2025 Archives

As I mentioned in the opening chapter of this book, 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. 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. Millennials today, in contrast, are about the same number of people as Boomers were in 1990 but hold only 4.6% of the nation’s wealth and, if they’re the same age I was in 1990, they’re most likely struggling to own a home, are deeply in debt, and find it nearly impossible to start a small business. And the story for Zoomers is pretty much the same.

Every gerrymander, purge, and press attack tightens the screw — until the system is locked and the tyrant holds the only key… With the raid on John Bolton's home, it looks like we may have reached that stage when fascist governments begin to turn against their critics, weaponizing the tools of a police state. Richard Nixon went after his enemies, too, and once said, in the depths of the Watergate scandal, that "when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal." He discovered the hard way that wasn't true, at least back in the 1970s. More than 40 people connected to his White House and campaign were indicted, and many went to prison. Nixon's Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman, Domestic Policy Advisor John Ehrlichman, White House Counsel John Dean, Attorney General John Mitchell, and special counsel Charles Colson all did time. So did several members of Nixon's Committee to Re-Elect the President, better known as CREEP, for their crimes of burglary, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy. Nixon himself escaped accountability only because Gerald Ford pardoned him. That experience left a permanent scar on America's political consciousness, but it also left a roadmap that Trump and his inner circle are determined not to follow. They have no intention of being, like Nixon and his people, crooks who lost their grip on power. They're apparently making plans to guarantee it never happens to them.

Loyalty oaths, banned history, forced obedience: the right isn't hiding anymore. They're telling us exactly what kind of dictatorship they want… In his novel 1984, George Orwell warned, "Those who control the present control the past, and those who control the past control the future." Today, Trump and the GOP have weaponized that prophecy, twisting it into the foundation of their crusade to Make America White Again. What they are building is not a political movement but a parallel nation — a MAGAstan — where loyalty oaths replace truth, history is scrubbed clean of slavery and racism, and authoritarian obedience is demanded in the name of patriotism. This is America's homegrown Taliban, and they're no longer pretending to hide their intentions.

He promised to drain the swamp — instead he filled it with billionaires, crooks, and fascists… Donald Trump represents the most recent — and destructive — iteration of the American right. The old Confederacy was built on rightwing oligarchy and racism; since the Democratic Party abandoned the Klan and the Lost Cause in the 1960s, the Republicans picked up that mantle. And Trump, a lifelong racist, was ideally suited to lead the new GOP movement. Trump exclusively serves whoever pays the biggest bribes, either in cash, 747s, or votes, who today are mostly big, monopolistic businesses, the morbidly rich, foreign dictators, so-called "Christian" hustlers, and the Republican base of male white supremacist racists. Lyndon Johnson famously said of Nixon's "Law and Order" racism campaign: "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."