Hartmann Report

The GOP and, sadly, a few white Democrats like Manchin want to answer that question with a definite “No.” This weekend, Louise and I took a long drive to a small town in a rural part of Oregon. Watching people walk down the street, we imagined we could identify who would vote Democratic and who would vote Republican largely by how they looked and dressed (and who wore a mask or didn’t). It sounds like a very superficial analysis, but take a look at the people who show up for Republican party meetings versus the folks who show up for Democratic party meetings. Or the people who show up to protest police violence and the people who show up to “support the police.”

Like the poor dogs in the animal shelter ads on TV, these Republicans need our help. Let’s work to save them, to rescue them, to free them! If Utah governor Spencer Cox or his wife Anne, both good Mormons, were diagnosed with heart disease and at risk of a heart attack, odds are they would get on their knees and pray. And then they’d go to the doctor. They probably wouldn’t show up at the fatty-food all-you-can-eat buffet and chow down as much heart-attack-inducing fried foods they could. Particularly after they talked to their doctor. Utah right now is in a severe drought, the worst in the recorded history. It’s the result of climate change caused by burning fossil fuels.

Why we will all be better off if we can reform our political and business cultures to be less psychopath-friendly and more humanity-friendly. Inequality is literally killing us, both individually and as a society, and its two main drivers are monopolistic business behavior, and greedy CEOs and politicians. Both are a result of psychopaths taking over politics and business.

The Democratic Party is in denial. Democrats need to start dealing with Republicans the way they would deal with the Klan. Trump dumped his blog because he has nothing to say that anyone wants to hear beyond one single message. He’s not thinking deep thoughts about the economy, or the state of the nation’s infrastructure, or offering insights into the Middle East. There’s literally no philosophy Trump holds — other than one single idea — that truly matters to the vast majority of the Republicans who support him.

The "Philosophers," "Thieving Scoundrels" and "Foreign Enemies" are having a collective moment that could take down America. There are people in this world who don't like —and even hate — democracy. They're on the move against it, particularly here in America, and the Qanon religion/cult is the glue that's bringing them all together.

The poison of libertarian ideology in the GOP has been gutting America since Reagan. It's in the category of "failed ideas" like the USSR's version of communism or Hitler's fascism. Libertarian ideology has been gutting America's middle class and working people ever since it seized the GOP with the Reagan Revolution. Most of the rightwing billionaires who fund the GOP call themselves "libertarians" — people who think the only legitimate functions of government are the military, the police and the courts (which they are paying to pack).

America turned away from authoritarianism in 1800 & became a more democratic republic. Now, again, we have a similarly huge job ahead of us as Trumpism spreads like a virus. It's a holiday weekend, so let's take a short look back in American history and see how it may inform us today.

Republicans are playing with a fire that could burn down our nation & Democrats must get control of the Senate now and nuke the filibuster so they can pass the laws that will protect our democracy. Republicans in the US Senate just filibustered a January 6th bipartisan commission, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer failed to take the opportunity to call for a vote on a rules change in the Senate to end the filibuster. That's a disaster.

And you can bet your bottom dollar they'll continue complaining about the crime that they've created, particularly in the election ads they'll start running next year. The Republican Party is running a huge scam right now, similar to the one they ran in 1992 when President George HW Bush was setting up phony cocaine busts across the street from the White House and running his infamous Willie Horton ad.

The casting couch is now largely a relic of the past. If we keep pushing hard, soon the same could be true of murderous and corrupt cops. Sometimes cultural change takes generations or even centuries; sometimes it happens in the seeming blink of the eye. America's bad cops — and their enablers — are having their Harvey Weinstein moment. Harvey was a big shot in Hollywood for decades when it was not uncommon for powerful men to help make women into stars in exchange for sex. It was so common that in a Cagney and Lacey TV show from the 1980s one of the characters openly asks the other if a particularly ditzy "movie star" character in that episode of the show "slept with the producer" to get the part.