.

He oversaw 13 by lethal injection during his final six months in power, more than any US leader in 120 years.


The last federal execution -- which was carried out by lethal injection at a prison in Terre Haute, Indiana -- took place on January 16, 2021, four days before Trump left office.

The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the 50 US states, while six others -- Arizona, California, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Tennessee -- have moratoriums in place.

In 2024, there have been 25 executions in the United States, all at the state level.


© Agence France-Presse

'Historic and courageous step': Biden applauded for commuting 37 death sentences

U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks during the Tribal Nations Summit at the Department of the Interior in Washington, D.C., U.S., December 9, 2024. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz/File Photo

Jake Johnson
Common Dreams

December 23, 2024

President Joe Biden on Monday commuted the sentences of 37 people on federal death row, preempting an expected killing spree by President-elect Donald Trump—who ended his first White House term with a string of executions and campaigned on expanding the death penalty.

Biden's decision empties federal death row with the exception of three people: Dylann Roof, Robert Bowers, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

The 37 people whose sentences were commuted will receive life in prison without the possibility of parole. One of the individuals whose sentence was commuted was Billie Jerome Allen, who has spent more than half of his life on federal death row after being convicted at 19 years old of a crime he says he did not commit.

"These commutations are consistent with the moratorium my administration has imposed on federal executions, in cases other than terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder," said Biden.

The president added that he is "more convinced than ever" that the U.S. must "stop the use of" capital punishment at the federal level.

"In good conscience," Biden said, "I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted."

Chris Geidner, publisher of Law Dork, noted Monday that the commutations "show a different man at the end of his time in elected office than the one who supported greatly expanding the federal criminal justice system during his decades in the Senate."

"It is a record that led to much skepticism when, as a candidate for president in 2020, Biden pledged to eliminate the federal death penalty," Geidner added.

The president's latest use of his clemency power in the waning days of his White House term came after a monthslong pressure campaign by principled opponents of the death penalty, including progressive lawmakers, human rights organizations, religious leaders, and former federal judges.

Anthony Romero, executive director of the ACLU, applauded Biden's move Monday as "a historic and courageous step in addressing the failed death penalty in the United States—bringing us much closer to outlawing the barbaric practice once again."

"By commuting the sentences of 37 individuals on death row, President Biden has taken the most consequential step of any president in our history to address the immoral and unconstitutional harms of capital punishment," said Romero. "President Biden's actions also remove 37 individuals out of harm's way—as President-elect Trump has a proven penchant and track record of conducting rushed executions. In the last six months of his first term, President Trump executed 13 individuals—more than any administration in 120 years."

"The ACLU is proud to join countless advocates and civil and human rights organizations in thanking President Biden for his leadership and commitment to the highest principles of justice and humanity," Romero added.

The Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) said Monday that Biden's move "marks what could become a turning point in the history of capital punishment in the United States."

"Thirty years ago, then-Sen. Joe Biden championed the death penalty and took personal credit for dramatically expanding the number of crimes for which the death penalty could be imposed," the group said in a statement. "However, over the last three decades, troubling errors have emerged surrounding the use of capital punishment. Scores of wrongful convictions of innocent people, dramatic evidence of racial bias, and sometimes torturous executions have come to define the death penalty."

"There are now 200 people who have been proved innocent and released after being sentenced to death in the United States, some facing execution for decades before their exoneration," EJI added. "For every eight people executed in the last 50 years, one innocent person has been identified and set free. It is a shocking rate of lethal error that would likely be unacceptable in any other area of public safety, public health, or government oversight."

'Dangerous territory': Experts warn Trump’s 'sweeping tariffs' could destabilize 'dicey' US economy

Donald Trump with House Speaker Mike Johnson and others on December 14, 2024 (Wikimedia Commons)

Alex Henderson

December 24, 2024

ALTERNET

Some of President-elect Donald Trump's defenders have predicted that he will back down from his promise to impose major tariffs on Canada and Mexico after he returns to the White House in 2025.

But so far, Trump is showing no signs of backing down. And he had said that from Day One, he will impose 25 percent across-the-board tariffs on all products coming into the United States from those countries as well on products from Mainland Chiona.

During a Tuesday, December 24 appearance on CNBC's "Squawk Box," two economists — Elizabeth Pancotti, director of the Roosevelt Institute, and Veronique de Rugy (a senior research fellow for the Mercatus Center) — were confident that Trump would follow through with the "sweeping tariffs" he has promised. And Pancotti warned that they could be "inflationary."

Pancotti said, "I think we have an issue where Trump is signaling to the market, to CEOs, to other countries he's going to do the sweeping tariffs he campaigned on. And to some extent, they're not believing him — and even some senior advisers are saying: no, no, it won't be what you think it is.

The Roosevelt Institute senior director predicted, however, "there will be some pretty sweeping tariffs" during the "first 100 days" of Trump's second presidency "rather than the targeted and strategic tariffs" that the U.S. has had under President Joe Biden.

Those "sweeping tariffs," according to Pancotti, "could really place inflationary pressures throughout our economy."

De Rugy didn't disagree with Pancotti's predictions.

"I don't see how he's not doing it," De Rugy said, "and I also agree his cabinet and people around him are trying to reassure everyone around that, no, no, it's just a way to get lower tariffs around — around the world. But we're going to see. I mean, he's promised — his base is very pro-tariff, I assume, because they've been told how great it's going to make things."

De Rugy added that Trump is putting together a second administration that includes some "traditional" conservatives but is, overall, much different from his first one. And he is nominating people who have touted "all the great stuff you can do with tariffs."

De Rugy said, "I think we're going to see tariffs. I mean, we're going to see sweeping tariffs…. We're getting in dangerous territory. And let's not forget: inflation is not back to target. In fact, it's ticking up…. I think it's dicey out there."

'Let me stop you there': Fox News host refutes Trump lawsuit over 'Russia hoax'

David Edwards
December 22, 2024
RAW STORY

Fox News/screen grab

Fox News host Howard Kurtz suggested there were "no actual inaccuracies" in reporting by The New York Times and The Washington Post after President-elect Donald Trump sued the Pulitzer Prize Board for awarding the news organizations for work done to expose Russia's interference in the 2016 election.

"Trump has openly said, he doesn't make any secret of it, that if he loses these lawsuits, he's still satisfied because it puts the journalists or media organization through an ordeal and forces them to hire expensive lawyers," Kurtz explained to Fox News contributor Jason Chaffetz on Sunday.

Chaffetz, a former Republican lawmaker, argued Trump's lawsuits against news organizations and the Pulitzer Prize Board had "some very valid points."

"The Pulitzer Prize to hand out awards for people that were perpetuating what was proven to be an outright lie," Chaffetz argued.

"Wait, what's the outright lie?" Kurtz challenged. "Let me stop you there."

"Well, if you're going, for instance, on the Russia hoax, and they knew over the course of time that those were wrong, then I think the big question is, did they know it?" Chaffetz claimed. "When did they know it? Did they continue to do those types of things?"

"And so that's the type of thing that I think he's going to say, I can demonstrate, I can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that these things are fundamentally wrong, and you knew it, and you continue to perpetuate the lie," he added.

Kurtz, however, corrected the Republican contributor.

"Well, the Pulitzer board has said that there were no actual inaccuracies pointed out in the article submitted by the two papers, the Washington Post and the New York Times," the Fox News host said.

In a statement, the Pulitzer board said an independent review found "that no passages or headlines, contentions or assertions in any of the winning submissions were discredited by facts that emerged subsequent to the conferral of the prizes."

Watch the video below from Fox News.

Trump adviser: Giving rats cocaine 'is what is contributing so much' to national debt

David Edwards
December 24, 2024 

RAW STORY


Fox News/screen grab


Stephen Moore, an economic adviser to President-elect Donald Trump, argued that a $419,470 cocaine study on rats was what was contributing "so much" to the U.S. national debt.

In a Tuesday interview on Fox News, Moore reacted to Sen. Rand Paul's (R-KY) annual "Festivus" list that complained about spending programs he opposed.

Moore pointed to the $419,470 study on rats and $12 million to fund a pickleball complex in Las Vegas as prime offenders for creating national debt.

"I mean, pickleball, I love playing pickleball, but I don't think the federal government should be subsidizing it, or football stadiums, or there's another one where they're giving rats cocaine to see what happens when the rats take cocaine," Moore opined. "Gee, I wonder what happens under those circumstances. I mean, it just goes on and on and on."

"And this is what is contributing so much to our $35.5 trillion national debt," he added. "And frankly, those are the things that should just be eliminated. We don't have the money to do it."

Watch the video below or at this link.

UPDATED

President Musk Will See You Now (If You’re Bearing Money or Power)

By Abby Zimet

December 24, 2024

Source: Common Dreams


Image from meme on Bluesky

In this so-called holiday season, welcome to America’s “Mump regime,” governance of, by and for the oligarchs in which an erratic unelected white supremacist gazillionaire whose new hobby is buying presidents is cosplaying as shadow president to cash in – and fuck kids with cancer – alongside a senile grifter selling everything in sight: Bibles, sneakers, perfume, hotels, cabinet seats, diplomatic posts and democracy itself. Beware: Just to be clear, “We now have a criminal enterprise, not a government.”

With the tsunami of dark money and corporate coercion engulfing our politics, it’s unsurprising that ever-mercenary-president-elect-in-name-only Trump is assembling the richest administration in history, or what Jeff Tiedrich calls “a fucktangle of oligarchs (named) to his Confederacy of Sewer Clowns.” So far, there are 13 billionaires; of course they include Space Nazi Musk, the richest man in the world, and biotech kingpin Vivek Ramaswamy, who’ve been tasked with “improving the efficiency of government” by running it like a pitiless business and gutting vital services for millions of non-billionaires – food, heat, health care, education – in the name of brutal profit and an imaginary mandate to launch “a hostile takeover” of government “on behalf of the American people.” So much for Trump’s garbled “voice” of a working class – the rent is too damn high! – struggling to buy gas, eggs, bacon, butter, and other basics (let’s get real) foreign to a guy who’s likely never stepped foot in a grocery store.

Because all he really wants to do is help rich fat cats get richer and fatter, they’re flocking to gilded Mar-A- Hell-Go to kiss his gaudy ring, homage (albeit fake) the thin-skinned, unloved son of a tyrant is relishing: “Everyone wants to be my friend.” The latest is Jeff Bezos, whose flagrant fawning so mirrors Musk’s thatJimmy Fallon posited, “To settle who he loves more, Elon and Bezos are going to put Trump down in the middle of the room and see who he goes to first: ‘All right, here boy!’” But Musk is clearly more central, and in many ways more scary: A likely illegal alien and white supremacist who grew up in apartheid South Africa, made a fortune from a car that kills twice as many people as the industry average, and though foreign-born found a way to power by giving a useful idiot $277 million to become his puppet master. A good investment: Since the election, Musk has made $170 billion, most from Tesla and SpaceX investors eager to see him end all those pesky safety and labor rules that cut into profits.

Buying Trump was so profitable Never-Elected Pres. Musk is already malevolently branching out. He’s threatening people in Congress, including “jackass” moderates of both parties, with unseating them by throwing money at potential primary opponents if they dare to disagree with him. Governing by threat, tweet and financial heft comes so easily to the guy who quickly turned Twitter into a bigot-invested haven for hate akin to “a Munich beer hall hall in 1933” that he’s even telling Germans how to vote – for Nazis. “Only the AFD can save Germany,” he posted in defense of anti-immigrant fascists who want to purify Europe by casting out people it considers lesser, if not subhuman. Weirdly, he did it on the same day 100 years ago Hitler was released from a Bavarian prison, and the New York Times declared him a “tamed…sadder and wiser man” than when he’d tried to overthrow the government. “No longer to be feared,” they added, “it is believed he will retire to private life and return to Austria, the country of his birth.”

Of course the Space Nazi isn’t just meddling in Germany’s politics. Last week, utilizing what Adam Kinzinger called “all President Musk’s vast government experience,” he tried to kill a painstakingly forged bipartisan spending bill to keep the federal government running, something he admitted he has zero interest in ’cause how cool to just blow up everything and see what happens? Slamming the spending package as “one of the worst bills ever written” while offering no reason for the claim, he offered up his Very Important Opinion in over 100 posts, seemingly oblivious to its possible impact: hundreds of thousands of federal employees working without pay at Christmas, and oh yeah potentially eliminating funding for pediatric cancer research. Scott Fitzgerald on The Great Gatsby‘s Tom and Daisy: “They were careless people. They smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness (and) let other people clean up the mess they had made.”

In the end, relative if desperate reason prevailed, Congress cobbled together a stopgap compromise bill, and Shadow President Musk outmaneuvered Trump, who likely never knew it. Trump, who had mostly just demanded the debt ceiling be raised (again) so he could fund tax cuts for his plutocrat pals, got nothing. The world’s richest economic vampire, having been given “free rein to clownfuck America’s government,” got much of what he wanted, including killing reforms to bring down drug prices and restrictions on U.S. investments in China, where he has massive investments and his sordid bottom line “depends on staying in China’s good graces.” The idea of making him pay his fair share of taxes out of his billions to help with a soaring debt somehow never came up, and funding for kids with cancer still got stripped, because fuck kids with cancer. The online response from a righteous father whose daughter is a Stage 4 liver cancer survivor: “Fuck these ghouls to the lowest depths of hell.”

The messy tussle over the usually straightforward task of keeping Congress running serves as both a harbinger of the mayhem awaiting us as a GOP clown car of fools and hacks try to run the government, and a reflection of a surreal historic moment when, for instance, we kinda have three presidents, and will for a while: In a recent poll asking voters who, in authority if not title, will be president starting Jan. 20, Musk got 57%, Putin got 30%, and Trump got 8%. “How to call this thing that is coming to America in a month?” asks Timothy Snyder, author of On Tyranny. Snyder came up with the “Mump regime” – apt because it hints of illness – also “Trumpomuskovia” and “the pro-polio party.” And while Trump aides are furiously insisting to media he’s still the boss, many others have noticed “what Musk thinks tends to eventually be what Trump thinks” and argue, “If you have to explain, you’re losing.” Thus did the Lincoln Project, deciding “the (First) lady doth protest too much,” salute “Vice-President Trump.”

To be clear: Vice President Trump is no more coherent than convicted felon, adjudicated rapist, and candidate Trump; aka, “Sundowning Grandpa Befuddlepants is deteriorating by the day.” In his hallucinatory first post-election interview with Meet the Press, he raved, babbled, lied, made up stuff: “We’re going to do something with the border, very strong, very powerful…Our country is a crime pod….I saved Obamacare” (Welker: You tried to kill it, sir)…(After harassing the president of Mexico) I called the border and said, ‘How’s the border looking?’ They said, ‘There’s nobody here.’ They couldn’t believe it…” His 2nd grade report on watching one of Elno Skum’s rockets: “It’s coming down so fast…Then all of a sudden the jets go on….Then it’s almost stopped it…I said, what the hell’s going on? Nobody ever saw this before.” In a Sunday speech on smoke backstage: “I said, Hey, are there any steps in front of me? I don’t want to go. I go down. That would not be good. We don’t want to do nice and slow. But I just want to thank you.”

But demented or no, grifters gotta grift – especially with a half-billion bucks in legal debts – so he’s still hawking crap. Some are hefty gigs: Loathsome spawn Eric was just in Abu Dhabi at a Bitcoin confab to peddle their new crypto venture, en route to two $7.5 billion luxury hotel deals in Saudi Arabia, bone-saws notwithstanding. Following a long tawdry trail of failed Trump steaks, water, vodka, casinos, digital trading cards – “It’s your favorite president with some exciting news” – $1,500 guitars, $900 to $100,000 watches, $400 “Never Surrender” gold sneakers, “Fight Fight Fight” cologne – “It’s not just a scent, it’s a statement” – he’s returned to flogging his sticky-paged, made-in-China God Bless the USA and Lee Greenwood Bible – with Jesus’ words in red! – like the 3 a.m. shift at Home Shopping Network to celebrate his own miraculous election. “Faith is coming back to America, and FAST!” he proclaims. “The perfect gift for this Christmas.” Just $59.99, autographed for $1,000. Get yours today!

And if not a Bible, how about Panama? Or Greenland? Having threatened to turn Canada into our 51st state, Trump just randomly decreed Panama reduce its “ridiculous” fees for the Canal or the U.S. will reclaim it “in full, and without question.” In a post clearly written by someone else – it used “magnanimous” – he charged Jimmy Carter “foolishly gave it away for One Dollar” (wrong again) and the U.S. can’t let it “fall into the wrong hands,” like China’s. When Panama’s president insisted the Canal belongs to them, Trump turned middle-school bully with, “We’ll see about that!” and a picture of a U.S. flag over the Canal. Like King Kong beating his chest, then he abruptly returned his feeble attention to Greenland, demanding Denmark sell it to America because “ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity” for “National Security and Freedom throughout the World.” So a fragile “President Juice-Box” goes all Imperialist tantrum and vows to annex other countries to prove his manliness: Haven’t we seen this before?

To many, the preternaturally thin-skinned Trump’s flailing and posing seem inspired by his crush on and insecurity before a younger, richer, thinner, brasher, crueler, more articulate, more government-subsidized, more skillfully manipulative, more viciously cost-cutting, better-dancing and did we say way richer diva and alpha dog with even more staggering conflicts of interest who sure seems to be calling the dubious shots. And he has rockets! Oh no, are people laughing at him, his most dreaded nightmare? Social media is on it with a flood of memes, mash-ups, cartoons, titles. Trump is President Musk‘s First Lady, vice-president, chief-of-staff, mascot, fan-boy, dupe on bended knee. None of that tearful groveling, “Sir, sir, how do you do it, sir?” Rumor has it the richest oligarch in the world might even buy Mar-A-Lago, at a fire-sale-price from the aging Art of the Deal buffoon, so he can launch freebie rockets from there while fueling bigotry online. One sage: “We were all afraid Trump was the next Hitler, but it’s Musk.”

There’s so much speculation about who’s running the malevolent circus that a tweet circulated last week of Trump clarifying, “I am the president-elect”; he’s grateful for Musk’s help, but “time to stay in your lane.” It was fake, but he’s rattled enough by Musk’s soaring profile he did speak up Sunday at Turning Point’s lunatic Gathering of the MAGAlos. Monotonically drugged, he lauded Musk for his future efficient cutting of pediatric cancer research before adding, “No, he’s not taking the president” (sic). Whipping out his imaginary accordion, he cited the “new hoax” he’d ceded the presidency to Musk. “No-o, that’s not happening…I can tell you,” he said to silence from the crowd. “And I’m safe. You know why? He can’t – he wasn’t born in this country. Ha ha ha!” Yeah, totally normal. To confirm that, it seems we’re to call Mar-A-Lago at 561-832-2600 and ask to speak to President Musk. Another good, normal action: Write to Vice President Donald Trump at 1100 S. Ocean Blvd, Palm Beach, FL 33480 asking him how to get tickets to President Musk’s inauguration. It’ll be America’s shining hour.

Trump’s chief of staff worried about 'shadow president' Musk leading him 'by the nose': analysis

Donald Trump with Elon Musk and House Speaker Mike Johnson on November 16, 2024 (Wikimedia Commons)

Alex Henderson

December 24, 2024

ALTERNET

When House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) was making a last-minute effort to get a spending bill passed and avoid a federal government shutdown, billionaire Elon Musk threatened primary challenges against any GOP lawmakers who voted for a bill he didn't like.

Some Democrats, in response, mockingly referred to the Tesla/SpaceX CEO as "President Musk." The actual president-elect, Donald Trump — who is proposing a new advisory committee that would be called the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and headed by Musk and MAGA businessman Vivek Ramaswamy — didn't appreciate that at all.

Speaking at a Turning Point USA event, Trump told the MAGA crowd, "No, he's not going to be president, that I can tell you. And I'm safe. You know why he can't be? He wasn't born in this country."

READ MORE: Elon Musk isn't the only CEO suck-up to Trump

But Salon's Amanda Marcotte, in a biting article published on December 24, argues that Musk has been acting like a "shadow president" — and that Musk has been leading the "aging and tired" Trump around "by the nose."

"Most importantly, the process thoroughly exposed Musk's hold over Trump," Marcotte emphasizes. "Democrats started the 'President Musk' meme, and, predictably, Trump's narcissism has led to defensiveness. First, Trump's spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt put out a statement insisting, 'President Trump is the leader of the Republican Party. Full stop.'"

By describing the Tesla CEO as "President Musk," Marcotte writes, Democrats are "accusing Musk of being the true power behind the throne."

One of the Democrats who has had a lot to say about Musk is progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York City.

READ MORE: 'Blindsided' and 'furious' Trump turned Elon Musk loose on House leadership: insider

In a video posted on X, formerly Twitter — which Musk owns — AOC said, "When Elon tweets something and when Trump tweets something…. Republicans don't know who their daddy is. They don't know which one they need to be listening to first."

AOC went on to say that Musk "poses real political problems for Trump" and "arguably…. may rival his power and influence."

Marcotte observes, "It appears Trump's nominee for chief of staff, Susie Wiles, is aware it's bad news to let Musk worm his way into being the shadow president. Despite all the mainstream media hype after Trump created 'DOGE' — the Department of Government Efficiency — cooler heads noticed that this Musk-led initiative is not a real government agency, but a 'presidential advisory committee.'"

The Salon journalist argues that Republicans, after "having spent years kowtowing to Trump's narcissism" are now "turning their practice towards lavish public obsequiousness to Musk."

"No telling how this all plays out," Marcotte writes, "except that it will be chaotic."

Amanda Marcotte's full article for Salon is available at this link.

Ketamine and governance shouldn't mix

Sabrina Haake
December 24, 2024 

Tennis - U.S. Open - Flushing Meadows, New York, United States - September 8, 2024 Elon Musk is seen during the final match between Italy's Jannik Sinner and Taylor Fritz of the U.S. REUTERS/Mike Segar/File Photo

Psychedelic drugs hit the news last week just as Elon Musk, America’s unelected oligarch, started blowing up the government, because, chaos.

Musk, who is clueless about how government works, killed a short term spending bill that would have kept government open through March, provided money for cash-strapped farmers, and provided FEMA disaster relief, all while posting juvenile clues of his cluelessness.

Musk also regularly doses on ketamine. NYT calls ketamine a “life-changing psychedelic drug” used “for when life is ending.” Musk, whose life is not ending anytime soon, uses ketamine to reduce his “negative chemical states like depression,” and says he uses the drug once every other week “or something like that.”


Ketamine blocks existential angst, but what else does it block?

Ketamine is a powerful anesthetic used in psychedelic therapy, like LSD, and is often prescribed for psychiatric conditions. Increasingly, it is also prescribed to patients facing end-of-life or terminal diagnoses to help them overcome angst based on fear of imminent death.

One palliative care specialist reported that patients taking ketamine experience a profound relief from fear and anxiety, and that ketamine “provides an alternative perspective of the end-of-life experience they are having.” Another therapist reported that she was startled by the results when she began administering ketamine to patients facing terminal illness: although they were still dying, most lost their fear of it.


The use of psychedelic compounds like Ketamine has not been researched enough to know the long term- or even short term- effects. Most concerning, neuroscientists aren’t exactly sure how psychedelic drugs work to alleviate existential distress, they just know they do. MDMA, the first such compound to be reviewed by the F.D.A., recently failed to win F.D.A. approval due to an absence of data and clinical trials tracking short and long term effects.

Scientists know that persistent negative thoughts, angst and negative emotions can calcify neural pathways, and that neuroplasticity, or rewiring those pathways through the use of psychedelics, allows patients to see life from a completely re-wired perspective. Sometimes with just one treatment, terminal patients report that their fear of death disappears entirely.

But for people who are not facing imminent death, is it really healthy or even desirable to lose all fear of it?


During the budget fiasco, Musk posted 100+ feverish tweets with misleading or outright false claims to kill the funding deal. Among other juvenile rants, he posted, “Just close down the govt until January 20th. Defund everything. We will be fine for 33 days.” He posted in a separate tweet that a federal government shutdown “doesn’t actually shut down critical functions.”

He’s a complete governance idiot, but all Trump sees, because he is an intellectual midget, is Space-X. Trump assumes that since Musk works with rockets and technology, Musk is informed on all things; it's a dangerous assumption any teenage boy might make.

Ketamine, according to doctors who prescribe it, is wildly effective at suppressing fear of death, even in patients facing imminent death. But for people like Musk who aren’t facing death, I’m not so sure losing fear of death is a good thing. I’m not sure a giant national defense contractorshould have an “alternative perspective” of what death actually means, because for the rest of us who aren’t on ketamine, death means we’re dead and it’s not a temporary condition.


A certain amount of fear is necessary

Fear of death is the healthy evolutionary guide that keeps us from touching the same hot stove twice. The implication of someone who has no fear of death setting national policy of any kind is comic-book cliché ominous.

I’m no neuroscientist. I’m no therapist either, I’m just a lawyer with a big mouth. But I do know that scientists don’t know exactly how these drugs work, because they’ve said so. They have no idea how ketamine effects different parts of the brain like receptors and neurotransmitters, or how it might suppress survival instincts along with fear. Most scientists acknowledge the need for larger, academically rigorous studies before psychedelic drugs are declared F.D.A. safe for consumption.

Just putting two and two together, if ketamine eradicates fear, wouldn’t it also eradicate compassion? Compassion comes from empathizing with the suffering of others, drawing from our own suffering. But if ketamine blocks fear and mental suffering, we don’t have those negative experiences to draw on to enable us to sympathize with others.

Only a pathological lack of compassion would allow the world’s richest man-- who will never need social security, VA benefits or Medicaid-- to cut those lifelines for everyone else. Only a lack of compassion would allow Musk to sabotage the budget bill, throw the government into disarray a week before Christmas, and demand that money for child cancer research be eliminated from the budget deal.

And, if my no fear/no compassion theory has legs, what’s the end game? Why would Musk, with the emotional maturity of a pre-pubescent teen, stop at axing government benefits for people who need them to survive? Musk has shown a complete lack of limits: he engaged in election fraud to get Trump elected, spread disinformation openly, and admitted that his million dollar a day “lottery” wasn’t even a lottery. He clearly suffers from the same above-the-law king complex infecting Trump, except his complex is heightened with psychoactive drugs.

Watching Trump and Musk playing at destruction just for fun and power reminds me of ignorant punks who put firecrackers in a dog’s mouth just to watch him suffer, egged on by other ignorant punks. They are the lowest creatures among us.

Unless Biden hides the nuclear codes, pretty soon we’ll all need ketamine just to stop the existential fear of what’s next.

Behind the major influences on Elon Musk

Elon Musk with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (Wikimedia Commons)

Alex Henderson

December 25, 2024

ALTERNET


Some Democrats have been jokingly describing Elon Musk as "President Musk," which is their way of saying that the billionaire CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and X (formerly Twitter) has way too much influence on the Republican Party and President-elect Donald Trump's incoming second administration.

The "President Musk" meme was used a lot during recent budget negotiations in the U.S. House of Representatives when Musk threatened House Republicans with primary challenges if they voted for any bills he disliked.

In an article published by the New York Times the day before Christmas 2024, reporters Theodore Schleifer, Ryan Mac, Lily Boyce and Kirsten Grind list some "people who influence Mr. Musk right now, and those whom he influences in turn."

"They are longtime friends, investors, staff members or party buddies — and sometimes, those boundaries blur," the journalists explain. "They shape how Mr. Musk operates and views the world. Many have propped him up, in the good times and the bad, and some now stand to gain from his new position in U.S. politics."

The "backers" listed include venture capitalists Steve Jurvetson, John Hering and Marc Andreessen; Shaun Maguire and Roelof Botha of the firm Sequoia Capital; Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison; and former PayPal CEO Peter Thiel.

Although Thiel expressed libertarian views in the past, some say he has taken a far-right MAGA turn and is now a major donor to MAGA Republicans.

The Times reporters note, "Mr. Thiel and Mr. Musk are members of the so-called PayPal Mafia, a group of founders and early employees of the payments company. While Mr. Thiel helped oust Mr. Musk from the company decades ago, he has recently become a political ally and supporter. Vice President-elect JD Vance once worked for Mr. Thiel's venture capital firm, and Mr. Thiel was the one who introduced the running mates."

Schleifer, Mac, Boyce and Grind also list some of Musk's allies in Trump World and the MAGA movement, who, they report, include former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, Trump adviser Stephen Miller, investor Nelson Peltz and MAGA businessman Vivek Ramaswamy.

Trump has proposed a new advisory committee that would be called the Department of Government Ethics (DOGE), and he would like Musk and Ramaswamy to lead it.

Read the New York Times' full article at this link (subscription required).

'He's not taking the presidency': Trump fumes about 'President Musk' at MAGA conference

David Edwards
December 22, 2024 

RAW STORY

Real America's Voice/screen grab

President-elect Donald Trump used a speech to MAGA supporters to strongly push back on claims that billionaire Elon Musk had effectively taken over his presidency

While speaking to Turning Point USA's AmFest conference attendees on Sunday, Trump argued that "big companies" wanted him to cut regulations more than slashing taxes.

"And we will create the new Department of Government Efficiency headed by Elon Musk," he said. "And no, he's not taking the presidency."

"You know, the — they're on a new kick, Russia, Russia, Russia, Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine, all the different hoaxes," the president-elect continued. "The new one is President Trump has ceded the presidency to Elon Musk. No, no, that's not happening. But Elon's done an amazing job."

Trump praised Musk's business ventures before returning to the subject of the presidency.

"But no, he's not going to be president that I can tell you," he insisted. "And I'm safe. You know why? He can't be."


ALSO READ: It’s time to decimate the Republicans’ standing with the public — and the press

"He wasn't born in this country. Ha, ha, ha. But the fake news knows that."

Over the past week, Democrats have said Trump ceded his leadership over the Republican Party to "President Musk" after the billionaire led the charge to derail a bill that would have prevented a government shutdown.

Watch the video below from Real America's Voice or at the link..

Why ABC settled a case they knew they would win — and why the Lincoln Project didn't

Sabrina Haake
December 21, 2024 

RAW STORY


Rick Wilson - MSNBC screenshot


Since 2012, the U.S. Dept. of Justice has defined rape as bodily “penetration, no matter how slight… with any body part or object… without the consent of the victim.” To be redundant, no penis is required.

On May 9, 2023, a New York jury determined that Donald Trump had shoved his unwelcome fingers inside E. Jean Carroll’s genitals, after he pushed her against a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room wall, and that he later defamed her. Trump’s ‘what’s a little groping among friends’ defense argued that $5m in damages was excessive because the jury didn’t say Trump raped Carroll, only that he sexually assaulted her.Trump’s claim led presiding U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan to clarify in a memorandum that, in legal parlance, inserting anything into a woman’s vagina against her will, including Trump’s nasty fingers, was, indeed, rape:

The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was ‘raped’ within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape…’ Indeed, as the evidence at trial recounted below makes clear, the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.


ABC settled a case they knew they would win

Months after Kaplan’s clarification of the jury’s finding, ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos said on the air that Trump was found liable for rape. Because Trump relies on frivolous lawsuits to silence his critics and uses protracted and unethical litigation as his bullwhip, he sued ABC for defamation.

Given Kaplan’s clarification that the jury found Trump had legally raped Carroll, Stephanopoulos’s on-air statement was judgement proof. And yet, to protect separate corporate interests of its parent company, Disney, ABC News decided to ‘settle’ the case, pay Trump $15m, and officially apologize for telling the truth.


Under controlling jurisprudence on the free press, Times v. Sullivan, Trump had no chance of winning the case because he would have to prove Stephanopoulos spoke with reckless disregard of the truth, a finding blocked by the presiding judge’s clarification of ‘rape.’ ABC’s decision to pay Trump and apologize nonetheless is an Orwellian warning that, when covering an ascendent fascist, up will be down and down will be up, and only Trump can decide which is which.

The Lincoln Project shows us how it’s done

ABC’s capitulation is a study in contrast with another 1st Amendment case from last week. In Flynn v. Wilson, right wing provocateur Mike Flynn sued Rick Wilson, one of the founders of the Lincoln Project, a group of republicans committed to fighting Trump’s criminality.


For context, Flynn was Trump’s former national security advisor who championed using the military to overthrow the federal government after Biden won in 2020. Flynn also admitted he lied to the FBI about communications with Russia in order to protect Trump, a performative ‘admission’ since the FBI already had him on a wiretap doing what he claimed he hadn’t.

Following Flynn’s dalliance with Putin, Wilson referred to him on X as "Putin employee Mike Flynn," retweeting separately that, "FYI, Mike Flynn is Q." In Wilson’s book, “Everything Trump Touches Dies: A Republican Strategist Gets Real About the Worst President Ever,” Wilson wrote that “Flynn, a disgraced former army general was so outrageously in bed with the Russians that even Trump was forced to fire him.”

Taking a page out of Trump’s lawfare book, Flynn sued Wilson for defamation. Flynn argued that although he’d been paid for speaking at a Russian RT event, it wasn’t legally the same thing as being “a Putin employee” (just like rape isn’t the same as sexual assault). Flynn also argued that there was a difference between being "Q" and marketing products and conspiracy theories associated with Q, which Flynn could hardly deny. Wilson moved for summary judgment, arguing that his tweets were protected opinion and that Flynn could not prove he acted with "actual malice.”


Last week the Florida Court of Appeals agreed with Wilson and affirmed the lower court’s dismissal. Citing N.Y. Times Co. v. Sullivan, the appellate court found “no error in the trial court's determinations that Flynn's lawsuit against Wilson lacked merit and that it was brought "primarily" because of Wilson's exercise of his First Amendment rights.” Whether Flynn was a Putin employee or, in fact, embodied “Q,” was splitting hairs as to the overall message Wilson was conveying: that Trump’s own national security advisor was a moron who supported Russian interests over the U.S.

Journalists worried about Trump’s vexatious litigation should tape the appellate court’s conclusion to their refrigerators for courage: “We (have) a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks… Like it or not, such attacks are a characteristic feature of our democracy… Wilson's tweets may not have been polite, and they may not have been fair. But the First Amendment required neither, and so we affirm.”

Corporate elites are digging their own graves


In Trump v. ABC, the president of ABC News was no doubt opposed to caving to Trump on his specious claim. But ABC News has a bigger boss: the Disney corporation. Bob Iger, the $31 million a year CEO of Disney, calculated that making nice with an unhinged president was in Disney’s long term corporate interests, free speech be damned.

ABC’s capitulation reflects a chilling pattern among corporate-owned media outlets: Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Washington Post’s Jeff Bezosand Time magazine’s Mark Benioff have all similarly and prematurely capitulated to Trump. L.A. Times’ Patrick Soon-Shiong groveled even lower, killing an editorial criticizing Trump’s clown-car cabinet picks. Soon-Shiong has now officially limited the L.A. Times’ criticism of Trump.

Each of these CEOs acted to subordinate the 1st Amendment- and thereby democracy itself- to the bottom line of their other corporate concerns. For Bezos, it’s Amazon and Blue Origin, a federal NASA contractor. For Soon-Shiong, it’s for-profit healthcare corporation NantWorks, involved with federal vaccine distribution. For Benioff, it’s Salesforce’s lucrative contracts with the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, while Altman’s Open AI is positioned to become a major contractor with the Pentagon.

These corporate tycoons, prematurely capitulating on free speech to protect their unrelated corporate interests, have demonstrated the perils of for-profit legacy media. Doing so, they have all but guaranteed that Trump will attempt to imprison his media critics. They need a reminder of their own, taped to their sub-zero refrigerators, from the BBC’s History Magazine:

Many members of (Germany’s corporate elites) thought Hitler was going to be the useful idiot who was going to play their games… they wanted to ride the Nazi movement like a horse.. They would use the momentum and the political potential of the Nazi party (to advance their corporate interests) but still keep it at bay… Within three or four months, they discovered that they were the horse and that Hitler was the horseman.


Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25 year litigator specializing in 1st and 14th Amendment defense. She writes the free Substack, The Haake Take.

There's only one way left to fight the power of the right-wing media apparatus

John Stoehr
December 19, 2024
ALTERNET




On Friday, ABC News settled a lawsuit brought by Donald Trump over statements made on air by anchor George Stephanopoulos.

These statements were true. Stephanopoulos said Trump had been found civilly liable for rape. The judge in the case said so. Trump didn’t like Stephanopoulos telling the truth. He sued him and his employer.

And they caved.

ABC News and Stephanopoulos are going to give $15 million to Trump’s presidential library, wherever and wherever that will be built. They also plan to issue an apology on air for speaking truthfully about Trump.

This is a BFD, though it may not seem that way.

In libel law, the truth is the best defense. You can’t defame someone, legally speaking, if what you’re saying is true. You can’t be held liable for injury to their reputation. This is not to mention the impossibility of injuring the reputation of a public figure like Trump, who just won an election. Stephanopoulos could have accused him of having unlawful carnal knowledge of pigs. It would not have injured him.


So ABC News almost certainly would have won on the merits, if the case got beyond a judge’s dismissal. But Disney, its corporate owner, apparently saw advantage for itself by giving in to Trump’s bullying.

Good news for ABC News, maybe, but not for other media groups and individuals who trade in facts. This settlement will bode poorly for reporters who displease Trump. It suggests that he will be emboldened to sue them into silence. (Indeed, Yesterday, he said he would sue Iowa pollster Ann Selzer for being wrong in her final 2024 poll. This morning he filed suit.) The ABC settlement also suggests that employers will betray reporters if betrayal is politically expedient. Stephanopoulos spoke truthfully, but his bosses now side with Trump against him.

Moreover, the settlement makes our illiberal information climate worst. The Washington press corps is already captive to the rightwing media apparatus. That is, it already outsources its agenda-setting power to it. Politics stories are now frequently framed by nonpartisan editors according to terms preferential to Trump and the GOP. You don’t need to be a rabid follower of Steve Bannon to be ignorant of the good that’s done by the Democrats. All you need to do is read Politico.


The already corrupt state of our information climate might not be so terrible if the Democratic Party had its own media apparatus with which to complete with Trump’s for the attention of voters and the press, but it does not. As Matthew Sheffield told me in the interview below, there is, as of right now, no funding for anything remotely close to the size, scope and power of the rightwing media apparatus.

Things were bad before the ABC News story broke. The Democrats have no counter to the rightwing media apparatus, and to the otherwise neutral observers in the press corps who are attuned to it.

Things are worse now. The press corps might be corrupt but at least it would report bad news about Trump. Now, with Trump in a position to litigate them into silence (or harass them with threats of criminal prosecution), the Democrats might soon not have even that.


JS: Since the election, I have been saying the true axis in politics is not liberal-conservative. It is not left-right. It is true-false. People who understood the facts tended to vote for Kamala Harris. People who believed lies tended to vote for Trump. This is due to the power of what I call the rightwing media apparatus. Am I wrong? If so, how so?

MS: I think that's correct. It didn’t start that way, that the left-right divide was predominantly about true and false, but it became that way after the Republican Party was taken over by the virulently anti-government reactionaries who voted in Barry Goldwater in 1964.

Since then, they have grown their ranks by introducing new false beliefs. It began with people who thought that the government was always evil and could never help people (Ronald Reagan's formulation that "government is the problem, not the solution"). They expanded that to the idea that biology was a lie promulgated by evil secular humanists. Then, under Trump, they expanded that to include attacks on sound public health measures, like fluoride in water and vaccines.


Oftentimes, whether someone has college education is used as an ersatz measure of how Trumpy they are, but that’s not the real divide.

It's about cognition. The objective evidence is that people with lower cognitive skills tend to be socially conservative or tend to be in the unaligned middle where facts are few and far between.

Ultimately, democracy requires an informed citizenry that understands how to think properly. This is why the right attacks public education so vehemently. They need ignorance in order to win, as I discussed on a recent episode of my Theory of Changepodcast.


JS: You call it the Republican ecosystem. I think a lot of liberal-lefty types think of it as a cop out, as in: Harris lost because she was a bad candidate. Don't blame the media. But I don't think many understand how large the ecosystem is -- how it can and did make the difference in this election. Can you explain to how media trumped policy?

MS: Dedicated followers of politics, and even many who work in it, oftentimes become invested in the candidates themselves.

But ultimately, political systems matter more than candidates.


What Trump or Harris say they'll do is important, but millions of people do not pay much, if any, attention to the specific policy declarations. They may not even know who is running. Right before the election, Google searches for "did Biden drop out" spiked. Millions of Americans who were able to vote had no idea that President Biden was not even on the ballot. It's astonishingly, and depressingly, true.

Just as another example of what I'm talking about: during the 2016 race, 41 percent of adults were unable to give the names of Mike Pence and Tim Kaine as the running mates of Trump and Hillary Clinton.

This is the level of ignorance that we're up against.

And it gets worse.


According to a post-2024 election survey, 45 percent of swing voters (ie, people who were open to voting for Trump or Harris) said they got their news from social media. The number was even higher, 52 percent, among people who had voted for Trump for the first time ever. By contrast, only 39 percent of swing voters watched local news and just 15 percent said they read national newspapers like the Times.

JS: Do the Democrats take ignorance seriously enough?

MS: Ignorance is ultimately fatal to democracy, because in a democratic society, the responsibility of governance rests upon the shoulders of the public. If the public does not know the difference between what is true or false, then it will make bad decisions.


Authoritarians who want to repeal democracy and pluralism can only do so through manipulating people. For decades, people on the center-to-left have generally outsourced educating the population to K-12 schools and public universities. But learning is something that takes place throughout our lifetimes, whether we realize it or not.

And so people who want to have economic and social justice need to educate the public about our viewpoints through all kinds of media (websites, podcasts, videos, memes, etc) and also through local organizations like service clubs and unions.

Our society has lost "third spaces" where we can come together and learn from each other, and more especially to partake in our community's collective memory. Without real progressive infrastructure, we are leaving people to be manipulated by authoritarian religion and deceptive media outlets like Fox.


Research has shown that people who are most likely to get sucked into authoritarian cults like QAnon and hardcore Trumpism are alone and isolated. Many of them gravitate toward the only people who are there. The same thing often happens with young people and gangs.

JS: What are the Democrats doing wrong? It seems to me they have no answer. Just hope that Trump, now that he has power, will implode.

MS: As of this moment, there are no funded political ecosystem projects. This absolutely must change as soon as possible.

As someone who has seen both sides of the political spectrum from the inside, it was a complete shock to me when I moved leftward that there was nothing to offset the massive rightwing media machine, which I helped build (for more about why I left the right, see this link.

There have been some encouraging signs recently, however.

Greg Sargent interviewed three candidates for chair of the Democratic National Committee. Ben Wikler, who is currently chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, made a very encouraging remark: “It’s the people least likely to seek out information about either party who we lost in this election. They’re generally younger, more working class.”

For the party, Wikler said, “solving the information problem has to be a core focus,” requiring a “constant effort to get out of our heads and into the minds of the extraordinarily diverse electorate that is getting information from a dizzying array of places.”

Minnesota Chair Ken Martin and former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley also made important remarks about Democrats' ecosystem disadvantage. I encourage people to check out Sargent’s column.

Ken Martin made an especially important remark also about how Democrats have become addicted to ineffective television ads that have zero lasting impact. And they take away money from the thousands of center-left commentators who would love nothing more than to be paid to advocate against the Republican Party's extremism and for a shared future where everyone has a chance.