Hartmann Report

Trump's "Big Ugly Bill" isn't just cruel: it's the latest salvo in the war against democracy and the "We" society… Societies are typically organized along one of two lines: "We" or "Me." We societies drive wealth and rights from the bottom up; Me societies do it from the top down, much like the kingdoms of old. It's a choice every nation must make. Franklin Roosevelt turned America into a We society with the New Deal; Reagan began the process of turning us into a Me society with the Reagan Revolution. And his and the GOP's efforts are now coming to full fruition.

The most dangerous thing about Alligator Alcatraz isn't the alligators. It's the message... When Louise and I lived in Germany in 1986/87, we visited Dachau with our family. The crematoriums shocked our children, but even more so because this was simply a "detention facility" and not one of Hitler's death camps. The ovens were for those who had been worked to death or killed by cholera. The death camps, it turns out, were all located outside of Germany so Dear Leader could deny responsibility for them. You know, like Gitmo. Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill" (aka the "GOP Donor Fellatio Act") contains a 13-fold increase in ICE's budget, turning it into the largest single (secret, masked) police force in America, along with, in aggregate, close to $100 billion to build a new series of "detention facilities" all across America.

Why Republicans want to destroy the hidden link between Middle Class wealth and democratic power… A Pew poll published last week finds that 59% of Americans say the GOP's "Big Beautiful Bill" that cuts taxes for billionaires and raises them for working-class people "would hurt lower-income people and 51% think it would hurt middle-income people." And they're right. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the bill will measurably reduce the income and spending power of low- and middle-income people while giving a ~$4 trillion gift to the morbidly rich. Americans have figured this out: according to a Fox "News" poll published last week and reported on by Newsweek: "Only 38 percent favored the bill, while 59 percent opposed it, a 21-point gap against the bill. About half of all voters believed the legislation would be detrimental to their families, and just a quarter thought it would deliver any benefit." So, why would Republicans want to further reduce the size and wealth of America's middle class?

The Supreme Court didn’t just fail to uphold justice — it enabled a nightmare in which legal protections mean nothing, human rights are ignored, and fear becomes the tool of control… The Supreme Court ruled last week that Trump can continue to break the law — both US and international law — by having his secret police agents snatch people off American streets and “disappear” them into immigration prisons and then deport them to foreign concentration camps. Lacking national injunctions, this cruel and inhumane process can now only be stopped one person at a time, one court at a time, at least until the six Republicans on the Court get around to deciding a person’s fate. And they’re now on vacation until October. Students of history like Jim Stewartson have seen this movie before.

The maintenance and growth of a middle class depends on wages rising over time, both to keep up with inflation and to steadily improve the lot of working people, as America saw between 1933 and 1981. But working-class wages have been steadily declining ever since the Reagan Revolution, and it can’t entirely be attributed to the GOP’s war on organized labor. It turns out that income taxes are another way conservative and neoliberal policies have taken a chunk out of the income and wealth of working people, but not in the way you probably think. In fact, income taxes affect working class people in a completely different way than they impact the morbidly rich.

The Best of the Rest of the News. — Has The Supreme Court dealt a "deathblow to the rule of law?" — Trump has decided that it's a crime to be unpatriotic and has also proclaimed the you have to be loyal to him to be patriotic. The good news is the fightback. — Have Republicans reached the point of no return, no matter what they do? — California Governor Gavin Newsom goes to war against Fox and Trump. — Now that Musk, Big Balls, and his merry band have fired so many people from the Social Security Administration that people are experiencing days-long wait times to sign up for benefits, the agency has stopped reporting wait times. — Goodbye to a hero: Bill Moyers (1934-2025). — Self-censorship: Don't let this happen to us.

Once constrained by grown-ups in the room, Trump now surrounds himself with suckups. The result? A perfect storm of immaturity, cruelty, and power… Claiming that Donald Trump is a sociopath has become so common it’s pretty much a cliché these days. That said, most people don’t know what sociopathy is or what they can expect from — or how to identify — a sociopath. I did a deep dive into Trump’s childhood and history to discover the roots of his behavior — and how we can deal with it and repair America from it — in my newest book The Last American President: A Broken Man, a Corrupt Party, and a World on the Brink. What I found was fascinating and provides an easy way for people with no training in psychology to identify not only Trump’s problem but to figure out who else in their lives may incline toward sociopathy (CEOs are particularly notorious; some suggest it’s what makes them ruthless but successful). The easy way to describe sociopathy to a lay person is to explain that if young children were tested for the condition they’d often test positive for the disorder, which is referred to by professionals (and the DSM) as “Antisocial Personality Disorder” (ASPD).

When cruelty is moved out of sight, it's easier to pretend it doesn't exist — until history writes it down in blood… The American people just got a taste of authoritarianism wrapped in judicial robes. In a stunning 6-3 ruling this week, the Supreme Court greenlit the mass deportation of immigrants, not to their home countries but to third nations where they have no legal status, no family, and often no hope. In her dissent, Justice Sonja Sotomayor, calling the shadow docket ruling "inexcusable," pointed out how destructive this is to the rule of law (both US and international law largely prohibit this) and to the lives of the people who may be deported without due process

The morbidly rich hide behind patriotism, drown us in lies, and strip the nation bare while we're told to blame our neighbors... An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics. —Plutarch People wonder out loud why the Trump administration would lie to us so frequently and so egregiously when the truth is so obvious. Just in the past few days... The dirty little secret about fascism, authoritarianism, or whatever else you want to call the form of government Trump's trying to impose on the United States is that it's not even remotely legitimate governance on behalf of We the People but instead is merely a setup to steal everything that's not nailed down.

War is the deadliest distraction in the authoritarian's playbook… Cry "Havoc!" and let slip the dogs of war. — Mark Anthony in Shakespeare's Julius Ceasar In the modern era, it was probably George W. Bush who first said it out loud and then acted on it: When you're unpopular and losing politically, just start a little war that's easily winnable and you'll be back on top. As he told his biographer, Mickey Herskowitz, in 1999 about his plans for an Iraq war as a strategy to get himself re-elected in 2004: "One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief. My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of (Kuwait) and he wasted it. If I have a chance to invade Iraq, if I had that much capital, I'm not going to waste it. I'm going to get everything passed I want to get passed and I'm going to have a successful presidency." It worked for Bush, although history hasn't been kind to him as a result. Trump's second presidency, meanwhile, has been an unmitigated disaster, both in real terms and politically as his approval ratings have slipped so far underwater they're in late-years Nixon territory