Hartmann Report

This move toward autocracy in the Republican Party is the biggest threat our democracy faces today. The Republican Party is committed to tearing America apart by pitting us against each other. Why would they do this? Here’s a clue: 63 Republicans voted this week against a resolution in support of NATO. Yes, they voted for Putin’s side of the war. Seriously. Although it’s been largely ignored by American TV media, you can read all about it over at The Washington Post in an article by Aaron Blake titled: “Why 30 percent of the House GOP voted against reaffirming NATO support.”

Strongmen are winning elections, from Putin in Russia, to Orban in Hungary, to Bolsonaro in Brazil, with an anti-LGBTQ agenda: Republicans here are implementing the same strategy. Ron DeSantis, the most likely GOP candidate for president in 2024, has gone to war with trans people and Disney, saying he’s doing so to protect Florida’s children. It’s a slick trick that seems to be working for him and his Republican colleagues, and is thus spreading to other states. Authoritarian politicians in electoral democracies typically exploit people’s fear to gain political power, and then use that power to destroy the democracy itself from within. But first they have to create that fear by building up a straw-man villain. Republicans today are running that strategy to try to turn America, like Hungary, into a strongman oligarchy.

If the Democratic Party wants to win big this fall and in 2024, their best bet is to oppose corruption in all its forms. And then, unlike the Trumpy Republicans, to walk the talk. Russian presidential candidate Alexi Navalny is rotting in a Russian gulag because he picked up the most powerful weapon a candidate can wave against an entrenched political opponent: “Corruption.” Democrats need to learn from his effort, and Republicans are handing them all the ammunition they’ll need for this fall.

In fact, all of the fossil fuel energy sources we use originated with light radiated from our sun. The number one thing you and I can do right now to slow down America‘s right-wing fossil fuel billionaires and Putin is to drive an electric car. We need to kick our addiction to ancient sunlight. The Guardian reports on a new, just-published study: “A speedy nationwide transition to electric vehicles powered by renewable energy would save more than 100,000 American lives and $1.2tn in public health costs over the next three decades…”

The Deciding Moment? Part of the American Revolution was about to be lost a century after it had been fought. At the time probably very few of the people involved realized that what they were about to witness could be a counterrevolution that would change life in the United States and, ultimately, the world over the course of the following century.

The Best of the Rest of the News. — Sen. Mitt Romney (and the GOP) wants to cut retirement benefits. — Tunisia: The only democracy in the Arab world bit the dust this week. — Will Putin's war end free trade? — Inflation: CEOs can't stop bragging about their earnings as they jack up prices. — Why are Republicans pretending everything is fine when Trump is guilty as hell? — In Good News: Federal judge puts Florida on 10-year probation after ruling that state's new voting law disenfranchises Black voters. — And More Good News: Bernie Sanders calls a hearing on "healthcare as a right." Will it have an impact? — Crazy Alert! MAGA has now decided that watching sports makes you "Feminine."

If you want to carry a gun in public, earn crap wages, and don’t care about access to healthcare or your kid’s education, move to a Red state - but get ready, because all they have left is hate & fear. If you’re concerned about quality of life, education, living longer, and lower crime, move to a Blue state. If you want to carry a gun in public, earn crap wages, and don’t care about access to healthcare or your kid’s education, move to a Red state. The only downside of the move-to-a-Blue-state strategy is that you’re going to be paying for the Red states, anyway. But, still, the quality of life difference is worth it.

We made the same mistake average Russians are making right now. Repeatedly. It’s all about human nature being exploited by ruthless politicians... At least a dozen times in the past week I’ve heard American TV commentators wonder out loud how it is that average Russians don’t believe the horrors their government has inflicted on Ukraine and its people. The most common story is of Ukrainian refugees or people under bombardment who’ve tried to tell friends or relatives back in Russia what’s going on and gotten a disbelieving response.

Worldwide, Democracy is under threat - not just as a result of Putin’s murderous war against Ukraine, but brewing since the 1980s and Reagan’s neoliberal revolution. Putin’s attack on Ukraine is producing a series of crises which are going to, in all probability, bring a period of great pain and instability to the world and to America in the near future. Republicans are already working to exploit it.

Biden is now promoting a tax on the top 0.01% and billionaires are already fuming. It’s a start to what’ll be necessary to bring back a functioning democracy & middle class. The headline says it all: “‘Fuming’ Billionaires Issue Profane Denunciation of Biden’s New Minimum Tax Plan.“ President Biden yesterday rolled out his new $5.3 trillion 2023 budget for the United States.