Awesome Robert. I cannot express in words how grateful I am for your posts. They are oxygen when I am gasping for breath. Thank you for all you give to us and the nation each day. Thank you.
I agree, Wendyl! I feel a jolt when I read Robert Hubbell write: “We can’t allow the media to undermine our confidence. And declaring a leadership crisis in the Democratic Party less than a week after the party lost a presidential election is clickbait journalism.” What’s happening in the MSM is a continuation of the “Flood the Zone with Shit” Mindfuck game plan. We need to resist it. Even if you cannot get others to resist the clickbait-drug, at least do it yourself. Lead by example. I love that Robert counsels us to wait for good information. We are willing to examine our failures. Strong character requires that. Resisting the shame-mongers is a real action we can take right now. I am hurting. This outcome just seems wrong on its face. Why and How seem difficult to access in the diarrhea-like media-sphere we are drowning in. If we legitimately lost, even if by the tiniest margin, I am still so damn glad I did not sit back, or vote for the criminal con-man, treasonous fraudster misogynist rapist business failure, marital failure, and presidential failure.
What is happening to/in the media is interesting. (And I love that Robert calls their content creators "the commentariat." Maybe that should be "kommentariat?"). If we theorize about why they sane-washed Trump for so many years, and, as Robert also says, paved his way to the White House in 2024/5, can we extend that theorizing: I submit that there was method in their madness in 2024, that they were actively following a paid pre-planned agenda to re-elect Trump (paid being the key word). And that their post-election efforts--unified, aggressive, very effective--to "create out of nothing" the inglorious and complete demise of the Democratic Party, is equally pre-planned (and paid for; Putin has plenty of Russian mafia money). The new regime will obviously have calculated that up to half of the voting public does not support them and may actively resist them. The media has an important role to play in destroying that potential resistance psychologically, emotionally, and with manipulated "facts" (quotes for irony) for those who are factually inclined. The goal would be to sap the will of the real Americans, to rot and diffuse their natural responses, to send them home with their tails between their legs never to fight again. Let's not give in to it, should this theory have any merit.
No MSM for me. My source for news is Substack. I used to read the Washington Post and NY Times every day. Not anymore. I think it was the head of CBS who said Trump was ratings gold mine. The legacy media is operating on that premise to this day.
If liberals abandon the MSM, who will be there to push back against their inanities and misreporting? MSM may not be as influential as in times of yore, but they still possess a degree of influence.
Robert, you correctly identified the media's continuing epic failure of imagination. What used to be a functional Fourth Estate that looked at everything with a jaundiced journalistic eye is reduced to formulaic "reporting" that squashes trump et al into a pre-ordained Federal Government box. This is the uncritical normalization (aka sane washing) to which you refer. This generation of low-information and low-training reporters/editors cannot figure out our dystopian situation at all. So, they revert to ridiculous platitudes.
To me, this election was quite simple, which is what makes it so devastating for us whole-hearted Democrats. Too many American Democrats -- to the tune of approx. 13 million -- had the following reaction to voting for the respective candidate slates:
Republican Criminal -- Couldn't (too much to list)
Democratic Woman -- Wouldn't (racism/sexism)
When they found themselves in this emotional quagmire, they perceived the only solution was abstinence. I call that abdication of their civic duty, but that doesn't change the ugly facts of racism and sexism clearly being the deciding factors in this election.
The pundit-class "economy" voting lectures are bogus red herrings. They serve as socially acceptable voter "reasons" for rejecting one of the most accomplished and prepared candidates for the US Presidency in my lifetime just because she is a Black woman. I pray we can come together as Democrats and start to walk the walk for 2026, not just talk the talk. I yield my time.
I think that's what the detention camps will be for. Anyone that gets too angry at Trump or is too effective resisting him, even if their skins are white.
"That abdication of their civic duty" is easy now because a vast number of American citizens have little knowledge and respect for the amount of work and imagination it takes to keep our country working well. Ask a young person about how the government works and be prepared for blank looks.
You are also correct about the racism and sexism. While that speaks reams about the sad condition of the country it also places a responsibility on a party seeking to change the country. You have to consider racism and sexism when nominating your candidate. Kamala Harris is a well-qualified candidate for President but is also a black woman, easy for those who fear women and blacks to NOT vote for. She was elected to national office from California, a relatively enlightened state. Enlightened is not how I would describe the entire middle of the country or the south. Unfortunately, two women have now lost to a despicable sexual offender. Will the Democratic Party keep banging its collective head against that wall? Remains to be seen.
I grew up in the south (eastern NC). I lived in Michigan and Ohio for a total of 30 years. Enlightened does not come to mind because those places are not enlightened. Except for a few large cities, both sections of the country are made up of small communities, and lots of people usually don’t leave because of family. The folks in those communities have very small worlds and are afraid of change.
You had to cover quite some ground today, so please allow me to expand on one point you just mentioned in passing, Robert: the despicable role Pete Hegseth played in the pardoning of US Navy SEAL Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher, a deranged psychotic killer the Navy command desperately tried to distance the SEALs from. Apart from trying not to soil the SEAL's honor code the military also had an interest in showing that they adhered to the provisions of the Geneva Conventions and that they didn't allow war criminals to act freely in their ranks. By doing so they also wanted to assure that captured or wounded US soldiers would be accorded the same protection of the Geneva Conventions.
The intervention of then President Trump and the possibly soon to be Secretary of Defense Hegseth to treat Gallagher as a war hero was met with international consternation and disbelief at the time.
This appointment will go down as one of the worst ever. It seems trump can’t get his head around the fact that this isn’t reality tv, where the producers (who are???) will circumvent any of his truly bad ideas. Hang on tight for now and pray that Robert is correct that the military has the leadership that will self correct.
Thank goodness. Thune is smart enough to remember the TBT ----> Time Before Trump. Wonder if Kristi Noem had a hand in the selection since she seems to have Trump and Vance's ear.
It's extra-ordinary that Trump's vetting team settled on Hegseth, given his gross under-qualification. Ooops, there is no vetting team. If you look good on FOX, then you've got a seat at the table!
Thank you. Losing by 1% is the genuinely sickest feeling when it comes to this… dystopian absurdity. Thank goodness for the vast bureaucracy. But yeah. I cannot with this when I know deeply what could have been.
The large number of congressional Republicans who are inexplicably willing to nuke their careers for no doubt short lived careers in the administration is delicious. Especially when there’s so many from the House that the Republicans are actually in danger of losing their majority. Delicious. That will help hold the line against any fabulist notions of elimination of things and g-d willing, any massive giveaways to the already rich.
How is Nancy Pelosi doing? “Terrible.” Same. Oh the gallows humor solidarity we will need to hold fast to.
They’re all yapping about the border and what’s coming through the border, when the problem is inside the border. So very much inside the border already.
I'm working (slowly, it seems) on two contrasting essays. One is about what could have been, and the other is about the impending reality. I suggest others do the same so we have baselines for our expectations.
I think I made this observation yesterday: President Biden was forced to expend most of his political capital to fix much of what trump damaged the first time. The next Democratic president is going to need a lot more capital to rebuild after the destruction trump promises this time.
Biden expended not only a lot of political capital, struggling to enact his programs: he lost precious time. He didn’t acquire legislative momentum until about the second half of his term, thanks primarily to sniping and caviling from the left.
Therefore:
• Biden and Democrats looked weak and disorganized;
• By election time, the programs Biden finally pushed through Congress didn’t have time to take effect and demonstrate their value.
That did no help Democratic candidates with the 2024 election. Still worse, many inexplicably felt politically constrained to campaign *against* the Biden Administration!
And please please “ Building God’s Kingdom” by Julie Ingersoll. That book reads like Project 2025, it is about the Christian Reconstructionist movement. It describes the heart of the MAGA movement and scary.
America needs to do its inner work and face reality.
We should have done what the Europeans did at the end of the decades long religious wars there: created secular governments in which religion was not welcome--unfortunately, it appears that at the end of those wars, all the religious crazies came over here. After all, this land was "colonized" (stolen) by several groups of religious adherents--and strangely enough, they sure as heck didn't act as though they believed in a loving Father or Son or Holy Spirit. Evidently, the DNA for religious zealotry has been passed along and is alive and doing well both here in the U.S. and the Middle East (I see not a a hairsbreadth of difference between the Taliban and the "xtian" Nationalists). Until this country can rid itself of the religious fanatics and the sheep who seem to want an authoritarian to direct them...we are going to have struggles.
It's not just religious fanatics, though, in 2024 when we have Democratic elected officials ending speeches with "god protect the troops and god protect the United States" it makes me cringe. Dems love to say we have separation of church and state, but we clearly don't.
Yeah, but they are doing it to appease the religious fanatics, I think. I am really beginning to think that organized religion is the bane of civilization.
Thank you for the recommendations especially of Julie Ingersoll's book. I know the Hubbell community is full of readers of a wide range of journals beyond the usual and books. We depend on one another to help create the syllabus for the future.
I am curious to know what gives you confidence in the ability of the military to refuse unconstitutional orders from the president. I hope it is the case, but Michael Flynn was a general. How many others like him are there? The ability of the military to hold fast is the critical bulwark protecting democracy. With Hegseth and the retirement plan, Trump clearly is signaling his intention to undermine the integrity of the command system.
Robert, yes to all of this, and a question: Have you written a piece very much like this (on the media) and submitted it for Op/Ed placement to the major newspapers and sane washers? You are a known force out here and would perhaps breakthrough the logjam (I've written Op/Eds but they haven't been published.) Also: MSNBC ratings are plummeting, the Post has lost hundreds of thousands of subscribers, liberals are fleeing Twitter, and at one point won't advertisers stop supporting this insanity? Can we make our voices heard to them?
Hi Robert! Thank you for putting that absurd new department with Musk and Vivek into correct perspective. The MSM is acting like it s a normal everyday occurrence and the work they will do is a done deal. It was very disturbing and confusing. Thanks for putting that out there. Ugh. The Democratic Party needs to get very simple messaging out there. 5 easy sentences written, spoken, over and over again…in order to combat the tsunami of conservative talking points. Yes it was only 1% close win…yet the MSM is focused on Dump like he’s an emperor ….sickening, I have to cancel my WAPO subscription again. They can’t seem to do journalism anymore….only sensationalism.
Simon Rosenberg in his post yesterday had a lot of valuable observations about how we move forward that I want to share.
"Re-Imagining The The Roles Of The DNC, Elected Officials And Grassroots Dems In The Info Wars - As we’ve discussed since the very first day of Hopium, our family has to learn how to be loud not just in our muscular campaigns but every day, 24/7/365. We need to work together to close what I call the loudness gap with the right. We’ve talked here about the need to grow pro-democracy media organizations like Crooked Media, COURIER Newsroom, MeidasTouch, Resolute Square, Deep State Radio and fellow Substackers like Robert Hubbell, Heather Cox Richardson and Timothy Snyder. We’ve talked about the role we all have to play in working our networks each day, getting louder, and becoming more accomplished information warriors for our democracy. Today, I want to talk another piece of a new loudness strategy - the roles of our party committees and elected officials.
First, the DNC and other state parties must become more like MeidasTouch. The DNC has to become a central communications hub of the new opposition, and produce high quality, modern, social and YouTube content everyday both advancing our ideas and leaders, and challenging theirs. As some have mentioned here, elements of the social-based KamalaHQ should be brought into the DNC, and large gatherings of Dems along the lines of White Dudes For Harris should become a regular thing. Our party infrastructure simply has to take on a greater comms responsibility in the 20 months outside of the last 4 months of elections every two years, and large donors in our family should support this strategic evolution.
Next, the relationship between Democrats across the country and our big campaigns and party committees must change. The millions of us who gave and volunteered need to be treated like partners in the fight not just donors to the cause. There has to be a more respectful information based relationship between us, where our campaigns and parties start treating us not only like ATMs but also like proud patriots, information warriors and willing amplifiers. In this networked age we must see the 4-5-6m people who gave this past cycle as a vast information network to be deployed to counter the right’s information superiority. Imagine the Senate/House/DNC doing a training on how to understand and talk about Trump’s tariffs or his mass deportation plans with a million Dems over Zoom? Creating a true and robust center-left amplification network has to be an immediate, 2025 goal.
Finally, our elected officials, every single one of them, at all levels of government, need to get louder in every way possible every day. There has to be a revolution in how we see the role of an elected official, both on the official side and on the campaign side. Electeds need to not only govern and legislate, but also should see themselves as influencers and info warriors with enormous platforms to help shape the information environment every day, 24/7/365. Simply, they have to work it as hard as they can, every day, using all the tools at their disposal.
Party leaders should work to create a new baseline of understanding of how people get their information these days to help every person in this process become more effective. Classes and training should be required for all electeds and their staffs, and best practices shared.
In the last Congress we saw examples of where we need to go. House Members like AOC, Eric Swalwell, Jamie Raskin, Maxwell Frost, Jeff Jackson, Jasmine Crockett and Jerad Moskowitz were effective at creating “hot moments’ which broke through the noise and went viral. These kinds of tactics are going to become far more important now in this period of opposition.
The world has changed and we need to change with it or be left behind."
Robert, thank you. I also don’t think the media has grappled at all with the impact of AI algorithms and Russian and other bots on this election. Commentators seem totally ill-equipped to analyze what we are dealing with including taking fundamentalist fascists seriously. We need new paradigms. We also need the clear eyed courage and empirical analysis you provide every day. THANK YOU!!!!
I agree that newscasters are making absurd efforts to find reasons to place blame on the Democratic loss. The one newscaster who has long railed against Donald Trump and his todies is Lawrence O'Donnell of MSNBC. He is the only one I am now watching.
With this edition, a week after that God-awful last Wednesday, I feel like "official mourning" is over and now we all collectively/actively begin to coalesce into action. Nothing fully specific yet, but with this one you begin to lay out some of the perspective (and planks) around which the resistance will form to help build a platform for the now all-important 2026 midterms. I will be forwarding this one to everybody I know and will repeat my plea that they follow you, Heather and all the other clear and keen visioned (what do I call you all......???) "activist and honest observers" whom history will relatively quickly reflect as having taken up the mantle of the cowed/failed corporate media. I think of the Guardian, the Atlantic, Rachel Maddow, Joyce Vance, Dan Rather, Robert Reich, Jay Kuo, Rogan's List, Popular Information, Hopium, TCinLA, etc etc etc....... Let's all of us identify the best of the best in this vein......let's widely identify (curate?) and help support the best information sources and promote them as best we can. How about you help start the curatorial process? I put you and Heather at the top of the list...... Just a thought..........
For me the recent administration appointees is a sign that once again the entire Trump administration will have loyalists not competent cabinet members and this is an opportunity for Democrats as they fail miserably trying to manage the government. Just look at the House over the past four years. What is critical is Democrats must hold the entire administration accountable every single day. The first thing Trump will do is deport criminal immigrants and claim victory a key cornerstone of his platform. The saddest part of the Trump victory is he will never be held accountable for his crimes and gets away scott free.
After Great Britain voted in large numbers to take away their participation in the European Union the article most googled the following day was “what is Brexit?“ I was reminded of that after this election when I read Heather Cox Richardson‘s superb article about the number of mega supporters who had no idea how Trump‘s policies was going to affect them. And yes, it is very tempting to say to them “asked for it“ but that does not go anywhere. I do call bullshit on the legacy media and I canceled my subscription to my local newspaper yesterday. I had often said that if Donald Trump was elected, I would blame primarily the legacy media who continued to sinew him. Looking at you, New York Times! so now what do we do? We call bullshit every single time and insistently whenever the media tries to blame this disaster completely on Democrats. But here’s another issue that maybe we can begin discussing. Taking away abortion, the major effort of Republicans, also takes away MAID or medical assistance in dying. That is going to affect many more people than the issue of abortion statistically speaking. I am one of them. I’m 78 and I have an aggressive cancer. I’ve made my peace with the idea of dying and the idea of being kept on life-support against my will gives me the chills. Why don’t we start talking about that?
Dr. Kellogg, I admire your strength of character and your commitment to an exalted sense of citizenship signified by your post and your ongoing courageous engagement with the future of our country even when you face the most intimate and personal challenge of your illness.
Thank you and may our gratitude lighten your heart.
Thank you, Robert, for your perspective. We will be watching the incompetent cabinet members, odd ball committees take shape and fall on their faces. I hope you will pinpoint these failures as we move forward toward 2026 midterms. Maybe even the MSM will get the message.
Hopefully, the Trump voters will see the stupidity of their new "leaders" and we can recover somewhat before the bottom falls out.
We do have a deep bench of leaders and they and our grassroots give me renewed hope.
His “Oligarch’s Island” is spot on. If you haven’t read it, you deserve to in the near future. Some humor in the midst of our calamity is stabilizing and informative.
Awesome Robert. I cannot express in words how grateful I am for your posts. They are oxygen when I am gasping for breath. Thank you for all you give to us and the nation each day. Thank you.
I agree, Wendyl! I feel a jolt when I read Robert Hubbell write: “We can’t allow the media to undermine our confidence. And declaring a leadership crisis in the Democratic Party less than a week after the party lost a presidential election is clickbait journalism.” What’s happening in the MSM is a continuation of the “Flood the Zone with Shit” Mindfuck game plan. We need to resist it. Even if you cannot get others to resist the clickbait-drug, at least do it yourself. Lead by example. I love that Robert counsels us to wait for good information. We are willing to examine our failures. Strong character requires that. Resisting the shame-mongers is a real action we can take right now. I am hurting. This outcome just seems wrong on its face. Why and How seem difficult to access in the diarrhea-like media-sphere we are drowning in. If we legitimately lost, even if by the tiniest margin, I am still so damn glad I did not sit back, or vote for the criminal con-man, treasonous fraudster misogynist rapist business failure, marital failure, and presidential failure.
What is happening to/in the media is interesting. (And I love that Robert calls their content creators "the commentariat." Maybe that should be "kommentariat?"). If we theorize about why they sane-washed Trump for so many years, and, as Robert also says, paved his way to the White House in 2024/5, can we extend that theorizing: I submit that there was method in their madness in 2024, that they were actively following a paid pre-planned agenda to re-elect Trump (paid being the key word). And that their post-election efforts--unified, aggressive, very effective--to "create out of nothing" the inglorious and complete demise of the Democratic Party, is equally pre-planned (and paid for; Putin has plenty of Russian mafia money). The new regime will obviously have calculated that up to half of the voting public does not support them and may actively resist them. The media has an important role to play in destroying that potential resistance psychologically, emotionally, and with manipulated "facts" (quotes for irony) for those who are factually inclined. The goal would be to sap the will of the real Americans, to rot and diffuse their natural responses, to send them home with their tails between their legs never to fight again. Let's not give in to it, should this theory have any merit.
No MSM for me. My source for news is Substack. I used to read the Washington Post and NY Times every day. Not anymore. I think it was the head of CBS who said Trump was ratings gold mine. The legacy media is operating on that premise to this day.
If liberals abandon the MSM, who will be there to push back against their inanities and misreporting? MSM may not be as influential as in times of yore, but they still possess a degree of influence.
Ditto!
Perfectly said. Puts my feet back on the ground. Thanks for articulating this for all of us😍
Amen. Blessings to Robert and Jill. You sustain me. Through today's tears.
Yes!Yes!Yes!
Robert, you correctly identified the media's continuing epic failure of imagination. What used to be a functional Fourth Estate that looked at everything with a jaundiced journalistic eye is reduced to formulaic "reporting" that squashes trump et al into a pre-ordained Federal Government box. This is the uncritical normalization (aka sane washing) to which you refer. This generation of low-information and low-training reporters/editors cannot figure out our dystopian situation at all. So, they revert to ridiculous platitudes.
To me, this election was quite simple, which is what makes it so devastating for us whole-hearted Democrats. Too many American Democrats -- to the tune of approx. 13 million -- had the following reaction to voting for the respective candidate slates:
Republican Criminal -- Couldn't (too much to list)
Democratic Woman -- Wouldn't (racism/sexism)
When they found themselves in this emotional quagmire, they perceived the only solution was abstinence. I call that abdication of their civic duty, but that doesn't change the ugly facts of racism and sexism clearly being the deciding factors in this election.
The pundit-class "economy" voting lectures are bogus red herrings. They serve as socially acceptable voter "reasons" for rejecting one of the most accomplished and prepared candidates for the US Presidency in my lifetime just because she is a Black woman. I pray we can come together as Democrats and start to walk the walk for 2026, not just talk the talk. I yield my time.
A truckload of "likes" for your comment! Well said and thank you!
My hope is that the numerous non-voters will soon be likely to find a reason to be anti-Trump.
They will and followed by magas who will have lost their shirts including their health insurance.
I think that's what the detention camps will be for. Anyone that gets too angry at Trump or is too effective resisting him, even if their skins are white.
"That abdication of their civic duty" is easy now because a vast number of American citizens have little knowledge and respect for the amount of work and imagination it takes to keep our country working well. Ask a young person about how the government works and be prepared for blank looks.
You are also correct about the racism and sexism. While that speaks reams about the sad condition of the country it also places a responsibility on a party seeking to change the country. You have to consider racism and sexism when nominating your candidate. Kamala Harris is a well-qualified candidate for President but is also a black woman, easy for those who fear women and blacks to NOT vote for. She was elected to national office from California, a relatively enlightened state. Enlightened is not how I would describe the entire middle of the country or the south. Unfortunately, two women have now lost to a despicable sexual offender. Will the Democratic Party keep banging its collective head against that wall? Remains to be seen.
I grew up in the south (eastern NC). I lived in Michigan and Ohio for a total of 30 years. Enlightened does not come to mind because those places are not enlightened. Except for a few large cities, both sections of the country are made up of small communities, and lots of people usually don’t leave because of family. The folks in those communities have very small worlds and are afraid of change.
You had to cover quite some ground today, so please allow me to expand on one point you just mentioned in passing, Robert: the despicable role Pete Hegseth played in the pardoning of US Navy SEAL Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher, a deranged psychotic killer the Navy command desperately tried to distance the SEALs from. Apart from trying not to soil the SEAL's honor code the military also had an interest in showing that they adhered to the provisions of the Geneva Conventions and that they didn't allow war criminals to act freely in their ranks. By doing so they also wanted to assure that captured or wounded US soldiers would be accorded the same protection of the Geneva Conventions.
The intervention of then President Trump and the possibly soon to be Secretary of Defense Hegseth to treat Gallagher as a war hero was met with international consternation and disbelief at the time.
More on the case here
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/24/us/edward-gallagher-navy-seals-trump.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Zk4.OsKd.PkwenugmcvKt&smid=url-share
Thank you for the additional background. The US military considered their actions to be war crimes. That speaks volumes.
This appointment will go down as one of the worst ever. It seems trump can’t get his head around the fact that this isn’t reality tv, where the producers (who are???) will circumvent any of his truly bad ideas. Hang on tight for now and pray that Robert is correct that the military has the leadership that will self correct.
His cabinet will be filled by people who have performed on FOX and looked good do it. Truthfulness not a requirement. Nor for Rick Scott
Rick Scott just got smacked down. The Senate picked John Thune to be Majority Leader.
Thank goodness. Thune is smart enough to remember the TBT ----> Time Before Trump. Wonder if Kristi Noem had a hand in the selection since she seems to have Trump and Vance's ear.
Thune is merely less bad than Rick Scott.
Maintain a sense of proportion, folks.
And just now we got Matt Gaetz as Attorney General. The next four years will be a wild ride.
Trump's picks so far are all camera ready to appear before the cameras and mouth whatever sh*t Trump orders them to say.
It's extra-ordinary that Trump's vetting team settled on Hegseth, given his gross under-qualification. Ooops, there is no vetting team. If you look good on FOX, then you've got a seat at the table!
It's possible the table they are setting is for the 2025 folks to march in and take charge once the norms and laws have been trashed.
Do we need anymore instability in a nuclear-armed world? Trump seems to have little or no interest in that question.
I suspect that the amount of important governing stuff that Trump hasn't thought about would fill an encyclopedia.
To borrow a phrase from Abba Eban – Trump’s lack of knowledge is encyclopedic.
Thank you. Losing by 1% is the genuinely sickest feeling when it comes to this… dystopian absurdity. Thank goodness for the vast bureaucracy. But yeah. I cannot with this when I know deeply what could have been.
The large number of congressional Republicans who are inexplicably willing to nuke their careers for no doubt short lived careers in the administration is delicious. Especially when there’s so many from the House that the Republicans are actually in danger of losing their majority. Delicious. That will help hold the line against any fabulist notions of elimination of things and g-d willing, any massive giveaways to the already rich.
How is Nancy Pelosi doing? “Terrible.” Same. Oh the gallows humor solidarity we will need to hold fast to.
They’re all yapping about the border and what’s coming through the border, when the problem is inside the border. So very much inside the border already.
Especially compared to what could have been.
And it's awful to consider that Stein, Oliver, RFK Jr etc garnered about 2.5 million votes across the country. Pro-tip: it was no Trump landslide.
I'm working (slowly, it seems) on two contrasting essays. One is about what could have been, and the other is about the impending reality. I suggest others do the same so we have baselines for our expectations.
I think I made this observation yesterday: President Biden was forced to expend most of his political capital to fix much of what trump damaged the first time. The next Democratic president is going to need a lot more capital to rebuild after the destruction trump promises this time.
Biden expended not only a lot of political capital, struggling to enact his programs: he lost precious time. He didn’t acquire legislative momentum until about the second half of his term, thanks primarily to sniping and caviling from the left.
Therefore:
• Biden and Democrats looked weak and disorganized;
• By election time, the programs Biden finally pushed through Congress didn’t have time to take effect and demonstrate their value.
That did no help Democratic candidates with the 2024 election. Still worse, many inexplicably felt politically constrained to campaign *against* the Biden Administration!
Please please listen to John Stewart & HCR
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-weekly-show-with-jon-stewart/id1583132133?i=1000676185735
It is the most cogent postmortem out there.
And please please “ Building God’s Kingdom” by Julie Ingersoll. That book reads like Project 2025, it is about the Christian Reconstructionist movement. It describes the heart of the MAGA movement and scary.
America needs to do its inner work and face reality.
We should have done what the Europeans did at the end of the decades long religious wars there: created secular governments in which religion was not welcome--unfortunately, it appears that at the end of those wars, all the religious crazies came over here. After all, this land was "colonized" (stolen) by several groups of religious adherents--and strangely enough, they sure as heck didn't act as though they believed in a loving Father or Son or Holy Spirit. Evidently, the DNA for religious zealotry has been passed along and is alive and doing well both here in the U.S. and the Middle East (I see not a a hairsbreadth of difference between the Taliban and the "xtian" Nationalists). Until this country can rid itself of the religious fanatics and the sheep who seem to want an authoritarian to direct them...we are going to have struggles.
Yes, the swearing on bibles and In God We Trust has always been troubling for me, and us.
It belies the concept of separation of church and state, doesn't it?
It's not just religious fanatics, though, in 2024 when we have Democratic elected officials ending speeches with "god protect the troops and god protect the United States" it makes me cringe. Dems love to say we have separation of church and state, but we clearly don't.
Yeah, but they are doing it to appease the religious fanatics, I think. I am really beginning to think that organized religion is the bane of civilization.
Thank you for the recommendations especially of Julie Ingersoll's book. I know the Hubbell community is full of readers of a wide range of journals beyond the usual and books. We depend on one another to help create the syllabus for the future.
And let's think about the pernicious and frivolous Florida book banning crusade:
https://www.salon.com/2022/10/01/statewide-book-bans-are-coming-to-floridas-classrooms-enforced-by-the-far-right/
You want your kids to go to school here?
And yet, they have leaders speak publicly in a foul way.
https://www.youtube.com/@WeeklyShowPodcast if you want to watch/listen to Jon's weekly show without all the legalese and giving up your credit card #.
I am curious to know what gives you confidence in the ability of the military to refuse unconstitutional orders from the president. I hope it is the case, but Michael Flynn was a general. How many others like him are there? The ability of the military to hold fast is the critical bulwark protecting democracy. With Hegseth and the retirement plan, Trump clearly is signaling his intention to undermine the integrity of the command system.
Thereby giving him complete and unassailable power over the US…us.
Robert, yes to all of this, and a question: Have you written a piece very much like this (on the media) and submitted it for Op/Ed placement to the major newspapers and sane washers? You are a known force out here and would perhaps breakthrough the logjam (I've written Op/Eds but they haven't been published.) Also: MSNBC ratings are plummeting, the Post has lost hundreds of thousands of subscribers, liberals are fleeing Twitter, and at one point won't advertisers stop supporting this insanity? Can we make our voices heard to them?
Hi Robert! Thank you for putting that absurd new department with Musk and Vivek into correct perspective. The MSM is acting like it s a normal everyday occurrence and the work they will do is a done deal. It was very disturbing and confusing. Thanks for putting that out there. Ugh. The Democratic Party needs to get very simple messaging out there. 5 easy sentences written, spoken, over and over again…in order to combat the tsunami of conservative talking points. Yes it was only 1% close win…yet the MSM is focused on Dump like he’s an emperor ….sickening, I have to cancel my WAPO subscription again. They can’t seem to do journalism anymore….only sensationalism.
Pairing Musk and Ramaswamy makes for a bizarre combination. I can't imagine either working *with* the other. We'll see....
Simon Rosenberg in his post yesterday had a lot of valuable observations about how we move forward that I want to share.
"Re-Imagining The The Roles Of The DNC, Elected Officials And Grassroots Dems In The Info Wars - As we’ve discussed since the very first day of Hopium, our family has to learn how to be loud not just in our muscular campaigns but every day, 24/7/365. We need to work together to close what I call the loudness gap with the right. We’ve talked here about the need to grow pro-democracy media organizations like Crooked Media, COURIER Newsroom, MeidasTouch, Resolute Square, Deep State Radio and fellow Substackers like Robert Hubbell, Heather Cox Richardson and Timothy Snyder. We’ve talked about the role we all have to play in working our networks each day, getting louder, and becoming more accomplished information warriors for our democracy. Today, I want to talk another piece of a new loudness strategy - the roles of our party committees and elected officials.
First, the DNC and other state parties must become more like MeidasTouch. The DNC has to become a central communications hub of the new opposition, and produce high quality, modern, social and YouTube content everyday both advancing our ideas and leaders, and challenging theirs. As some have mentioned here, elements of the social-based KamalaHQ should be brought into the DNC, and large gatherings of Dems along the lines of White Dudes For Harris should become a regular thing. Our party infrastructure simply has to take on a greater comms responsibility in the 20 months outside of the last 4 months of elections every two years, and large donors in our family should support this strategic evolution.
Next, the relationship between Democrats across the country and our big campaigns and party committees must change. The millions of us who gave and volunteered need to be treated like partners in the fight not just donors to the cause. There has to be a more respectful information based relationship between us, where our campaigns and parties start treating us not only like ATMs but also like proud patriots, information warriors and willing amplifiers. In this networked age we must see the 4-5-6m people who gave this past cycle as a vast information network to be deployed to counter the right’s information superiority. Imagine the Senate/House/DNC doing a training on how to understand and talk about Trump’s tariffs or his mass deportation plans with a million Dems over Zoom? Creating a true and robust center-left amplification network has to be an immediate, 2025 goal.
Finally, our elected officials, every single one of them, at all levels of government, need to get louder in every way possible every day. There has to be a revolution in how we see the role of an elected official, both on the official side and on the campaign side. Electeds need to not only govern and legislate, but also should see themselves as influencers and info warriors with enormous platforms to help shape the information environment every day, 24/7/365. Simply, they have to work it as hard as they can, every day, using all the tools at their disposal.
Party leaders should work to create a new baseline of understanding of how people get their information these days to help every person in this process become more effective. Classes and training should be required for all electeds and their staffs, and best practices shared.
In the last Congress we saw examples of where we need to go. House Members like AOC, Eric Swalwell, Jamie Raskin, Maxwell Frost, Jeff Jackson, Jasmine Crockett and Jerad Moskowitz were effective at creating “hot moments’ which broke through the noise and went viral. These kinds of tactics are going to become far more important now in this period of opposition.
The world has changed and we need to change with it or be left behind."
Yes! And we need a new, energetic, forceful, forward looking leader of the DNC! Anyone have any suggestions?
There's only one, Ben Wikler.
Robert, thank you. I also don’t think the media has grappled at all with the impact of AI algorithms and Russian and other bots on this election. Commentators seem totally ill-equipped to analyze what we are dealing with including taking fundamentalist fascists seriously. We need new paradigms. We also need the clear eyed courage and empirical analysis you provide every day. THANK YOU!!!!
I agree that newscasters are making absurd efforts to find reasons to place blame on the Democratic loss. The one newscaster who has long railed against Donald Trump and his todies is Lawrence O'Donnell of MSNBC. He is the only one I am now watching.
I listen to his podcast every day
With this edition, a week after that God-awful last Wednesday, I feel like "official mourning" is over and now we all collectively/actively begin to coalesce into action. Nothing fully specific yet, but with this one you begin to lay out some of the perspective (and planks) around which the resistance will form to help build a platform for the now all-important 2026 midterms. I will be forwarding this one to everybody I know and will repeat my plea that they follow you, Heather and all the other clear and keen visioned (what do I call you all......???) "activist and honest observers" whom history will relatively quickly reflect as having taken up the mantle of the cowed/failed corporate media. I think of the Guardian, the Atlantic, Rachel Maddow, Joyce Vance, Dan Rather, Robert Reich, Jay Kuo, Rogan's List, Popular Information, Hopium, TCinLA, etc etc etc....... Let's all of us identify the best of the best in this vein......let's widely identify (curate?) and help support the best information sources and promote them as best we can. How about you help start the curatorial process? I put you and Heather at the top of the list...... Just a thought..........
I'm working on such a list for our Indivisible chapter. We're calling it trusted media.
For me the recent administration appointees is a sign that once again the entire Trump administration will have loyalists not competent cabinet members and this is an opportunity for Democrats as they fail miserably trying to manage the government. Just look at the House over the past four years. What is critical is Democrats must hold the entire administration accountable every single day. The first thing Trump will do is deport criminal immigrants and claim victory a key cornerstone of his platform. The saddest part of the Trump victory is he will never be held accountable for his crimes and gets away scott free.
Thank you so much for your posts! You are an amazing writer and have such a calming voice. Your wisdom is desperately required at this time.
After Great Britain voted in large numbers to take away their participation in the European Union the article most googled the following day was “what is Brexit?“ I was reminded of that after this election when I read Heather Cox Richardson‘s superb article about the number of mega supporters who had no idea how Trump‘s policies was going to affect them. And yes, it is very tempting to say to them “asked for it“ but that does not go anywhere. I do call bullshit on the legacy media and I canceled my subscription to my local newspaper yesterday. I had often said that if Donald Trump was elected, I would blame primarily the legacy media who continued to sinew him. Looking at you, New York Times! so now what do we do? We call bullshit every single time and insistently whenever the media tries to blame this disaster completely on Democrats. But here’s another issue that maybe we can begin discussing. Taking away abortion, the major effort of Republicans, also takes away MAID or medical assistance in dying. That is going to affect many more people than the issue of abortion statistically speaking. I am one of them. I’m 78 and I have an aggressive cancer. I’ve made my peace with the idea of dying and the idea of being kept on life-support against my will gives me the chills. Why don’t we start talking about that?
Dr. Kellogg, I admire your strength of character and your commitment to an exalted sense of citizenship signified by your post and your ongoing courageous engagement with the future of our country even when you face the most intimate and personal challenge of your illness.
Thank you and may our gratitude lighten your heart.
Thank you, Robert, for your perspective. We will be watching the incompetent cabinet members, odd ball committees take shape and fall on their faces. I hope you will pinpoint these failures as we move forward toward 2026 midterms. Maybe even the MSM will get the message.
Hopefully, the Trump voters will see the stupidity of their new "leaders" and we can recover somewhat before the bottom falls out.
We do have a deep bench of leaders and they and our grassroots give me renewed hope.
Speaking of incompetence, here is Prof. Timothy Snyder's comedic interpretation of the incoming White House group, called Oligarchs' Island.
https://snyder.substack.com/p/oligarchs-island?utm_source=substack&publication_id=310897&post_id=151527054&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&utm_campaign=email-share&triggerShare=true&isFreemail=true&r=f0qfn&triedRedirect=true
Here is a movie version of the show it was based on, which is really stupid in case you don't know the show.
https://youtu.be/DtPnUOO-5UU?si=JZYMbIgfhEJiJ2oe
His “Oligarch’s Island” is spot on. If you haven’t read it, you deserve to in the near future. Some humor in the midst of our calamity is stabilizing and informative.
I agree. We need this sort of humor, because he is pointing as terrible as things "might" be, these people are bound to self-destruct at some point.
Another calming piece in addition to Robert's today is this article in the Guardian, which says not so fast Elon Musk.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/12/trump-elon-musk-vivek-ramaswamy?utm_term=673435d614f86765a97e209812b1bbc2&utm_campaign=GuardianTodayUK&utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&CMP=GTUK_email
Each of these people is pointing out that, "the best laid plans of mice and men..."