"If we can swap Republicans for Democrats without changing anything else, and the mass 'struggling' magically goes away, it seems almost mathematically true that Democratic sheepishness over their economic successes is one of the key reasons Biden’s economy is widely viewed to be a failure."
"Letting people who hate Democrats or who are perennial critics of the U.S. economic system make all the strong claims about the economy, while the people in charge hide behind empathy for those left behind, is a big reason why public opinion and economic reality have detached from one another."
"In a series of paragraphs that are up there as being among the most shocking I have read in my journalistic career, the Post acknowledged on Saturday — dropped in the middle of the holiday weekend, more than a week after the Times’s report — that they had known about the flag since at least January 20, 2021, and had not revealed knowledge of it until May 25, 2024."
As Chris Geidner reports, Washington Post knew three years ago about Alito's wife flying the insurrectionist flag of white Christian nationalism, and buried the story.
"It serves people who want to keep living in what used to be the American mainstream. Our demographics are changing rapidly, but there was a time not that long ago when the vast majority of American society was white and Christian. There was a time when being LGBTQ+ was considered by a majority to be morally reprehensible. When it was okay to deny Black people the right to vote, or even freedom."
"What are we to make of the fact that Trump can be re-elected, that the Supreme Court is full of reactionary fanatics, and Congress isn't acting on the will of the American people? For starters, we have a political system that acts like a dam, blocking the 'main stream' of where this country is today."
Heather Cox Richardson reminds us that the MAGA minority now exerting such control in the Republican party, notably its white evangelical base, are so rabid and aggressive because they know they are in the minority nationally:
"MAGA Republicans know their agenda is unpopular, and they are working to seize power through voter suppression, violence, gerrymandering, and packing the legal system."
Richardson provides an instructive rundown of GOP extremism in just the past week:
1. Louisiana's GOP legislature passes legislation classifying mifepristone and misoprostol as dangerous drugs.
2. Trump "said he was open to regulating contraception and that his campaign would issue a policy statement on contraception 'very shortly.'" He then walked that statement back amid backlash.
"Three stories shaping our news this week have crystalized the stakes in this election: It’s either their Republic, or no Republic at all. …
The evidence is now clear: They want a return to patriarchal white Christian rule, and to block our long journey toward a multi-racial, egalitarian, secular society."
"Call it anomie or call it airsickness—we find ourselves in a land of confusion. Trump pays off a porn star and yet is hailed as a champion of Christian values. He mocks prisoners of war and calls dead soldiers 'suckers,' and his MAGA base is thrilled by his patriotism."
"To hear conservative Christians argue that personal character doesn’t matter, or to witness self-described constitutional conservatives defend a relentless attack on the rule of law, is disorienting. To see advocates of law and order embrace rioters who attacked the Capitol and beat police officers is baffling."
"The challenge of the present moment is to continue to relentlessly observe, report, and document each of Donald Trump’s serial transgressions of democratic norms, the rule of law, and basic human decency. Challenging because the list is endless, the mind numbs, the body tires, and because the effort is not going to change his behavior or calm the fervor of his true believers."
"To watch the party of Ronald Reagan embracing isolationism and following Trump in truckling to the Butcher of Ukraine, Putin, is bewildering. Mind-bending, also, is that, despite Trump’s fire hose of lies, 71 percent of Republicans describe him as 'honest and trustworthy.'”
"Yesterday brought one such episode, when Trump baldly tied the release of WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich, illegally detained by Russian, to his own re-election.
Where to start? ...
As to Gershkovich himself, Trump absolutely jeopardized his release. ...As to the larger picture, Trump remains a toady of Putin, an easily played neophyte in geopolitics who can’t distinguish his personal and political interests from the national interest."
"By the age of 14, he had survived the Holocaust; by 44, he was an Israeli diplomat; now, at the age of 94, Theodor Meron recommended the International Criminal Court seek arrest warrants of Israeli and Hamas leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity."
"In bestowing racist legislatures with the presumption of good faith, Alito is advancing the twin causes of white Christian nationalism and insurrection symbolized by the 'Appeal to Heaven' flag displayed over his beach house in 2023. Alito is, in short, in the vanguard of a hostile takeover of the US Constitution by white Christian nationalists."
As Heather Cox Richardson reports, the Supreme Court just signed off on a South Carolina congressional map that dilutes Black votes by gerrymandering.
And Samuel Alito wrote the majority opinion. She writes,
"Almost exactly 70 years after the Supreme Court unanimously decided Brown v. Board, it appears that the framed timbers designed to reverse the expansion of minority rights are falling into place."
"The conservative court on which Alito sits is largely the product of right-wing dark-money overlord Leonard Leo, and — wouldn’t you know it — Leo flew the same 'Appeal to Heaven' flag outside of his house in Maine.
Murray Ngoima, a Bar Harbor resident, provided Rolling Stone with a photo she took of the flag hanging outside of his house on Feb. 25."
Interested in building a better world and standing in solidarity with others who share that goal. For biographical information, please see https://toad.social/@wdlindsy/109539508828689842 "Writing is the way I fight." ~ James Cone #solidarity #democracy #HumanRights #LGBTQ