While I would really, REALLY like to swear off writing about politics, I just can’t during this very stressful election year — which is why I’m sharing (and totally agreeing with) Robert Reich’s latest Substack post:
Friends,
Nikki Haley won the Republican primary in Washington, D.C., yesterday, with about 63 percent of the vote to Donald Trump’s 33 percent, securing all 19 available delegates, and becoming the first woman to ever win a Republican presidential primary.
To be sure, the contest was tiny: Just over 2,000 Republicans voted in the overwhelmingly Democratic city of Washington. But I admire Nikki Haley’s tenacity.
On the other hand, I’m learning something disturbing about other Trump opponents, both Democrats and Republicans.
When I served in Bill Clinton’s Cabinet, one of my favorite progressive lawmakers was Jim McDermott, who represented Seattle from 1989 to 2017. Jim had a long and distinguished legislative record. In his final year in Congress, he became one of the most trenchant critics of Donald Trump. He’s still criticizing Trump — from his safe house.
Soon after Trump was elected in 2016, Jim blasted him for issuing inflammatory tweets, such as claiming without evidence that millions of people had voted illegally in the presidential election. Jim also openly worried about future sessions of Congress. “I think it’s going to be a very tough … helping the new president understand how a democracy actually works.”
Jim is now living in Civrac-en Medoc, a town of a few hundred people in western France, north of Bordeaux.
In a recent interview with Elizabeth Becker, a former Washington Post correspondent, Jim said he’s getting calls from former colleagues in Congress who fear what a vengeful Trump might do if reelected.
They wonder how to gauge the seriousness of Trump’s increasingly dire threats to American democracy and potentially to them and their families. “They are scared to do what I did — [to expatriate from the U.S.] — but are scared to stay,” Jim said. He tells them: “If you can afford it, buy a second home in France, or Spain, or Portugal, wherever … a second home that could become a safe house.”
I’ve heard similar concerns in recent months from lawmakers, officials, prosecutors, journalists, and celebrities who have been publicly critical of Trump.
They worry about Trump’s promise of “retribution” if reelected, his intention to direct the Justice Department to investigate “every Marxist prosecutor in America,” his claim that his indictments have “released the genie out of the box” that would allow him to weaponize the government against his opponents, and his vow to “root out … the radical-left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.”
They’re also concerned about the apparent willingness of Trump’s followers to resort to violence against his opponents.
A third of Republicans agree with the statement that “true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.” Among Republicans with a favorable view of Trump, 41 percent now agree that violence may be necessary. (By contrast, 22 percent of independents and 13 percent of Democrats agree.)
“It only takes one crackpot, like the guy who tried to kill Paul Pelosi,” one former lawmaker told me.
I never thought this nation would get to a point where critics and opponents of a potential United States president begin to wonder whether to leave the country to keep themselves and their families safe. That’s standard for critics of bloodthirsty dictators like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un, but in America?
Elizabeth Becker asks, rhetorically: Is the United States facing a situation so dangerous that you would be foolish if you didn’t have a backup plan? Is it hyperbole to imagine the country sliding into authoritarian rule that would unleash violence, retribution, and repression?
I hope not. But the mere fact the question is being posed is itself a frightening commentary on where we’ve come — and may be heading.
Every American, including Jim McDermott, has a right to live where they feel safe, of course. And if they can afford a “backup plan,” they may be wise to consider one.
But I hope people with Jim’s principles and abilities — and Nikki Haley’s tenacity — remain here to defend America against Trump’s threats to democracy, even if he’s defeated in November.
So much of what Robert writes has been my own personal fear … that Trump will carry out the several threats he has made (openly and covertly) against those who have been publicly critical of him.
This man’s vengeful nature should NEVER be ignored! And the individual who does dismiss Trump’s vindictive temperament is most certainly living in a fairytale land.
Image by Sabine Kroschel from Pixabay
We’re fucked.
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Democracy cannot survive when partisanship rules the day. When you only care about the letter behind the candidates name, and you ignore the brazen criminal behaviors they engaged in when they didn’t get their way, you are the problem – you are the reason that democracy fails.
I can only hope that Americans actually have more sense than what the polls seem to indicate.
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only hope is his laziness and incompetence and poor health will overcome his meanness
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I strongly doubt anything will overcome his “meanness.”
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The only ray of hope comes with his age. If we can outlive him, we might have a chance. A mob-based rule such as he commands rises and falls with the leader. Once Hitler was gone, so was his group of followers.
it’s a kind of hypnosis, isn’t it.
I simply cannot comprehend what one old fat man can do to a country like this, to the extent of trying to tear apart the White House and hang people. dear lord in heaven. And he gave it away every time he made a speech. the Klan. ’Nice fellas. I like ’em”. warning flag. The not quite subtle nazi salute at his first rally. He didn’t do it again, but the image endures.
I’m also amazed that no one has tried to take him out.
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If only the problem was actually Trump and not Trumpism. Trump is the symptom of the problems, not the cause.
Don’t get me wrong, he’s very dangerous, but somebody else could easily take up where he left off.
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agreed, but his fans would have a difficult time accepting a non-Trump leader. I think people like this, with that immense ego and immense presence are seriously hard to replicate. For good or ill, a Trump follower would not be as nearly enthusiastic over a new leader. And let us not forget that boyish charm when he says something right…ah, the smirk, the squinty eyes, the toofy smile…
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“a Trump follower would not be as nearly enthusiastic over a new leader.”
Maybe. Maybe not. While I agree there’s an aspect of personality cult involved, I think the problems run much deeper.
They like Trump because they’ve fallen for his right wing populism (RWP). RWP works for a variety of reasons, particularly when there’s some kind of economic crisis, or a lot people feel like they’re not being treated fairly. Note that RWP doesn’t actually have solution to the problems, and actually makes some of the problems even worse, but it’s seductive.
RWP is building up steam in my own country That populism is working on the very same foundations that Trump works on – anger, fear, resentment, identity politics, and that strong sense of nationalism. There are ways to combat RWP, but it’s not easy and it takes time, because the problems that it exploits were created over decades.
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I am a total doomer. Heck if you all listened to what’s in my Apple Music library😳.
But….
i know history. 600,000 people died during the Civil War. Black people were re-enslaved after Reconstruction by Jim Crow. Thomas Jefferson passed the Alien and Sedition Act to outlaw political expressions. U.S. Grant and Harding had levels of corruption that Trump could only dream of. There were thousands of bombings in the 1920s and late 60s. The steel mill and coal mine owners hired private thugs that killed hundreds of strikers.
Bottom line: Humanity is always been fucked. Many of the other countries have their own issues. LePen’s party controls many French Mediterranean cities. Italy is an economic, demographic, and political disaster led by a series of Trump wannabes. Spain looks like it wants to devolve into a collection of separatist enclaves. Some countries in Eastern Europe are playing footsies with Putin. In Sweden the Iraqi “refugees” in Malmo are settling gang battles with car bombings. Finland elected hard right party to power.
I like Reich. But there is a bit of tribal disaster porn here which sounds a lot like what you hear on the right in the dire and dour claims of treason and doom associated with Biden.
So yeah. Scary times. Always been scary times.
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Didn’t realize you were such an historian!! Your comment certainly reemphasizes the saying … “There’s nothing new under the sun.”
All I can say at this point is I hope we can bypass some of the the scary times that electing Trump would generate.
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I’m not downplaying the awfulness of Trump. Only noting there are so many awful American Presidents (maybe not nearly AS awful, but). And look at the guy the Argentines just elected, FFSMS.
I read Thom Hartmann, too… and sometimes I wonder if I should just pop a few Fentanyls!!!!
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Scary times lead people to make scared choises. To be exact, here in Finland the government was formed by moderate Conservatives, but they needed several minor right-wing parties to form a majority in the parliament. One of these is the Nationalist Populist party and this has meant minister appointments to crazies, racists and even a known molester of women. Their policy has been cutting government spending, but in reality they have only managed to transfer income from the poor to the rich. (No surprice there.)
What is actually happening in Sweden, is that the motorcyckle gangs, that have organized the drug trafiking from the late 1980’s have grown old – literally. The gangers are old and those with some degree of precense of mind have retired after growing rich, while a major part of the rest have ended up in prison. This has left an opening for new “entrepeneuership” and now a few new criminal gangs are fighting to establish feeding order. I still remember when the motorcyckle clubs took over the business here and it was ugly. They were shooting at each other with what they could get their hands on. Because of the war in Yugoslavia there were some military grade weapons about and grenades were thrown and even bazookas shot. Today the Swedish gangs are using home made bombs, because they have limited access to actual guns. The right-wing populists are trying to write this of as an immigration problem because the gang leaders are hiding in Iraq and Croatia outside the reach of Swedish law enforcement and because they have recruited among the poor kids of immigrant descendants, whose poverty is an anomaly in rich Sweden, though it is because many of their parents came to the country with nothing but traumas of the wars, persecution and even torture they escaped. It is easy to gain popularity by pointing as the cause of trouble the “outsider”, because rather than repair the problems of their own society, people love to be told, that none of it is their fault. Violent crime rates are relatively low in Sweden in comparrison to almost any other country, but people get scared by the headlines about the bombs and when scared they have a need to recognize the potential threats. Then to tell them skin colour is an easy way to make the call satisfies their need for security, but it is a lie and it only causes certain type of people so singled out to feel themselves outside the society and eventually outside law, making the recruitment for criminals that much easier.
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Thanks for the additional details, R…and the corrections!!!
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Oh, I do not think I had to “correct” anything you said. I just happen to have a seat very close to these two shows on politics and indeed scary developments of the general plot, so to speak.
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part of the problem is the abundance of publicity concerning every country, often as the bomb hits, or the terrorists take over. We no longer get second-hand newsreel footage of what happened a month ago in Iran or six weeks ago in a small island off the coast of Spain…it was distant, and touched few of us.
If you didn’t listen to the radio at night, after work, you might even miss the news about a bombing in the next state, until the paper came out on Friday. We are now bombarded by news from all over the world, even as it happens. That has to raise the anxiety levels. Everything touches us now, in all directions. That only adds to the unease.
In a way it’s like sitting in the waiting room at the dentist’s, and you can hear the screams , and know that’s probably going to be you in a few minutes…
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The 24 hr news cycle. Keeping you informed and anxious. The best thing that you can do to your sanity is ignore it
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exactly. We no longer have the calm and slightly ironic demeanor of Huntley/Brinkley, or Peter Jennings, or Walter Cronkite. They reported, and were as deliberately impartial and calming as a newspaper. Only once or twice did they ever let down.
The only time I ever saw Cronkite let go was the day Kennedy was shot. He just took off his glasses and made it through the announcement and you were weeping along with him.
They were the bearers of the good and bad, and when you look at what we have now, on a daily, hourly basis, or more, it’s no wonder we get into such a turmoil. Fox News with its over the top deliveries would have Walter spinning in the grave. Easy to forget that a newcast is to report the news, not make it.
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He would need to have a doj that’s so compliant to go after people who have done no wrong except to critical of him, which I don’t think is an easy task.
I think the threat is over amplified
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From the perspective that I see it, his threats are personal — and he has plenty of folks at his beck and call that would/could damage anyone that he feels has “done him wrong.” And we’re talking physical harm carried out beyond the public eye and done in such a way that the suspicions would be there but no evidence (similar to Putin’s actions).
IOW, I would NOT put anything past this guy. His ego is so fragile that he’s simply unable to get past anything that HE feels is damaging to who he is … in his mind.
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accidents, as they say, do happen. Somes accidentally on purpose. Men in power often have folks who can make those accidents happen, whenever necessary. I’m sure Trump has compiled a list of that sort, and anyone who goes against him would do well to pay attention. He’s like a rogue mob boss.
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and who could he find as a running mate? Who would want the (“koff koff’) honor?
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Mitch? He endorses him all the time.
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Good share, Nan! I saw Reich’s piece earlier today and I agree wholeheartedly. Donald Trump can NEVER be allowed back into the Oval Office. EVER! Yes, I understand you, Nan, for I keep saying I don’t WANT to write about Trump anymore, that I am sick and damn tired of Trump … but alas, it’s like trying to ignore the monster in the room. Sigh.
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And even if Trump isn’t elected, there will be much violence done from his supporters. I fear this time it will be worse than the insurrection on the capitol that Trump incited. Trump already promised a “bloodbath” if he doesn’t get elected. That comment I think was meant for this very thing, but he claimed his “bloodbath” comment was for some other reason. If he gets re-elected, our freedoms are gone and him and his followers, which are the Christian nationalists, will rule. And, if he doesn’t get re-elected, much violence from his followers is sure to happen.
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Indeed, at least three federal judges have already warned of another January 6th when Trump loses the election and his supporters are being primed even now for the violence he will incite. I knew the minute he made the ‘bloodbath’ comment that he intended to incite more violence among his faithful followers when he loses. Let us hope that the DoJ and law enforcement are ready and well-prepared this time.
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They better be!! Good grief! All the signs are there. But one wonders at times about the actions of “government” when the path seems so clear to everyone else. 🤔
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Dictators around the world mostly have their police and military to do their dirty work for them. Then there are dudes like Modi and Trump who seem to rely on crazed fans to threaten with and execute violence, for them to wash their hands of something they orchestrated, so that their more moderate supporters can live in denile and pretend the precious leader was not involved in anything unethical. Interresting phenomenon is, that their less crazed supporters are so morally corrupt, that they can refuse to see the evil in this. Now I hear, that the Trump legal team has argued for his immunity, that he could order US military to murder his political opponents. It is a dangerous suggestion and if it is accepted by the supreme court, the GOP and his base, a can of worms will be opened with it. Do they not see the door swings both ways? Donald is the political opponent of the current and quite likely the next US president. To me, the fact that such is even discussed on this level, says there is a great failure of democracy, that has already happened.
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IMO –and I say this with sadness and frustration — Trump has turned the U.S. political scene upside down. And he has done it with the help of some extremely talented lawyers who (anticipate) being paid big bucks for their efforts.
Further –IMO– those who support him do so because of the many “promises” he has made to take away the various regulations and restrictions that prevent them from doing what THEY want. IOW, he speaks to the adolescence in them.
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Nan, I also highly respect Robert Reich and his track record of exemplary legal and political publications as well as his service under Ford, Clinton, and as “transition advisor” to Obama. Thanks for this share.
I agree with you, Reich’s Substack post, and all commenters here. Yes, his personal vendettas and real threats upon his critics and opponents should NEVER be taken lightly or as ‘sticks and stones…‘ as the children’s rhyme goes. The man is absolutely a megalomaniac, sociopathic, Mobster-styled God-Father-wannabe! No doubt about it.
As has been alluded to here by commenters, his personal vendettas, however, are not the ONLY crisis-threat to address. It is also his pseudo mob-family of Lieutenants and mob-supporters. We must take as seriously—in justified fear of a “Clear & Present Danger“—what Project 2025 (click the link) might possibly do to our present fragile foundation of our decaying democracy if it is fully executed that year. 😳
And if that website and link above doesn’t spell it out enough, just read their 920-page PDF file entitled, 2025 Mandate For Leadership: The Conservative Promise. That link is provided on The Heritage Foundation backed group and website within the link I provided. It is some SERIOUS EFFIN plans to literally redesign our DOJ, DOD, DOS, our intelligence community, media agencies and outlets, and many other federal departments. It almost reads exactly along the lines of Adolf Hitler’s Neuordnung or “New Order.” 😨
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Simply put … Trump, along with the influence he wields, is a VERY SCARY MAN!!
And unfortunately (and terrifyingly!), TOOMANY are unable to see the forest for the trees.
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Bingo Nan! 🎯
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if you follow along on his speeches and rallies, he is obviously emulating Hitler, both in words and actions: the overloud music (meant to fry the brain, and yes, it does work) , the approval of the Neo Nazis and the Klan, the rhetoric…he is taking his script directly from Hitler and his “New Order’.
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Time for you guys to take your meds, you are delirious.
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😄
Are you a licensed medical doctor? 😴 If so, what is your state license number. hehe 🤭
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And btw, “delirious” is the WRONG word. If you knew your DSM-5-TR, you’d know that and comment more intelligently. 😄
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Borderline personality disorder?
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No, that is the wrong answer. Sorry. Interesting that you did not answer the question:
And to help you out, from the DSM-5-TR that response from you is possibly/probably Avoidant Personality Disorder. Look it up. 🙂
Best regards Ernie. 😉
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No, pretty sure your rant is indicative of borderline personality disorder. Look it up.
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ENOUGH!!! You two take your “disagreements” on mental disorders elsewhere. You’ve been warned.
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Very much agree Nan. I gave my regards; that should’ve been it, right? But alas…
Anyway, hope you are having a great weekend Nan. Time of a massively HUGE football/soccer match. Till next time Madame. 🥰
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addendum: When I worked as a volunteer in Concord at the state historical society, it was my job to put together family histories which contained letters, photos, anything related. In my travels with one family I ran across an early 1900’s questionaire that the members of the wealthy family were filling out: it was disturbing. It asked for family health info which included all relatives from children to grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. It wanted comments about physical traits, health problems, on and on and on.
I asked someone about this and he said oh yes, the US was compiling a racial/physical profile questionnaire for people like this, in order to track them genetically. He also mentioned that Germany was so impressed by this endeavor they bought it from this country, not long before we stopped doing it. Hitler picked up on it, and that was what he used to root out the gypsies and Jews as ‘inferior” races.
This sounds like the kind of thing that Trump might hear about and quietly put to use. He’s a loony tune, with about four working brain cells, but the ones that work might just be the ones to see this as a good direction to go in. And if not him personally, some of his yesmen could.
There now, don’t we all feel better, hm?
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I don’t know if i can post a link here, but the site is called Aeon and it has diverse discussions on politics, philosophy, arts, history, etc. The article is question brings forth the reality that all politics, all states and nations, are founded in violent crimes. So Trump’s ridiculous and terrible plans are not really as unique as we would like to believe?
The sassy is titled “ The Battle Over Beginnings”
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Yes, it is hyperbole to imagine that.
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It’s ironic that so many people seem to be worried about the same things they are doing to others. The line from the bible comes to mind, let him who is without this sin cast the first stone. Maybe you should go back inside your glass house and think about that.
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Despite your snarky tone I will repeat my earlier comment that some of the more hyperbolic threats of Trump sound a lot like the right’s fulminations about treasonous Biden.
But, both siderism can only be taken so far. the dangers of from the left…their thought policing and victimhood olympics and struggle sessions one are NOT as dangerous as a truly dedicated Trumpers complete access to the machinery of the state
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[…] Vengeance Is Mine, Saith Trump […]
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Thanks for the reblog!
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