From a Mother Jones Daily newsletter by Ben Dreyfuss: June 11, 2020 Fifty-seven years ago today, noted segregationist George Wallace — then of Alabama, now of Hell—infamously stood in the schoolhouse door in an attempt to block two Black students, Vivian Malone and James Hood, from attending the University of Alabama. In response, President John … [Read more…]
From the comments on this NYT essay on The Disastrous Employment Numbers, May 8, 2020: sedanchair Seattle 9h ago @nero Because thanks to Trump, they can simply steal our money and get away with it on a scale unprecedented even in previous bailouts. As with every scam Trump ever participated in, there’s no need for … [Read more…]
From November 16, 2016, Masha Gessen writes in NYRDaily: Autocracy, Rules for Survival: Rule #1: Believe the autocrat. Rule #2: Do not be taken in by small signs of normality. Rule #3: Institutions will not save you. “The national press is likely to be among the first institutional victims of Trumpism. There is no law … [Read more…]
Over at the website for the Union of Concerned Scientists, Kathleen Rest posted this “Profiles in Cowardice: Chemicals, Climate, and a Toxic Disregard by the Trump Administration” which is worth the time to read.
An interesting graphic from PEW RESEARCH published January 18, 2019 on Trump’s third year approval rating. What is interesting is seeing other Presidents ranked in time along with Trump. As is normal with Pew Research, the accompanying article has an excellent summary of their methods and interpretation of the results.
In a very scary posting, Bernard E. Harcourt writes in the New York Review of Books Daily: President Trump makes constant use of the language and logic of the “new right,” a toxic blend of antebellum white supremacy, twentieth-century fascism, European far-right movements of the 1970s, and today’s self-identified “alt-right.” And his words and deeds … [Read more…]
A post in the New York Review of Books by James Kirchick sums up Trump’s penchant for the weird (conspiracy theories) and his far-right beliefs. We can read it here.
In the December 1st New York Times, this opinion piece on Trump’s mental health: To the Editor: I am the editor of “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President.” We represent a much larger number of concerned mental health professionals who have come forward to warn against … [Read more…]
An analysis from the Guardian (11/19/17) on “Why are libertarians lining up with autocrats to undermine democracy?” is found here. However, the long-term corrosive effect of Russia’s use of disinformation to break down trust in western institutions is hard to measure and may be unmeasurable. What is clear is that it is continuing with the … [Read more…]
In a great article capturing the current efforts to make stupid “right”, Ariel Dorfman pulls together the stings in “Trump’s War on Knowledge.” From the NY Review of Books NYR Daily column, Oct 12, 2017.