Hartmann Report

History warns us: every major economic crash has led to a world war. Trump's corruption, debt, and tariffs may be lighting the fuse… In three weeks, on my birthday May 7th, it'll be exactly 80 years since Germany signed terms of surrender at the headquarters of US General Dwight D. Eisenhower in Reims, France. That year, 1945, also signaled the official end of the Republican Great Depression. And May 7 of this year may well signal the beginning of the Second Republican Great Depression, the fourth major economic crash in our history. Troublingly, every one of the prior three financial crises also tripped off a major war.

Back in the 1980s a lot of us worked like hell to try to stop the Reagan Revolution. We failed. Which is why the next few years may be our last chance to save American democracy, our environment, and what’s left of the American Dream. When my Boomer generation was the same average age as the Millennial generation is today, back in 1990, our generation held 21.3% of the nation’s wealth.[i] Louise and I shared in that wealth; although we were still in our 30s, in 1990 we owned a profitable small business (our fourth) and a nice home in suburban Atlanta. Our own locally owned business, a home of our own, and the knowledge that our kids would have more opportunities than we did: that was, in fact, one common way of defining the “American dream.” It was normal then.

The Best of the Rest of the News. — Trump's legal serfs: when law firms bow to the Don. — The Empire shudders: how Trump's trade tantrum could trigger America's fall. — Was there a "lack of urgency" in the Supreme Court deportation ruling about the Maryland father wrongly deported to El Salvador's most notorious prison? You Betcha... Will the Republican justices keep sucking up to Trump? Is a frog's ass watertight? — Seniors are first in the line of fire as Trump's tariff bomb explodes. — Authoritarian Alert! There's a new dress code in Trump's Washington, and it's straight out of a dictator's playbook. — The SAVE Act: What could possibly go wrong with the House-passed bill requiring proof of citizenship to vote — Hillary sends out a warning about it — I've been warning about this for months! — Crazy Alert! The next market crash or maybe even a war may be engineered by a robot — and nobody will be accountable. — Hunter in a Farmer's World: ADHD: Budget in "Blow-Out" Time — Wisdom School: Imprinting Reality: The Mystery of Mental Influence — Disgraced wanna-be dictator quits presidential palace in shame: Could we take some lessons here in America?

Trump's not interested in governing. He's rewriting the rules, tearing down institutions, and replacing democracy with spectacle and submission... Everything Donald Trump is doing and will do makes perfect and sudden sense if you understand one simple fact: For him, it's all a show. He views the White House as a sound stage, like the set made to look like a boardroom where he performed for NBC on The Apprentice. He sees the people around him as a supporting cast, who can each be easily and quickly replaced (and often are) if they fail to play their roles the way he thinks will work best for the program. Partly, this is because this is all he knows how to do. He was a terribly incompetent businessman, pissing away his father's entire fortune on a series of businesses that he ran into the ground, one after the other.

Trump's order to investigate truth-tellers isn't just abuse of power—it's a test of whether we still have a republic… The highest form of freedom in a democracy isn't just the right to vote or protest — it's the right to speak truth to power. To call out corruption. To challenge lies. To stand firm when the powerful demand silence. This is the freedom that sustains all others. And it's the one Donald Trump tried to crush yesterday with the stroke of a pen.

Manufacturing jobs alone didn’t build postwar prosperity — organized labor did. And Trump is killing it... Donald Trump is selling his economic chaos with a simple story: “In the years 1945-1981, before Reagan and Clinton (and pretty much all of both parties) embraced ‘free trade’ neoliberalism, a single worker in an American factory could buy a house, take a nice vacation every year, get a new car every two or three years, put his kids through college, and retire with a comfortable pension. All because we made things in America. “When the Free Trade era began, it took 90,000 factories and 40 million high-paying jobs with it to China and other low-wage countries, which kicked off the immiseration of the middle class. To get back to that prosperity, all we need to do is use tariffs to force manufacturing back to the US.” It’s a story that makes a lot of sense to those who’d lived through that “golden age of manufacturing” era, and the younger workers who see it portrayed in movies and on TV or hear the stories from their grandparents. But it overlooks one massive reality: it wasn’t the factories that created the middle class, it was the unions.

Trump, Musk, and the GOP have hotwired our democracy, stripped it for parts, and are selling the pieces to the highest bidder while telling us to enjoy the ride. What happens when a country stops pretending to care about democracy and just lets the billionaires run wild? Look no further than Putin's Russia — a place where wealth buys protection, loyalty buys power, and corruption isn't hidden, it's institutionalized. Now, under Donald Trump's return to power, Elon Musk's tightening grip on federal spending, and a GOP entirely beholden to dark money, America is no longer just flirting with that model — we're fast becoming it. This is the story of how the U.S. is being hollowed out from the inside, not by foreign enemies, but by our own billionaire oligarchs.

April 20 was Hitler's holiday. Now it may mark the day Trump declares martial law, suspends the Constitution, and finishes the job he started on January 6… April 20th has a special significance for Nazis and neo-Nazis around the world. Neo-Nazi groups in states like Florida, Missouri, and North Carolina have organized events specifically to commemorate Hitler's 4/20 birthday. These include "Adolf Hitler Celebrations" and gatherings marketed as "family-friendly" to indoctrinate children into white supremacist ideology. In Georgia, a neo-Nazi shared a photo of a swastika-decorated cake baked by his girlfriend in honor of Hitler's birthday; at the Federal Correctional Facility in Florence, Colorado, a Hitler birthday celebration among white supremacist inmates escalated into a race riot involving over 200 prisoners, resulting in deaths and injuries. This year, though, the celebration of Hitler's 136th birthday may be a bigger deal than any year before. Because that may be the day Trump's plan to end American democracy is finally, fully put into place.

Some readers may despair, seeing the figures in this book and learning how billionaires and the Republicans have disenfranchised millions. Although the solutions here have focused on fundamental ways that we can restore the vote and strengthen our democracy, most change happens locally. Individuals can help every step of the way—from asking neighbors whether they are registered to driving neighbors to the polls and acting as a poll watcher. The situation will not change without Americans participating. No individual politician will change the trend toward oligarchy. The seeds for change in American politics are scattered in towns, boroughs, and counties across the country.

The Best of the Rest of the News. — What to know about today's nationwide “Hands Off!” protests. — The tariff war begins...as Trump promises a new gilded age. He wrecked America in 74 days. — Voters Revolt: AOC Crushes Schumer in Shocking Primary Poll. — Rightwing conspiracy-nut blogger Laura Loomer ordered Trump to gut the senior ranks of our national security apparatus, and he did it! — World News: Trump says, “Free Marine Le Pen,” is using your tax dollars to set up refugee centers in South Africa for white people who want to “flee” to the US, and Pussy Riot warns Americans. — Gilded Age Alert! Trump wrecked the economy with his trade wars — then went golfing while America burned and our dead soldiers were returned! — Hunter in a Farmer’s World: Do the fun stuff last — Wisdom School: When the Universe Guides You