News and commentary for understanding and coping with the years ahead...
French truth-telling crosses the Atlantic
Never in history has a US President capitulated to the enemy. Never has any one of them supported an aggressor against an ally … trampled on the US Constitution, issued so many illegal executive orders, dismissed judges who could have prevented him from doing so, dismissed the military senior staff in one fell swoop, weakened all checks and balances, and taken control of social media. This is not an illiberal drift, it is the beginning of the confiscation of democracy. Let us remember that it took only one month, three weeks and two days to bring down the Weimar Republic and its Constitution.
I strongly recommend that you read this speech transcript, in which a French politician recently summed up what is occurring in the United States, and how the consequences of how American policies are creating havoc in Europe and around the world. As Claude Malhuret said so eloquently in his talk to the French senate, we have to understand from history how fast the disintegration of our democracy may be proceeding.
And as the article I point to above makes clear, this cogent talk does a better job of pulling everything together than almost anything we've been seeing in American traditional journalism. Even if you take out the Europe-focused material, you're left with more clarity than the New York Times et al seem able to muster.
I grow more despondent every day as I watch American journalists fail to comprehend the emergency we face. Is their inaction -- their fecklessness in the face of an existential threat not just to our nation's founding principles but also, consequently, to their own craft.
These times call for journalistic activism. What we're getting is business as usual, except it's even weaker than it used to be.
I prefer the option of economic populism. In effect, this would be a third Sanders run. Sanders himself is one of the few anti-Trump political voices who is gaining a wide and appreciative audience. Over 8 million Americans watched Sanders’s response to Trump’s speech on social media. Sanders twice ran strong anti-system campaigns in the Democratic presidential primaries, coming in second both times. Sanders fell short because a critical mass of Democratic voters still trusted the party establishment....It is highly unlikely that Democratic primary voters will be so favorable to establishment voices in 2026 or 2028.
This Nation commentary makes a sensible case that the feckless Democratic Party has essentially one compelling path forward: Bet on economic populism, leveraging Americans' growing disgust with the billionaires and giant corporations wreaking so much havoc over regular folks' lives.
This isn't to say that Democrats should abandon liberalism's virtues, including a belief in human rights, civil liberties, and pluralism. But the reality of our modern system is that both major parties are overwhelmingly beholden to Big Business and oligarchs.
The Biden administration's best work, in key ways, was in its re-empowerment of antitrust and other consumer/competition rules. Even Trump, whose appointees are shredding most of the Biden-era policies and gains for the public good, is holding onto a few of them, most notably pursuing the antitrust lawsuit against Google that resulted in a smashing victory for the government last year.
But the current regime is the epitome of oligarchy merged with retrograde politics. The pervasive corruption of Trump world is by far the worst in American history, and getting more so every week.
The Democrats have been corrupt in their own way. They aren't as personally sleazy, for the most part, but their bowing and scraping to corporate interests has fueled a lot of "both sides do it" unhappiness, some of it deserved.
A core reason – if not the reason – for our increasing woes is the way the Roberts Court (the corrupt collection of judges we allow to rule us) opened the floodgates for money taking control of politics. Wealth is overwhelmingly right wing, because the ultra-wealthy will do anything it takes to preserve their (mostly) ill-gotten riches. And they've put their money into politics to elect people who believe, or at least will vote according to wealth's commands, that nothing matters more than protecting those vast fortunes – and that honest democracy cannot be permitted to exist given the overwhelming public opinion to the contrary.
Change that equation. Tax the oligarchs. End the one-dollar-one-vote system we've slipped into. We won't regain our democracy – our nation – until we can do that.
Journalism's weakness, continued
A few days ago I noted that our "mainstream" journalism organizations fell right into line after the Trump-Vance Oval Office ambush of Ukrainian president Zelensky, when the Americans contemptuously – and loudly at times – lied to and berated the most heroic head of state in my lifetime. He took their bluster calmly, but the press – in its standard, pathetic "both sides" mode – labeled the made-for-TV event a "shouting match" despite the fact that the Americans were the ones who raised their voices.
Now look at the headlines above, referring to Elon Musk's "Doge" operation and its website. What do they have in common? The word "error" (or "errors).
It's certainly possible, maybe even likely, that that some of the BS claims Musk and his incellions pushed to the public were, indeed, mistakes. But let's remember that Musk is a Trump-class liar who has routinely flouted the truth during his business career and in his political moves.
Journalists are probably too timid to say directly what is obvious. But the least they could do it surround "error" or "errors" with scare quotes. So the NY Times headline above would say, "Struggling with 'errors,' Doge deletes billions more from list of savings" – and readers would have a much clearer understanding of what's going on.
How I put this together
This newsletter is a compendium of the reporting and commentary that best explains the America's political, economic, and social conditions – and, most important, how we can find a way back from the dark days ahead. You will rarely find anything here from the New York Times or Washington Post or any of the other Big Journalism companies that failed us so completely during the 2024 elections and are now sucking up – even more than usual – to Donald Trump, his cult, and corporate oligarchs. My focus will be on smaller, more honorable outlets (and individuals). I hope you'll support them with your attention and your money. For more details, please read my About page.
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Jeet Heer
