Hartmann Report

Trump is right now following a road blazed before him by multiple authoritarians and dictators who took over democracies in recent years… Donald Trump took the first step to extinguishing the free and independent press in American yesterday, when federal judge and Bush-appointee Cecilia Altonaga ruled that his defamation lawsuit against George Stephanopoulos and ABC News could go forward. She ruled that "a reasonable jury could conclude Plaintiff was defamed and, as a result, dismissal is inappropriate." (emphasis hers) Stephanopoulos had asked Republican Representative Nancy Mace how she could continue to support Trump when he had been "found liable for rape." Trump is claiming that question libeled him and asking for damages that could run into the tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars.

Vance's career and his life story are a grift. Just like most all of Donald Trump's businesses. Republican policies, in fact, have been one long grift for more than half a century… Minnesota Governor Tim Walz yesterday blasted JD Vance for being a "grifter," because Vance claimed he was some sort of a hillbilly who grew up in rural Appalachia when, in fact, he grew up in the suburbs of Cincinnati. Governor Walz, on the other hand, grew up in a town of 400 people with "24 kids in my graduating class" where "12 were cousins." In Vance's autobiography Hillbilly Elegy he trash-talks his poor relatives, essentially accusing them of not being successful in life because of moral defects like laziness and addiction; he doubled down on these memes in his RNC speech, pointing out his own mother's drug use. In fact, they're victims of Republican policies that make the rich richer and keep poor people poor; his mother's addiction is a symptom, not a cause. Vance, of course, "nobly" rose above it all with the help of our socialist GI Bill (which Republicans opposed) paying his way through Yale, and with help from rightwing billionaires who took Vance under their wings and helped him set up a hedge fund that made him fabulously rich.

Vance is apparently offended that ungrateful American women like Kamala Harris demand not just birth control and abortion but also the right to divorce... Yesterday at a campaign stop in Ohio, JD Vance said that Kamala Harris shouldn't lead America because she isn't "grateful for it." Vance told his nearly-all-white crowd: "You know, what I see? Want to take bets here? Want to start a betting pool just in this auditorium? If you want to lead this country, you should feel grateful for it, a sense of gratitude. I never hear that gratitude come through when I listen to Kamala Harris." The white myth of America, which Vance echoed at his RNC speech, is that our nation was "built" by white men, ignoring the Black, Asian, and Hispanic labor, and that of women of all races, that built much of this nation.

We must unite quickly around our candidate and her and our Party's pick for VP and hit the ground running by the end of this week... President Biden has let go of his candidacy to focus on being president during this time of major international chaos. He also endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for the presidential nomination, virtually guaranteeing she'll head up the ticket. There's little chance that the Democratic Party's candidate will be anybody other than Kamala Harris, and she's certainly earned it.

It’s as difficult to disentangle racism from birtherism as it is tough to separate the Three-Fifths Compromise from the Electoral College. The Three-Fifths Compromise gave a larger share of representation in Congress to slave states. And because the Electoral College reflects the makeup of Congress, one could argue that were it not for slavery, George W. Bush and Donald Trump never would have become president. Slavery has been the single largest defining factor in the history and arc of American politics. That salient “peculiar institution” is responsible for the Second Amendment and for the Electoral College working the way it does.

The Best of the Rest of the News. — What did you think of Trump’s acceptance speech? — Is multi-multi-millionaire JD Vance pretending to be a working class hero? — The Project 2025 plan for Medicare should frighten us all. — Former Republican George Conway rolls out his new “Anti-Psychopath PAC” and it’s a doozy! — Crazy Alert! Newsmax gets Donald Trump Jr’s fiancee to speak for Black woman...say what? — Hunter in a Farmer’s World Alert! ADHD: Pick “positive addictions” like exercise. — Wisdom School Alert! From Soviet Shadows to Pagan Revival: Rediscovering Ancient Spirituality in Modern Latvia

They don't want to tweak government; they want to burn it down and start over from scratch… Today, following both Vance's and Trump's speeches at the RNC, the future trajectory of America if they're elected is pretty clear. First, it's important to acknowledge that this is no longer your (or my) father's GOP. Vance is the pre-packaged, well-massaged "product" of a group of Silicon Valley billionaires who are enamored of the writings of Ayn Rand and David Koch's Libertarian movement. Trump has made it clear he's happy to go along with the Galt's Gulch crowd, particularly if it makes him more money. These men (they're nearly all men) are revolutionaries with little regard for political history or norms. Think Mao, Lenin, Pol Pot, or Mussolini. They don't want to tweak government; they want to burn it down and start it over from scratch. Rebuild it as a completely different system of governance.

Sworn to uphold the law, Republican justices have twisted legal precedents to serve a radical agenda. This betrayal threatens the very fabric of American democracy… In JD Vance's speech last night — arguing that America is "not just an idea" of a pluralistic, multiracial society but instead is "a place that had been cast aside and forgotten by America's ruling class in Washington" where rural white Americans live — he didn't shout out to the Supreme Court and how they have paved the way for the radical Project 2025 agenda to deconstruct the America we know. But he could have. Every one of those Republican justices on the Supreme Court, when questioned about the topic during their Senate confirmation hearings, promised to respect the text and meaning of the Constitution, previous Courts' precedents or stare decisis, and legal history. Each of them lied about these things under oath.

It’s the second-most ancient form of governance humanity knows, described in detail in works both modern and ancient, dating all the way back to ancient Sumeria, China, Mesoamerica & Europe… “If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.” —Thomas Paine, The Crisis, December 23, 1776 Marjorie Taylor Greene told Republicans at the RNC this week that Donald Trump “will make us wealthy.” What’s she really saying? And who is “us”? A lot of words get thrown around to describe what we can expect with a MAGA Republican administration at full strength. From “authoritarian” to “fascist” to “Christian Nationalist” and worse. However, most of these words and phrases have — for most Americans — no specific meaning and so are often just considered either a cheap slur or hyperbole. But the reality is that the MAGA wing of the GOP (now fully in control of the Party) and the rightwing billionaires who fund the think tanks and networks that keep it alive do have a very specific idea about how America should be governed. And there’s nothing new or modern about it.

JD Vance, now the Republican candidate for vice president, is fully supportive of every aspect of Donald Trump's cons and nakedly anti-American and pro-dictator policies... A lot happened at the RNC yesterday, but the most telling moment predicting the future of America's conservative movement and the GOP was when Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell was soundly and loudly booed by the assembled delegates and participants, and then JD Vance was selected for VP. It was the death knell of the old order, the Republican Party that has held a relatively consistent set of values since the 1880s, and the beginning of something entirely new.