Hartmann Report

From Jefferson’s era to today, history proves democracy’s defenders can still win… It’s probably, politically and spiritually, the darkest Thanksgiving for our nation in my lifetime. So how about a quick story out of America’s earliest history that somewhat echoes this moment and may give us some hope? Donald Trump has told us he’s going to use the 1807 Insurrection Act to declare a state of emergency, which will allow him to round up not only undocumented immigrants but also his political opponents, who he refers to as “the enemy within.” He came to power using Willie Horton-like ads trashing trans people and is happy to demonize anybody else who stands up to his hunger for absolute power. In an age-old technique usually employed during wartime, Trump regularly uses the rhetoric America has employed against foreign enemies to characterize Americans who disagree with him and his policies. Remember the “raghead” slurs against Arabs from the Afghan and Iraqi wars? Or politicians referring to Vietnamese in the 1970s as “slants” and “gooks”? My dad, who volunteered to fight in WWII straight out of high school, called Germans and Japanese “krauts” and “Japs” to his dying days; American propaganda during wartime encouraged popular usage of these racist characterizations. In this regard, Trump’s trying to lie us into a war. But not an external war; this time he’s pushing for something very much like a 21st century version of a second civil war. A war by Americans against Americans.

The right approach to tariffs could rebuild American manufacturing and reshape the political landscape… The stürm und drang all over the media this week is about Trump, on Monday, doubling down on his tariffs saying that he'd impose across-the-board 25 percent tariffs on all goods from China, Mexico, and Canada until there's no more fentanyl or undocumented immigrants and asylum seekers coming into the US. That's a substantial lift, and if he follows through with the threat (which seems likely, although I'd bet money that he'll drill lots of holes in those tariffs to satisfy corporate donors) it'll cause a considerable disruption in American commerce. Those three countries, after all, account for more than 40 percent of all American trade. Weirdly, Trump may be doing the Democrats a favor by taking this position, and I don't mean the possibility that he'll wreck the economy and thus his party's chances in 2026 and 2028 (although that's real, too).

Democrats have a long and illustrious history of strong leadership: FDR, Truman, Kennedy, LBJ, Clinton, Obama. Where is this generation's leader? So much for American democracy and the concept that "no man is above the law." There is no law and not a word in the Constitution that requires Attorney General Merrick Garland to order Jack Smith to drop charges against Trump. It's merely a policy written in a letter by Richard Nixon's corrupt Justice Department (whose director, Attorney General John Mitchell, went to prison for his corruption) when Nixon was being investigated…and doubled down on by Bill Clinton's Justice Department when Clinton was being investigated for lying under oath. It has no force of law. It's merely policy. Written by an agency lawyer who was never elected by anybody to anything.

Incompetence and conspiracy theories meet a deadly virus: Will history repeat itself, or will we face an even deadlier disaster with unprepared leaders at the helm? "The political folks believed that because [Covid] was going to be relegated to Democratic states, that they could blame those governors, and that would be an effective political strategy." — Vanity Fair's Katherine Eban quoting Jared Kushner's team in March, 2020 Arguably the most important aspect of political leadership is the ability to deal with a crisis. The massive incompetence and malice of the Trump administration in 2020 led, for example, to the unnecessary deaths of an estimated half-million Americans. And now we may well be facing a repeat that could be even worse.

Most of the corruption of our federal and state governments by big money track back to two central pillars of the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision. They are: “Money is the same thing as speech” and “corporations are persons entitled to rights under the Bill of Rights in the Constitution.” Both are based on lies. I’ll deal with the “free speech” lie in a separate chapter, but first let’s take a deep dive into the history of corporate personhood.

The Best of the Rest of the News. — Elon Musk to buy MSNBC? — Here's a link to my 40-minute appearance on C-SPAN last weekend. There were some interesting fireworks — The Morbidly Rich are $276 billion richer just in the two weeks since November 5th, so, of course, Republicans want to give them trillions more in tax cuts. — Pete Hegseth has called for the "categorical defeat of the Left," with the "civil war" goal of "utter annihilation" of progressives. Say what?! — Remember when it was reported that Pam Bondi took a large donation from Trump and then chose not to prosecute him for his fraudulent "university"? — The Washington Post reports that Chinese intelligence has hacked Donald Trump's phone. What do they know? And how will they use it? — The Donald Trump of Brazil was just indicted. Apparently they didn't hire Orrin Hatch's pick for Attorney General. — Geeky Science! Denmark plans to tax farts! — Crazy Alert! Rightwing host says Matt Gaetz' ability to buy sex with underage girls means he's "quite a stud". — Hunters in a Farmer's World: ADHD's Silent Partner: The Sleep Hormone Connection — Wisdom School: Sweet Poison: The Deadly Link Between Sugar and Dementia

Private equity, billionaire agendas, and GOP-funded attacks are driving a stake through the heart of American media diversity… Have you heard that Comcast is planning to sell MSNBC? Is Rupert Murdoch planning to buy it? Will America's media landscape soon resemble those of Hungary and Russia? Without the rightwing media juggernaut, Donald Trump probably wouldn't be president next year and wouldn't have won in 2016. That said, the progressive media landscape looks like it might be about to get a whole lot worse. Comcast, which owns NBC and its subsidiaries CNBC and MSNBC (among other media outlets) announced this week that they'll be spinning off MSNBC (among others) next year. And the consequences are already showing up. It was reported this week that Rachel Maddow just took a substantial annual pay-cut because of the uncertain future of the network.

The West's response to Ukraine could redefine the future of democracy In the last week, Russia has unleashed one of its most violent missile attacks against Ukraine, and the United States and at least one other European country have given president Zelenskyy permission to use long-range missiles to attack within Russia. Putin has also brought in North Korean troops, internationalizing the incident as if he wants to turn it into World War III. Europe and the United States both know they must stand against this. And yesterday, reportedly, Putin launched an ICBM against Ukraine; ever since the days of the Cold War, the United States and Russia have always notified each other of ICBM launches because these are the missiles used to carry nuclear warheads. We mutually notify each other to prevent a nuclear response that could trigger Armageddon.

How Divisions and Complacency Allow Authoritarianism to Flourish… President Biden told the nation, "American democracy is under attack … [by the] former president of the United States…" I wrote about this years ago when Trump was trying to overthrow our government, and it's time to talk again about what an American authoritarian government would look like. Because over the next two months we may — depending on how Americans react to the changes in our form of government Trump has planned — very rapidly slide into a form of fascism much like the old Confederacy in the 1840-1860 era. Like the old Confederacy, it could feature political violence and threats of violence, rigged elections, and single-party rule combined with a corrupt oligarchy that finances the politicians. And, like the old Confederacy, it could try to destroy the historic democracy of the United States of America, only this time in 2025 and the three following years. The word "fascism" gets thrown around a lot, but most Americans have no idea what it would look like or how it would actually play out.

The road ahead could lead to dictatorship or renewed liberty, as the American people confront the corrosive power of wealth in politics… Oligarchy is a form of government where the richest people in a country have captured its political system (or even filled it with themselves) and use that control to direct much of the government's efforts to increasing their own wealth and power. We'll soon again have a billionaire president — helped to power by the richest billionaire on the planet — with his election campaign funded in large part by at least $2 billion in direct, reported donations from roughly 150 billionaire families. It appears that the other roughly 350 billionaires who openly funded Trump in 2020 chose, this time, to instead donate to "dark money" SuperPACs created by five corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court with Citizens United that don't list their donors or, in many cases, even report their expenditures. With an estimated $15 billion spent on this 2024 election, their expenditures probably dwarf the ones we know about (and collectively they carpet-bombed Americans in often-deceptive political advertising).