When is it appropriate for a nation to borrow? What is accomplished with the money that is borrowed?
The feds spent a lot of money under Biden. We took on a lot of debt. And for that, we came out of the COVID pandemic with a robust economy, much more so that peer nations. Big investments in infrastructure.
Trump is loading the country up with debt in the interest of making Trump's 2017 tax cuts permanent. Qui bono? I mean, we'd all like more cash in hand at the end of the month, but what are we cutting to make that happen? If you're making a middle class wage and you end up with an extra 3% a year, but your local hospital closes and your health insurance premium doubles and your public infrastructure in general goes to shit, are you better off?
And FWIW, the highest level of debt-to-GDP ratio in recent years was first quarter of 2020 - 132.8%. Who was POTUS then? Also FWIW, I don't have a problem with the national debt spiking up 1Q 2020 because we were in the middle of a freaking plague. Nonetheless, those are the numbers.
When the nation borrows, what is done with the money? Are we investing in the future? Or are we starving the public sector and assuming the public sector will just pick up the slack? And if so, will it?
By my iights, this administration is doing damage to this country that will take generations, literally generations, to repair. Some of it may never be repaired.
If that prompts the "it all sucks anyway, just tear it down" response, I'd say that is profoundly nihilistic. And, I doubt the folks saying that are really gonna want to live in a world where it's "all torn down".
BIllionaires and centi-billionaires excepted. They have, as the colloquial expression goes, fuck you money. They'll be fine no matter what.
I'd add to Pro Bono's list the decline in our standing internationally, and the consequences *for everybody in the world*, not to exclude us, that are gonna follow on from that.
Trump has, in nine months, pissed away what took 80 years to build. Who is going to trust this country after this mess? Foreign relations at this point are devolving into pure transactional scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-yours deal making.
Give me a shiny plane and I'll let you build a base in Idaho. It ain't show friends, it's show business. Right? That's where we are headed, or perhaps already are. It's not a good basis for anything like national security.
The administration is deeply and thoroughly corrupt, and they are corrupting the country.
First, bc, thank you for chiming in. I always appreciate what you have to say, if only to keep myself honest.
Some of the stuff on Ackman's list make sense to me (immigration), some seem motivated more by a specific agenda of Ackman's (Israel / Gaza), some seem to ignore a broader context (withdrawal from Afghanistan, inflation). And for Ackman, specifically, as for much of the technorati, my sense is that a significant factor for him and them is "I want to do cool tech stuff and the feds won't get out of my way!".
But many or most are legitimate concerns, even if they either aren't concerns of mine personally, or I land in a different place than Ackman does regarding them.
My question for Ackman, and for supporters of Trump generally, is less "Why did you vote for him?" and more "Why are you still supporting him?".
Why are they still supporting him? Ackman I understand, Trump is gonna give the tech bros free rein. Ackman's gonna have fun and make a lot of money.
But I don't get rank and file MAGA. As far as I can tell, they're getting screwed. And yet, they love him.
Until they lose it, or can't afford it. Especially if they or someone they care about has an expensive and / or chronic illness.
I also disagree with nous' thought that health care "codes" as a management issue. At the policy level, it does. At the level of "do I have to choose between health insurance and rent" it does not.
IMO (D)'s do well to hammer the hell out of this one.
I second wjca's thought that most people aren't really motivated by the whole "threat to democracy" thing. "People Like Me" might be, most people aren't. The connection between that and their daily life is not always clear.
I'd go so far as to say if you give a lot of people a choice betwen democracy and a basic level of personal and financial security, they would choose the latter without a second thought.
"Democracy" is kind of abstract. "My job is going away" is not. "I can't afford insulin" is not. "My hospital closed and the nearest one now is an hour away (or two hours away, or not even in my state)" is not. "I can't afford to not work, but I can't afford to pay for care for my kid" is not. "I work a full time job and have to take care of my disabled kid / my parent with Alzheimers / my partner who had a stroke" is not.
The price of eggs is too small bore. Have you lost your job? Are you clinging to a job you don't really like because you don't know if you can find another one? Do you make enough to buy a house? Do you make enough to start a family? Do you have a kid that needs any kind of special ed? Trump just took that away. Can your kids afford to go to college without taking on six figures of debt? If they don't go to college, can they find a job - not just a "job", but a career, a path in life - that will give them a decent quality of life?
Does your life feel stable? Can you see a path forward for yourself and your family, if you have one? Can you see a path forward to the life you thought you might have?
How worried are you about your future?
When I listen to folks, especially young folks (which for me at this point is basically anybody 45 or younger) this is the stuff that nags at them.
(D)'s should absolutely give zero ground on basic human rights. Women'sLGBTQ, trans people, black people, Latinos, immigrants of any stripe.
Defend them all. Do not give an inch.
But that needs to happen in a context that makes people understand that those folks' rights are not being defended at the expense of everybody else. That the (D)'s are not forgetting the folks who aren't "marginal" - not a member of a non-mainstream demographic.
I.e., to more or less stereotype it, people who might self-describe as more or less a plugger. Someone trying to do the right things, trying to "play by the rules". Someone who isn't trying to change the world, they're just trying to take care of themselves and their family. And who nonetheless finds themselves lying awake at night trying to figure out how to make it work.
(D)'s should be able to chew gum and walk at the same time. They should be able to say "those people who aren't like you are no threat to you, they're just living their lives" AND ALSO say "we see how tentative life is for you, here is what we will do to help that".
Not either / or.
It's a really unsettled time, people are worried, and everything Trump does makes it worse. Hammer that, every single day.
If you aren't rich, Donald J Trump is making your life worse. Less secure.
Are you rich? What exactly are you getting out of this administration?
My go-to lately for listening is Milt Jackson. Been trying to get some vibes happening, he's more or less the beginning of the modern period on that instrument.
Have also been stumbling through a lot of jazz standards on the piano. Not to perform - I will never be a competent pianist - but just to get an understanding of the harmonic language.
Don't know if I'll live long enough to get anywhere that all of that, but I like it.
Other than pedagogical listening, I continue to be drawn to early European art music. Basically the modal counterpoint from the very late middle ages to the early pre-Baroque Renaissance. Dufay, Machaut, et al. That music is sophisticated but so accessible, and has (to my ear) a very direct emotional impulse. My wife sings with a choir whose director is also a fan of that period, I sometimes get to provide percussion accompaniment, which is always a lot of fun.
I wonder if a useful approach might be to ask, not why they are afraid, but why they are concerned.
An excellent suggestion, and one I will use.
To wonkie's point about MAGAs being no more forgotten or neglected than anyone else - that seems correct to me, but I'm not sure it matters if their sense of threat or concern makes sense. Or even whether it's sincere, or just a justification for less sympathetic reasons.
It's a place to start that isn't focused on fingerpointing. I'm prone to that, as well as to the "go piss up a rope" response. Those aren't that constructive, so I'm looking for other approaches.
To me MAGA just seems like an expression of stuff that's always been in our national character. Nativism, xenophobia, white (especially Anglo) hegemony. Endless arguments about who gets to be a "real" American. I don't think it will ever go away, really. The name will change but the sensibility has always been part of the mix.
I just want to return to the day when "the Paranoid Style" was not seen as something to aspire to and embrace.
I'm pretty much happy to talk to anybody about whatever, but I more or less insist on sticking to reality. If folks insist on doubling down on stuff that is simply factually wrong, I excuse myself from the conversation.
What I take away from most of my fairly limited collection of conversations with MAGAs is that they feel threatened. They are afraid. I don't really understand why, and the reasons are probably different for different people. That is what I'd really like to talk to them about, but it's hard to steer the conversation in that direction.
Nobody likes to admit they're basically just afraid.
I was at a local ICE office yesterday for a protest and noticed that they've begun putting badging and insignia on their vehicles. Some of them, anyway, some are still unmarked.
One of the slogans on the vehicles reads "Defending the homeland". And it just kind of made me laugh. Defending the homeland from the guy who mows your lawn? Your waiter? The woman taking care of your grandmother in the nursing home? The people picking lettuce?
What's the threat?
The Stephen Millers Kristi Noems and Kash Patels of the world understand and work on that sense of threat by making absurd claims. 5% of the population of Chicago are violent antifa extremists! Tren de Agua has taken over downtown Portland!
It's risible, but it resonates with people who are already afraid. I want to understand why they're afraid. But it's hard to get the conversation to that point.
There's also the whole nativist / nationalist streak in American history and in our national character. It's been there from the get. The early English folks looked down on and were suspicious of the German immigrants. Then both were suspicious of the Irish. Then all of them were suspicious of the eastern and southern Europeans. Then the Hispanics. Everybody hated the Chinese until pretty recently. And everybody has always had issues with black people, who have been here longer than almost everyone else, and mostly had no choice about being here in the first place.
The endless argument about who is a "real American".
I'm still trying to understand WTF people are on about when they talk about "western civilization", which of course is yet another thing that is always on the verge of being subsumed by the latest wave of People Who Are Not Like Us.
It's all fear. Toxic, destructive fear.
I would like to talk to MAGAs about what the hell it is they are afraid of. What is that they think is going to happen. What precious thing are they going to lose.
I'm not sure how to get to that conversation. I sure as hell am tired to debating with them about crap like whether the Haitians are eating their pets, or whether blacks are roaming the streets looking for white people to assault. Or whether ICE are engaged in nightly hand to hand combat with the armies of antifa.
What's going on is too fraught right now to waste time on bullshit.
I'd say if it makes him happy and gets him to STFU about the whole thing, let him have the win. He may even deserve some credit, fair's fair.
My fear is that this is just gonna send his whole "I deserve a Nobel Peace Prize" thing into overdrive. Obama got one, so he has to have one. Sometimes I think his entire life for the last 15 years has been consumed by trying to out-do Obama.
Anything that black guy can do, I can do better! Just watch!!
And who knows, Kissinger got one, so anything's possible.
I hope this actually turns into some kind of path forward for Israel, and for the Palestinians. I don't trust Netanyahu or the jerks he surrounds himself with further than I can throw him, or them. And it would be good for somebody other than Hamas to be running things.
Actually, it would be good for Hamas to just go the hell away.
If there's a part of the world with a more unsettled history than the eastern Med, I'm not aware of it. Fingers crossed for something like peace for the folks there.
Without wishing to continue to pile on CharlesWT, I want to reach way back to the link he provided to one Brandi Kruse.
Here is Ms. Kruse from Trump's "round table" on antifa today. h/t Atrios (https://www.eschatonblog.com/2025/10/sure-why-not_8.html):
"This is one of the reasons I recovered from it. By the way, it’s much better to not have TDS. I’m happier, healthier, more successful. I even think I got a little more attractive after I got rid of my Trump Derangement System"
I'm happy for Ms. Kruse, and I'm glad she's feeling more attractive these days.
These really are the most trivial people on the planet.
<i>it is about an attempt to avoid demonisation</i>
I affirm this, but as the kids say, "it's complicated".
It's important - essential - to recognize and respect the humanity of your counterparties in any conflict. Otherwise things devolve.
But IMO it's also important to recognize and name people's behavior for what it is. And not just their behavior, but their character, as it is manifest in what they say and do.
For example - Stephen Miller. He's a bad person, full stop. He has an extreme animus towards entire classes of people, and uses his position to do harm to them. Not with regret or out of dire necessity, but happily and with gusto.
A bad person.
A civility that says "you can't say that" is not helpful. In fact, it's harmful, because it keeps us from speaking truthfully about the plain facts in front of us.
And in saying all of that, I'm not demonizing Stephen Miller. Miller has done a thorough job of demonizing himself, no further effort on my part is needed.
I do not wish any ill toward Stephen Miller. I just want him to stop doing what he's doing. Or, be prevented from doing what he's doing.
What I'd really like is, to borrow language from my own spiritual traditions, for him to repent. Turn himself around. Make amends. But that is his hash to settle. I'll be content if he just stops hurting people.
So much of the crap we're dealing with right now seems (to me) to be about people <i>not wanting to honestly look</i> at our own national history. At the darker side of our own national character.
Slavery and the genocide of indigenous people, and the toxic ideology of white supremacy that justified it. The greed and sense of entitlement that makes us think we have a right to consume the natural resources of the planet in ways, and at a rate, that is simply unsustainable. The hubris that makes "we are the best country in the world" an article of faith.
I don't think we are going to get past the mess we're in right now until we can deal with all of that. By "deal with it" I just mean recognize it for what it is, accept it as a reality. We can't go back and change it, but at least we can stop pretending either that it didn't happen, or it didn't matter, or it has no lingering effect on how we all live now.
Denial is a killer. It's undermining out ability to function as a nation. Basically, it's crippling us.
A civility that just means "we don't talk about that" is going to choke us.
Another possibility, from Thomas Geoghegan in the Guardian.
I don't follow it all but basically Geoghegan seems to be proposing / calling for "blue" states to declare an emergency and, under the provisions of US Constitution Article I, Section 10, propose changes to federal law as a counter to Trump's extra-consitutional and illegal actions.
Such a proposal would go to Congress, which in its current form can hardly be expected to do anything with it. But the marker would be laid.
The federal government is, as we speak, broken. Trump and his crew are running roughshod over the Constitution and the law. They are doing whatever the hell the want, and at the federal level nobody is doing anything effective to stop them. Trump is losing some court cases, but that isn't blunting the overall effect of his regime.
Somebody else needs to step up. We have a nominally federal system, states have some limited but real authority. Time for them to act in whatever ways they can.
To speak candidly, I live in MA, and we send not quite $5K per capita more to the feds than we get back. Basically, because people in MA on the whole make more money than people in other states. I don't need that to be evened out, I just figure I'm lucky to live here.
But as a simple, pragmatic matter, I'm sick of paying for this crap.
If you look at the list of complaints enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, it's almost laughable how minor many of them are compared to what we're putting up with every single freaking day.
There's a limit to what people will put up with, and we're approaching it.
The military at this point is the last guardrail. If they flip, it's game over.
And as far as domestic politics go, I generally (and gladly) agree that the level of basic integrity there is high. The oath to the Constitution is pretty deeply ingrained in that culture, especially the higher up you go.
Still, looking at where we were in, say, the early 1800s, I’d say that we’ve made significant progress over the last two centuries.
I'll try again, and will make it short.
We have made progress. But to get back to anything like a pre-Trump normal, we're going to need some kind of national de-MAGA-fication. We will need to root the bastards out, along with their sick ideologies.
Do you see that happening? Do you think we can muster the political will to do it? Do you think a sufficient sector of the population even want it?
I wish I could say I had some confidence that that could happen, but I can't.
Russell is a bit more familiar with Leslie than I am, but I have to ask, is his taking issue with Gay on civility related to a book that he is flogging about how much we need civility?
LOL
Full disclosure - my exposure to both Gay and Leslie is 100% the excerpt GFTNC cited. And knowing that Gay is second-generation adds context that clarifies her position on civility.
As Coates says, "welcome to black America".
So thank you for adding that.
Still, looking at where we were in, say, the early 1800s, I’d say that we’ve made significant progress over the last two centuries.
I agree with this.
That said, IMO Trump has exposed seious flaws in our Constitutional order. The guardrails - the courts, Congress, the mostly non-political administrative state - have failed or at least been undermined to the point where I'm not sure what things are gonna look like post Trump.
I don't know if there is a "there" to go back to. I don't think it's going to be the same country.
We've achieved Popper's paradox of tolerance. The intolerant have taken the reins. They will not surrender them willingly or gracefully, and are not interested at all in sharing power with anyone else. Maybe we will squeak out another legitimate election or two, and maybe that will be sufficient to allow a meaningful change of regime. That is far from guaranteed, but it's possible.
But even under that circumstance, some significant changes are going to be needed to make sure the same or similar thing doesn't happen again. And I don't know if the vision and the political will is there to make that happen.
I don't know where all of this goes, but I don't really have any confidence that we are going to return to any kind of pre-Trump normal, once he is somehow off the scene.
Plus, while we in the US are losing our minds and acting out the very worst in our national character, the rest of the world is moving on. So wherever we end up domestically, it's going to have to deal with a very different international context. At a minimum, we're shredding generations of good will. We're proving ourselves to be fickle, unreliable partners, prone to enormous changes in national policy and direction every four years.
I really don't know what comes next, but I don't think it's going to be as simple as regaining and restoring all the stuff that is being rolled back now.
I was glad to see the "outcasts" included because they are almost always part of the mix. A lot of them have serious mental and psychological issues. They include folks like the guy that Kyle Rittenhouse shot and killed for the crime of throwing a bag at him.
Geriatrics are much easier (and less negatively) to explain than Kruse's characterization - they (i.e., we) show up because we're retired and don't have jobs and kids to deal with. Which is to say, we have the time.
Kruse describes folks affected by ICE activity as "out for retribution", which strikes me as wrong. I wonder if she actually knows anyone, or has talked with anyone, who has actually been affected - had friends or family members incarcerated or deported. In my experience they just want to bear witness to their own experience, they aren't out to "get" anybody.
Kruse's characterization of antifa seems extreme, even a bit cartoonish. "They all dress in black and will kill to suppress dissenting views" - again, I have to ask if she has ever actually been around real live antifa or antifa-adjacent people. Some fit the strict definition of domestic terrorism as defined in US law, some don't. And "domestic terrorism" is a very dangerous label to toss around in the current climate.
To the degree that I understand it, at its heart antifa are people who believe many hard core right wingers are fascists and are violent and unreasoning people, who will not respect the law and institutions of governance and so must be met with force. It's not an approach I agree with or support - I think they are basically poking the bear and giving Trump et al an excuse to double down. But neither are they completely wrong about their opponents.
Stakes:
I attend two churches pretty regularly. One is an Episcopal church whose congregation is about 60% Latino. They hold two services a week, one in English, one in Spanish, with a bilingual service once a month. The other is a UU church that has a significant population of gays as well as some trans people. We just hired a minister who is a lesbian.
I live in a very white bread town that is adjacent to towns with sizeable immigrant populations. Dominecan Republic, Puerto Rico, Brazil, Haiti, Russia and Eastern Europe, Ireland. When I say "adjacent" I mean these towns are within 2 or 3 miles of my home. The city of Salem is literally around the corner from me. Most of my daily is in and around Salem, which is about 15% Dominican. I contribute to and have volunteered at a local food bank whose clientele is primarily immigrants.
I make a somewhat haphazard but continual effort to follow a spiritual path that is very much centered on concern for less privileged people - the poor, immigrants, outcasts of any type. By "haphazard" I mean I'm not great at it, mostly because I am temperentally irascible, judgemental, impatient, and have a kind of restless and unruly mind. Nonetheless, I cannot escape the overwhelming and consistent message that god, whoever and whatever that personage is, loves everyone but really really really cherishes and champions less fortunate people.
I often wonder what judgement this country is storing up for itself. Not in the sense of some kind of supreme being throwing bolts of lightning at us, but just in the sense of karma. I really do believe we will pay a price for the crap that is going on here right now.
Ultimately, for me it comes down to a really simple thing - we are obliged to treat other people as fellow human beings, deserving of respect and consideration. "Obliged" not necessarily for some religious or spiritual motivation, but just freaking because. Because there they are, a person like yourself. Treat them as you would be treated, at minimum.
So that's where I'm at with all of this. I spend a lot of time spinning my mental and emotional wheels trying to understand how to live in this moment. I really don't know where it's all gonna lead.
I appreciate having ObWi as a place to vent and work through my own thoughts about all of it. And I appreciate all of your forbearance while I think out loud, at length. Mental flailing, but I'm grateful to have a venue for it.
I don't agree with Gay (or at least Gay's point of view as presented here) and generally do agree with Leslie.
Yes, civility is absolutely "inauthentic", as Gay states, in the sense she calls out - it absolutely is a performance. As are many of the basic daily protocols we engage in to avoid pissing each other off and generally making each other's lives unnecessarily difficult.
Don't cut in line. Let folks get off the bus before you try to get on. Make sure everyone at the table has had at least something to eat before you go for second helpings. Say "please" and "thank you".
All of these things require us to consider other folks before, or at least in addition to, asserting our own wishes and interests.
And all of these things make it possible for us to co-exist large and complex societies. Or even small and complex societies, where "complex" is just way of saying different people want and value different things.
So there is tremendous value in civility.
The statement I've been making about civility in current-day social and political discourse in this country is not that it's a fantasy or of no value.
My statement is that it's not *available*. It's not on offer.
If I decline to engage in discussion about where things are at right now with Trumper friends and family members, it's not because I have no interest in their perspective or their experience. It's because my experience has been that the conversation will not be particularly fruitful.
To be perfectly candid, the mindset of most conservatives, and especially of Trump supporters, most reminds me of people I knew (and know) from my days among the Christian fundamentalists. They have a set of beliefs that lets them interpret the world in a way that makes sense of their sense of threat or unease. That provide them with an identity. And to challenge those ideas is to challenge that sense of identity, which changes the conversation from a thoughtful exchange of ideas into something more existential.
It is possible to get through all of that, but it's a huge amount of work, and there really aren't any contexts for doing it.
I first started hanging out on political blogs somewhere around 2001 - just after 9/11, when the whole USA Patriot Act debate was going on and Bush II was ginning up support for invading Iraq. I wanted to understand what people were thinking so I went to conservative blogs. I forget all of them, but the place I spent the most time was RedState, back in the early days before they purged anybody who wasn't on board with the conservative agenda. And I do mean purge, it was explicit and intentional. I used to post there as "amos".
Before I left I spent probably hundreds of hours having what were, to me, some of the strangest conversations I've ever had. The things a lot of folks there believed seemed outlandish to me, almost to the point of parody. But there they were, and for a while at least, they were open to discussing all of it with the likes of me.
That *is no longer available*. I would no longer be welcome there, at all.
I found my way here when there were still a lot of conversative voices here. And over time this place has sorted itself into a by-far-majority liberal to left-ish place.
Which I find congenial, but it doesn't afford conversation across the "great divide".
And to be honest, the actions of the current administration pretty much demand that folks pick a side. What is the reasonable conversation to have about the utter denial of due process to people who happen to speak Spanish?
The conversation I would really like to have would begin with "why are you afraid of Hispanic people?". Or black people, or trans people, or gays. It really seems like folks don't just disapprove or dislike those folks, but instead feel threatened by them.
"It's the end of Western civilization!". Right?
Where the hell does that come from? I'd like to know that. But I don't see an available path to getting to that conversation.
And so here we are.
Long comment, thanks as always for your indulgence.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Let’s start calling a thug a thug”
"No one else will lease us enough space for the air base we operate there."
Thank you Michael. That makes sense, and I appreciate your calling it out.
"
"I think Biden was far worse than Trump."
When is it appropriate for a nation to borrow? What is accomplished with the money that is borrowed?
The feds spent a lot of money under Biden. We took on a lot of debt. And for that, we came out of the COVID pandemic with a robust economy, much more so that peer nations. Big investments in infrastructure.
Trump is loading the country up with debt in the interest of making Trump's 2017 tax cuts permanent. Qui bono? I mean, we'd all like more cash in hand at the end of the month, but what are we cutting to make that happen? If you're making a middle class wage and you end up with an extra 3% a year, but your local hospital closes and your health insurance premium doubles and your public infrastructure in general goes to shit, are you better off?
And FWIW, the highest level of debt-to-GDP ratio in recent years was first quarter of 2020 - 132.8%. Who was POTUS then? Also FWIW, I don't have a problem with the national debt spiking up 1Q 2020 because we were in the middle of a freaking plague. Nonetheless, those are the numbers.
When the nation borrows, what is done with the money? Are we investing in the future? Or are we starving the public sector and assuming the public sector will just pick up the slack? And if so, will it?
"
The request for a training facility was made in 2017
Noted, and a fair call. I stand corrected.
What are your thoughts about the unilateral defense agreement with Qatar?
"
What Pro Bono said.
By my iights, this administration is doing damage to this country that will take generations, literally generations, to repair. Some of it may never be repaired.
If that prompts the "it all sucks anyway, just tear it down" response, I'd say that is profoundly nihilistic. And, I doubt the folks saying that are really gonna want to live in a world where it's "all torn down".
BIllionaires and centi-billionaires excepted. They have, as the colloquial expression goes, fuck you money. They'll be fine no matter what.
I'd add to Pro Bono's list the decline in our standing internationally, and the consequences *for everybody in the world*, not to exclude us, that are gonna follow on from that.
Trump has, in nine months, pissed away what took 80 years to build. Who is going to trust this country after this mess? Foreign relations at this point are devolving into pure transactional scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-yours deal making.
Give me a shiny plane and I'll let you build a base in Idaho. It ain't show friends, it's show business. Right? That's where we are headed, or perhaps already are. It's not a good basis for anything like national security.
The administration is deeply and thoroughly corrupt, and they are corrupting the country.
"
First, bc, thank you for chiming in. I always appreciate what you have to say, if only to keep myself honest.
Some of the stuff on Ackman's list make sense to me (immigration), some seem motivated more by a specific agenda of Ackman's (Israel / Gaza), some seem to ignore a broader context (withdrawal from Afghanistan, inflation). And for Ackman, specifically, as for much of the technorati, my sense is that a significant factor for him and them is "I want to do cool tech stuff and the feds won't get out of my way!".
But many or most are legitimate concerns, even if they either aren't concerns of mine personally, or I land in a different place than Ackman does regarding them.
My question for Ackman, and for supporters of Trump generally, is less "Why did you vote for him?" and more "Why are you still supporting him?".
Why are they still supporting him? Ackman I understand, Trump is gonna give the tech bros free rein. Ackman's gonna have fun and make a lot of money.
But I don't get rank and file MAGA. As far as I can tell, they're getting screwed. And yet, they love him.
On “The Mother-in-law defense”
Shorter me:
Pick any Trump policy or action. Call attention to it.
Then ask the question "How is that making your life better"?
Unless you're rich or wanna-be rich, it's not. And even if you're just wanna-be rich, it likely is not.
"How is [insert Trump policy here] making YOU'RE life better"?
I can't think of a single Trump policy or action that passes that test.
"
Until they lose it, or can't afford it. Especially if they or someone they care about has an expensive and / or chronic illness.
I also disagree with nous' thought that health care "codes" as a management issue. At the policy level, it does. At the level of "do I have to choose between health insurance and rent" it does not.
IMO (D)'s do well to hammer the hell out of this one.
I second wjca's thought that most people aren't really motivated by the whole "threat to democracy" thing. "People Like Me" might be, most people aren't. The connection between that and their daily life is not always clear.
I'd go so far as to say if you give a lot of people a choice betwen democracy and a basic level of personal and financial security, they would choose the latter without a second thought.
"Democracy" is kind of abstract. "My job is going away" is not. "I can't afford insulin" is not. "My hospital closed and the nearest one now is an hour away (or two hours away, or not even in my state)" is not. "I can't afford to not work, but I can't afford to pay for care for my kid" is not. "I work a full time job and have to take care of my disabled kid / my parent with Alzheimers / my partner who had a stroke" is not.
The price of eggs is too small bore. Have you lost your job? Are you clinging to a job you don't really like because you don't know if you can find another one? Do you make enough to buy a house? Do you make enough to start a family? Do you have a kid that needs any kind of special ed? Trump just took that away. Can your kids afford to go to college without taking on six figures of debt? If they don't go to college, can they find a job - not just a "job", but a career, a path in life - that will give them a decent quality of life?
Does your life feel stable? Can you see a path forward for yourself and your family, if you have one? Can you see a path forward to the life you thought you might have?
How worried are you about your future?
When I listen to folks, especially young folks (which for me at this point is basically anybody 45 or younger) this is the stuff that nags at them.
(D)'s should absolutely give zero ground on basic human rights. Women'sLGBTQ, trans people, black people, Latinos, immigrants of any stripe.
Defend them all. Do not give an inch.
But that needs to happen in a context that makes people understand that those folks' rights are not being defended at the expense of everybody else. That the (D)'s are not forgetting the folks who aren't "marginal" - not a member of a non-mainstream demographic.
I.e., to more or less stereotype it, people who might self-describe as more or less a plugger. Someone trying to do the right things, trying to "play by the rules". Someone who isn't trying to change the world, they're just trying to take care of themselves and their family. And who nonetheless finds themselves lying awake at night trying to figure out how to make it work.
(D)'s should be able to chew gum and walk at the same time. They should be able to say "those people who aren't like you are no threat to you, they're just living their lives" AND ALSO say "we see how tentative life is for you, here is what we will do to help that".
Not either / or.
It's a really unsettled time, people are worried, and everything Trump does makes it worse. Hammer that, every single day.
If you aren't rich, Donald J Trump is making your life worse. Less secure.
Are you rich? What exactly are you getting out of this administration?
Hammer that.
On “Brought to you by your latest captain of industry”
This seems exactly right to me. Thanks for this, it crystalizes a lot of things in my thinking.
On “…..”
No prize for Donald. The world is so unfair, to him most of all.
Better luck next year.
On “Weekend music thread #1”
My go-to lately for listening is Milt Jackson. Been trying to get some vibes happening, he's more or less the beginning of the modern period on that instrument.
Have also been stumbling through a lot of jazz standards on the piano. Not to perform - I will never be a competent pianist - but just to get an understanding of the harmonic language.
Don't know if I'll live long enough to get anywhere that all of that, but I like it.
Other than pedagogical listening, I continue to be drawn to early European art music. Basically the modal counterpoint from the very late middle ages to the early pre-Baroque Renaissance. Dufay, Machaut, et al. That music is sophisticated but so accessible, and has (to my ear) a very direct emotional impulse. My wife sings with a choir whose director is also a fan of that period, I sometimes get to provide percussion accompaniment, which is always a lot of fun.
On “Let’s start calling a thug a thug”
I wonder if a useful approach might be to ask, not why they are afraid, but why they are concerned.
An excellent suggestion, and one I will use.
To wonkie's point about MAGAs being no more forgotten or neglected than anyone else - that seems correct to me, but I'm not sure it matters if their sense of threat or concern makes sense. Or even whether it's sincere, or just a justification for less sympathetic reasons.
It's a place to start that isn't focused on fingerpointing. I'm prone to that, as well as to the "go piss up a rope" response. Those aren't that constructive, so I'm looking for other approaches.
To me MAGA just seems like an expression of stuff that's always been in our national character. Nativism, xenophobia, white (especially Anglo) hegemony. Endless arguments about who gets to be a "real" American. I don't think it will ever go away, really. The name will change but the sensibility has always been part of the mix.
I just want to return to the day when "the Paranoid Style" was not seen as something to aspire to and embrace.
"
I'm pretty much happy to talk to anybody about whatever, but I more or less insist on sticking to reality. If folks insist on doubling down on stuff that is simply factually wrong, I excuse myself from the conversation.
What I take away from most of my fairly limited collection of conversations with MAGAs is that they feel threatened. They are afraid. I don't really understand why, and the reasons are probably different for different people. That is what I'd really like to talk to them about, but it's hard to steer the conversation in that direction.
Nobody likes to admit they're basically just afraid.
I was at a local ICE office yesterday for a protest and noticed that they've begun putting badging and insignia on their vehicles. Some of them, anyway, some are still unmarked.
One of the slogans on the vehicles reads "Defending the homeland". And it just kind of made me laugh. Defending the homeland from the guy who mows your lawn? Your waiter? The woman taking care of your grandmother in the nursing home? The people picking lettuce?
What's the threat?
The Stephen Millers Kristi Noems and Kash Patels of the world understand and work on that sense of threat by making absurd claims. 5% of the population of Chicago are violent antifa extremists! Tren de Agua has taken over downtown Portland!
It's risible, but it resonates with people who are already afraid. I want to understand why they're afraid. But it's hard to get the conversation to that point.
There's also the whole nativist / nationalist streak in American history and in our national character. It's been there from the get. The early English folks looked down on and were suspicious of the German immigrants. Then both were suspicious of the Irish. Then all of them were suspicious of the eastern and southern Europeans. Then the Hispanics. Everybody hated the Chinese until pretty recently. And everybody has always had issues with black people, who have been here longer than almost everyone else, and mostly had no choice about being here in the first place.
The endless argument about who is a "real American".
I'm still trying to understand WTF people are on about when they talk about "western civilization", which of course is yet another thing that is always on the verge of being subsumed by the latest wave of People Who Are Not Like Us.
It's all fear. Toxic, destructive fear.
I would like to talk to MAGAs about what the hell it is they are afraid of. What is that they think is going to happen. What precious thing are they going to lose.
I'm not sure how to get to that conversation. I sure as hell am tired to debating with them about crap like whether the Haitians are eating their pets, or whether blacks are roaming the streets looking for white people to assault. Or whether ICE are engaged in nightly hand to hand combat with the armies of antifa.
What's going on is too fraught right now to waste time on bullshit.
On “…..”
I'd say if it makes him happy and gets him to STFU about the whole thing, let him have the win. He may even deserve some credit, fair's fair.
My fear is that this is just gonna send his whole "I deserve a Nobel Peace Prize" thing into overdrive. Obama got one, so he has to have one. Sometimes I think his entire life for the last 15 years has been consumed by trying to out-do Obama.
Anything that black guy can do, I can do better! Just watch!!
And who knows, Kissinger got one, so anything's possible.
I hope this actually turns into some kind of path forward for Israel, and for the Palestinians. I don't trust Netanyahu or the jerks he surrounds himself with further than I can throw him, or them. And it would be good for somebody other than Hamas to be running things.
Actually, it would be good for Hamas to just go the hell away.
If there's a part of the world with a more unsettled history than the eastern Med, I'm not aware of it. Fingers crossed for something like peace for the folks there.
On “Where are the 5 words?”
Without wishing to continue to pile on CharlesWT, I want to reach way back to the link he provided to one Brandi Kruse.
Here is Ms. Kruse from Trump's "round table" on antifa today. h/t Atrios (https://www.eschatonblog.com/2025/10/sure-why-not_8.html):
I'm happy for Ms. Kruse, and I'm glad she's feeling more attractive these days.
These really are the most trivial people on the planet.
"
<i>it is about an attempt to avoid demonisation</i>
I affirm this, but as the kids say, "it's complicated".
It's important - essential - to recognize and respect the humanity of your counterparties in any conflict. Otherwise things devolve.
But IMO it's also important to recognize and name people's behavior for what it is. And not just their behavior, but their character, as it is manifest in what they say and do.
For example - Stephen Miller. He's a bad person, full stop. He has an extreme animus towards entire classes of people, and uses his position to do harm to them. Not with regret or out of dire necessity, but happily and with gusto.
A bad person.
A civility that says "you can't say that" is not helpful. In fact, it's harmful, because it keeps us from speaking truthfully about the plain facts in front of us.
And in saying all of that, I'm not demonizing Stephen Miller. Miller has done a thorough job of demonizing himself, no further effort on my part is needed.
I do not wish any ill toward Stephen Miller. I just want him to stop doing what he's doing. Or, be prevented from doing what he's doing.
What I'd really like is, to borrow language from my own spiritual traditions, for him to repent. Turn himself around. Make amends. But that is his hash to settle. I'll be content if he just stops hurting people.
So much of the crap we're dealing with right now seems (to me) to be about people <i>not wanting to honestly look</i> at our own national history. At the darker side of our own national character.
Slavery and the genocide of indigenous people, and the toxic ideology of white supremacy that justified it. The greed and sense of entitlement that makes us think we have a right to consume the natural resources of the planet in ways, and at a rate, that is simply unsustainable. The hubris that makes "we are the best country in the world" an article of faith.
I don't think we are going to get past the mess we're in right now until we can deal with all of that. By "deal with it" I just mean recognize it for what it is, accept it as a reality. We can't go back and change it, but at least we can stop pretending either that it didn't happen, or it didn't matter, or it has no lingering effect on how we all live now.
Denial is a killer. It's undermining out ability to function as a nation. Basically, it's crippling us.
A civility that just means "we don't talk about that" is going to choke us.
"
I"m on a Zoom call right now with the ACLU. They're providing a briefing for folks who are planning to attend the No Kings rallies on 10/18.
There are 11,000 people on the call.
So there's that.
"
Another possibility, from Thomas Geoghegan in the Guardian.
I don't follow it all but basically Geoghegan seems to be proposing / calling for "blue" states to declare an emergency and, under the provisions of US Constitution Article I, Section 10, propose changes to federal law as a counter to Trump's extra-consitutional and illegal actions.
Such a proposal would go to Congress, which in its current form can hardly be expected to do anything with it. But the marker would be laid.
The federal government is, as we speak, broken. Trump and his crew are running roughshod over the Constitution and the law. They are doing whatever the hell the want, and at the federal level nobody is doing anything effective to stop them. Trump is losing some court cases, but that isn't blunting the overall effect of his regime.
Somebody else needs to step up. We have a nominally federal system, states have some limited but real authority. Time for them to act in whatever ways they can.
To speak candidly, I live in MA, and we send not quite $5K per capita more to the feds than we get back. Basically, because people in MA on the whole make more money than people in other states. I don't need that to be evened out, I just figure I'm lucky to live here.
But as a simple, pragmatic matter, I'm sick of paying for this crap.
If you look at the list of complaints enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, it's almost laughable how minor many of them are compared to what we're putting up with every single freaking day.
There's a limit to what people will put up with, and we're approaching it.
"
And the final target audience is the military.
The military at this point is the last guardrail. If they flip, it's game over.
And as far as domestic politics go, I generally (and gladly) agree that the level of basic integrity there is high. The oath to the Constitution is pretty deeply ingrained in that culture, especially the higher up you go.
"
Still, looking at where we were in, say, the early 1800s, I’d say that we’ve made significant progress over the last two centuries.
I'll try again, and will make it short.
We have made progress. But to get back to anything like a pre-Trump normal, we're going to need some kind of national de-MAGA-fication. We will need to root the bastards out, along with their sick ideologies.
Do you see that happening? Do you think we can muster the political will to do it? Do you think a sufficient sector of the population even want it?
I wish I could say I had some confidence that that could happen, but I can't.
"
"Knowing that Gay is second-generation *Haitian*".
I do miss the preview. Now I'll have to start paying attention to what I write!
:)
"
Russell is a bit more familiar with Leslie than I am, but I have to ask, is his taking issue with Gay on civility related to a book that he is flogging about how much we need civility?
LOL
Full disclosure - my exposure to both Gay and Leslie is 100% the excerpt GFTNC cited. And knowing that Gay is second-generation adds context that clarifies her position on civility.
As Coates says, "welcome to black America".
So thank you for adding that.
Still, looking at where we were in, say, the early 1800s, I’d say that we’ve made significant progress over the last two centuries.
I agree with this.
That said, IMO Trump has exposed seious flaws in our Constitutional order. The guardrails - the courts, Congress, the mostly non-political administrative state - have failed or at least been undermined to the point where I'm not sure what things are gonna look like post Trump.
I don't know if there is a "there" to go back to. I don't think it's going to be the same country.
We've achieved Popper's paradox of tolerance. The intolerant have taken the reins. They will not surrender them willingly or gracefully, and are not interested at all in sharing power with anyone else. Maybe we will squeak out another legitimate election or two, and maybe that will be sufficient to allow a meaningful change of regime. That is far from guaranteed, but it's possible.
But even under that circumstance, some significant changes are going to be needed to make sure the same or similar thing doesn't happen again. And I don't know if the vision and the political will is there to make that happen.
I don't know where all of this goes, but I don't really have any confidence that we are going to return to any kind of pre-Trump normal, once he is somehow off the scene.
Plus, while we in the US are losing our minds and acting out the very worst in our national character, the rest of the world is moving on. So wherever we end up domestically, it's going to have to deal with a very different international context. At a minimum, we're shredding generations of good will. We're proving ourselves to be fickle, unreliable partners, prone to enormous changes in national policy and direction every four years.
I really don't know what comes next, but I don't think it's going to be as simple as regaining and restoring all the stuff that is being rolled back now.
I'm at a loss, to be honest.
"
Here’s another breakdown of the protestors.
Seems sort of accurate.
I was glad to see the "outcasts" included because they are almost always part of the mix. A lot of them have serious mental and psychological issues. They include folks like the guy that Kyle Rittenhouse shot and killed for the crime of throwing a bag at him.
Geriatrics are much easier (and less negatively) to explain than Kruse's characterization - they (i.e., we) show up because we're retired and don't have jobs and kids to deal with. Which is to say, we have the time.
Kruse describes folks affected by ICE activity as "out for retribution", which strikes me as wrong. I wonder if she actually knows anyone, or has talked with anyone, who has actually been affected - had friends or family members incarcerated or deported. In my experience they just want to bear witness to their own experience, they aren't out to "get" anybody.
Kruse's characterization of antifa seems extreme, even a bit cartoonish. "They all dress in black and will kill to suppress dissenting views" - again, I have to ask if she has ever actually been around real live antifa or antifa-adjacent people. Some fit the strict definition of domestic terrorism as defined in US law, some don't. And "domestic terrorism" is a very dangerous label to toss around in the current climate.
To the degree that I understand it, at its heart antifa are people who believe many hard core right wingers are fascists and are violent and unreasoning people, who will not respect the law and institutions of governance and so must be met with force. It's not an approach I agree with or support - I think they are basically poking the bear and giving Trump et al an excuse to double down. But neither are they completely wrong about their opponents.
Stakes:
I attend two churches pretty regularly. One is an Episcopal church whose congregation is about 60% Latino. They hold two services a week, one in English, one in Spanish, with a bilingual service once a month. The other is a UU church that has a significant population of gays as well as some trans people. We just hired a minister who is a lesbian.
I live in a very white bread town that is adjacent to towns with sizeable immigrant populations. Dominecan Republic, Puerto Rico, Brazil, Haiti, Russia and Eastern Europe, Ireland. When I say "adjacent" I mean these towns are within 2 or 3 miles of my home. The city of Salem is literally around the corner from me. Most of my daily is in and around Salem, which is about 15% Dominican. I contribute to and have volunteered at a local food bank whose clientele is primarily immigrants.
I make a somewhat haphazard but continual effort to follow a spiritual path that is very much centered on concern for less privileged people - the poor, immigrants, outcasts of any type. By "haphazard" I mean I'm not great at it, mostly because I am temperentally irascible, judgemental, impatient, and have a kind of restless and unruly mind. Nonetheless, I cannot escape the overwhelming and consistent message that god, whoever and whatever that personage is, loves everyone but really really really cherishes and champions less fortunate people.
I often wonder what judgement this country is storing up for itself. Not in the sense of some kind of supreme being throwing bolts of lightning at us, but just in the sense of karma. I really do believe we will pay a price for the crap that is going on here right now.
Ultimately, for me it comes down to a really simple thing - we are obliged to treat other people as fellow human beings, deserving of respect and consideration. "Obliged" not necessarily for some religious or spiritual motivation, but just freaking because. Because there they are, a person like yourself. Treat them as you would be treated, at minimum.
So that's where I'm at with all of this. I spend a lot of time spinning my mental and emotional wheels trying to understand how to live in this moment. I really don't know where it's all gonna lead.
I appreciate having ObWi as a place to vent and work through my own thoughts about all of it. And I appreciate all of your forbearance while I think out loud, at length. Mental flailing, but I'm grateful to have a venue for it.
"
I haven’t commented much on Trump because I thought everyone here was pretty much in agreement...
Pretty much sums it up. I appreciate your comments about what a sane immigration policy would look like as well.
Common ground, y'all!
And I appreciate your grace in receiving the occasional pile on. It ain't always fun being the minority voice.
On “WTF moments at cultural borders”
"gotta go see a man about a horse"
On “Where are the 5 words?”
I don't agree with Gay (or at least Gay's point of view as presented here) and generally do agree with Leslie.
Yes, civility is absolutely "inauthentic", as Gay states, in the sense she calls out - it absolutely is a performance. As are many of the basic daily protocols we engage in to avoid pissing each other off and generally making each other's lives unnecessarily difficult.
Don't cut in line. Let folks get off the bus before you try to get on. Make sure everyone at the table has had at least something to eat before you go for second helpings. Say "please" and "thank you".
All of these things require us to consider other folks before, or at least in addition to, asserting our own wishes and interests.
And all of these things make it possible for us to co-exist large and complex societies. Or even small and complex societies, where "complex" is just way of saying different people want and value different things.
So there is tremendous value in civility.
The statement I've been making about civility in current-day social and political discourse in this country is not that it's a fantasy or of no value.
My statement is that it's not *available*. It's not on offer.
If I decline to engage in discussion about where things are at right now with Trumper friends and family members, it's not because I have no interest in their perspective or their experience. It's because my experience has been that the conversation will not be particularly fruitful.
To be perfectly candid, the mindset of most conservatives, and especially of Trump supporters, most reminds me of people I knew (and know) from my days among the Christian fundamentalists. They have a set of beliefs that lets them interpret the world in a way that makes sense of their sense of threat or unease. That provide them with an identity. And to challenge those ideas is to challenge that sense of identity, which changes the conversation from a thoughtful exchange of ideas into something more existential.
It is possible to get through all of that, but it's a huge amount of work, and there really aren't any contexts for doing it.
I first started hanging out on political blogs somewhere around 2001 - just after 9/11, when the whole USA Patriot Act debate was going on and Bush II was ginning up support for invading Iraq. I wanted to understand what people were thinking so I went to conservative blogs. I forget all of them, but the place I spent the most time was RedState, back in the early days before they purged anybody who wasn't on board with the conservative agenda. And I do mean purge, it was explicit and intentional. I used to post there as "amos".
Before I left I spent probably hundreds of hours having what were, to me, some of the strangest conversations I've ever had. The things a lot of folks there believed seemed outlandish to me, almost to the point of parody. But there they were, and for a while at least, they were open to discussing all of it with the likes of me.
That *is no longer available*. I would no longer be welcome there, at all.
I found my way here when there were still a lot of conversative voices here. And over time this place has sorted itself into a by-far-majority liberal to left-ish place.
Which I find congenial, but it doesn't afford conversation across the "great divide".
And to be honest, the actions of the current administration pretty much demand that folks pick a side. What is the reasonable conversation to have about the utter denial of due process to people who happen to speak Spanish?
The conversation I would really like to have would begin with "why are you afraid of Hispanic people?". Or black people, or trans people, or gays. It really seems like folks don't just disapprove or dislike those folks, but instead feel threatened by them.
"It's the end of Western civilization!". Right?
Where the hell does that come from? I'd like to know that. But I don't see an available path to getting to that conversation.
And so here we are.
Long comment, thanks as always for your indulgence.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.