Tech-bro billionaires getting front-row seats at the Trump inauguration while ordinary Americans cannot participate (with the excuse that it’s due to the weather) is a metaphor for what’s to come in the next four years. pic.twitter.com/RyTV77jGOc
Here with the wind chill, it’s like 2 deg outside. And still I think I’ll attend our local MLK peace march and rally (if it’s still on) rather than throw shit at my TV. I need a stiff shot of not-crazy. I just need to remember to leave the TV on tuned to Animal Planet. He’ll lie about his inauguration’s ratings anyway, but what the hell. Make the “blackout” meme trend. It’s like chicken soup….
I know several couples of means who’ve already fled the country. But for the rest of us, Brian Klaas (okay, from England) offers suggestions for surviving the next four years now that tweets about “shooting shoplifters without a trial and executing America’s top general” barely register, and the Saudis can now bribe Trump without needing “to pretend to stay at a Trump hotel.”
Rampell on Trump coin: If you're the Saudi government, you no longer need to pretend to stay at a Trump hotel in order to give money to Donald Trump. pic.twitter.com/l1o6lP0iH2
Klaas, with a Ph.D. earned in studying authoritarian regimes, knows whereof he speaks. He offers a few suggestions:
Never Doomscroll: Smarter Engagement, Real “Self Care”
Stay informed, but not constantly. Post online—or don’t—but not constantly. Remember that your personal resilience is a proxy for your effectiveness as a citizen. And when you find yourself consumed by the foaming, angry spectacle of politics, step away and go for a walk. Isolated outrage isn’t just individually destructive, it’s also counterproductive in the fight for the common good.
A four-mile walk is how I decompress after doing this for hours every morning. But with unusually cold January temperures lately, I’m not doing it. And I feel it.
Picking Our Battles
Democratic politicians should—to borrow the phrase from Jason Linkins of The New Republic—try to “shove the presidency down Trump’s throat.”
I covered that here. Klaas continues that while clicktivism and posting are not much use, mass protests are most effective only if used sparingly. Yet, because the American opposition was too worn out to take to the streets on January 7th, 2021, it was a lost opportunity to reinforce temporary vertebrates like Lindsay Graham and Mitch McConnell. Without a “mass movement in the streets demanding action,” theirs rapidly evaporated.
Klass offers two tests for whether mass protests are worth doing. January 6th passed both:
Are we protesting against something that the overwhelming majority of Americans also objects to?
Are we protesting against something that, if left unchallenged, would result in the permanent erosion of democracy itself?
As we’ve seen with the Liz Cheneys and the Lincoln Project:
And don’t be afraid to make strange bedfellows in politics. The most effective opposition movements to authoritarian populism organize as big tents, not jettisoning their own policy values, but inviting those who disagree with them on policy to make common cause on decency and democracy.
Building power is more effective than outrage:
Smarter Organizing, Supercitizen Communities
Finally, my advice is to think about the political landscape as an aggregation of incentives and disincentives. Only then can you realize where leverage exists, and how to exploit it.
Don’t spend money with Trump enablers. Start now to target “House Republicans in competitive districts for 2026.” But don’t forget that not all politics is federal. Support local and state races. (In case you’ve forgotten, we’re still fighting tooth-and-nail to secure a NC state Supreme Court seat a Democrat won here in November.)
Supercitizens—those who volunteer to improve their communities and lift others up—continue to add restorative stitches into our fraying social fabric. The most poetic imaginable response to the return of callousness and cruelty in the White House would be a resurgence of volunteering, community support, and fresh initiatives to help strangers who are our neighbors.
That’s why I donate to these guys:
View on Threads
I’m sure Los Angeles has tons of helper groups that need help to help neighbors.
Gettysburg National Military Park (Photo: U.S. National Park Service)
Political adversaries cannot disappoint me. I expect nothing of them except more of what I oppose. Friends and allies, on the other hand, can disappoint me because I expect better of than I often get.
Perhaps the slagging of Democrats by the press is not so much conservative bias (or billionaire service) as disappointment among members of a profession known to lean left. The press and the public have come to expect outrage and an eyeball-catching circus from MAGA Republicans. When like Linus Van Pelt, Democrats fail to live up to their potential, complaints rain down like Charlton Heston’s burning hail. Except without the same uniformity.
Such as complaints raised at a post-election forum in Saginaw, Michigan. Vincent Oriedo, a biotechnology scientist, questioned what Democrats had learned from their loss to Donald Trump (The Guardian):
As the town hall with Michigan’s secretary of state, Jocelyn Benson, and the local representative in the state legislature, Amos O’Neal, came to an end, Oriedo said he was disappointed with their answers, which amounted to bland statements about politicians “listening” to the voters.
“They did not answer the question,” he said.
“It tells me that they haven’t learned the lessons and they have their inner state of denial. I’ve been paying careful attention to the influencers within the Democratic party. Their discussions have centred around, ‘If only we messaged better, if only we had a better candidate, if only we did all these superficial things.’ There is really a lack of understanding that they are losing their base, losing constituencies they are taking for granted.”
Ph.D. biotech-scientist Black Latinos? Or anyone who feels taken for granted?
Other complaints: Too much focus on white, middle-class women. Too much focus on abortion rights in a state where voters passed an amendment protecting it. Too much reliance on polling over policy. Too little talk about the cost of groceries and kitchen-table issues. Too much “talk about the economy and kitchen-table issues” (without promising anything). This last critique allegedly shows Democrats “don’t have any principles.” This clearly explains why Michiganders handed their electoral votes to a 34-time felon.
Or this criticism:
“We have set ourselves up for generational loss because we keep promoting from within leaders that that do not criticise the moneyed interests. They refuse to take a hard look at what Americans actually believe and meet those needs.”
Today at noon, a twice-impeached, career con artist and adjudicated sex offender convicted of 34 felonies and investigated for 31 charges of espionage plus conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election retakes the Oval Office after winning it again last November. Just what is it Americans actually believe?
Just as with the flurry of pundits’ post-election analyses, complaints made against Democrats by people frustrated over Kamala Harris’s loss are, as I’ve noted, all over the place. Too little focus on this and too little on that. Paying too much attention to this group and not enough to another. That doesn’t mean the criticisms are wrong. People feel what they feel. But they don’t provide a roadmap either.
I’ve surely done my share of complaining. Senior Democrats talk a good game about fighting for the little guys, but the public rarely catches them doing it. Senior Democrats on Capitol Hill are too senior. Too much policy, not enough marketing.
Former U.S. Attorney and pundit, Joyce Vance, says the U.S. needs more civics education.
We need to seize the day on the big fight coming up about the budget and economy.
Doing year round community organizing on both issues and politics.
Better messaging is great, but we need a major plan ASAP urgently to deal with a broken media landscape. (What I’ve called Democrats’ “when a tree falls in the forest” problem.)
We need to build on the coalitions we have, but figure out different language to talk about some issues.
There are lots of suggestions, but no answers. I certainly don’t have any. Answers on offer by people MAGA Republicans cannot disappoint but Democrats can are over the place and point in different directions.
Woke up this morning from a very vivid dream. Dark, pre-dawn on a misty battlefield. Troops were completing their preparations and aligning just below a ridge waiting for the order to advance. Along the ridge above us were a line of cannon. Figured it was time to get the hell out. Walked up past the cannon in the mist to my car. Pulled onto the highway as the light was coming up and there were troops there, too, lining my side of the road. Cavalry. Only then did I realize they were all dressed in blue. Union troops.
Among those receiving the pardons were Gen. Mark A. Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the longtime government scientist; and all the members of the bipartisan House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, including former Representative Liz Cheney, a Republican from Wyoming.
“I believe in the rule of law, and I am optimistic that the strength of our legal institutions will ultimately prevail over politics,” Mr. Biden said in a statement. “But these are exceptional circumstances, and I cannot in good conscience do nothing. Baseless and politically motivated investigations wreak havoc on the lives, safety and financial security of targeted individuals and their families.
I mentioned this this other day but it’s worth repeating. Stephen Miller has accumulated real power within the Trump inner circle and he’s going to use it. I quoted this from a NY Times article about his plans for the second term:
As he works out his priorities, Mr. Miller appears to have learned two key lessons from the first Trump term.
The first is to flood the zone. He believes that those he regards as Mr. Trump’s enemies — Democrats, the media, groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and portions of the federal bureaucracy — are depleted and only have so much bandwidth for outrage and opposition. Mr. Miller has told people that the goal is to overwhelm them with a blitz of activity.
The second lesson has been to operate with as much secrecy as possible to prevent anyone from finding ways to obstruct the Trump agenda. As a congressional staffer, Mr. Miller was freewheeling in his digital communications. But since working for Mr. Trump, who doesn’t use email and regards people who take notes with suspicion, he puts almost nothing in writing. Instead, he works through emissaries.
The protectiveness around the executive orders is particularly notable. An incoming administration would usually send the drafts to the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, where a career lawyer — walled off from the outgoing administration’s political appointees — reviews them for form and legality and suggests improvements. For the most part, Mr. Trump’s first transition is said to have followed that practice.
Punchbowl reports on specifically what that flood is going to look like. MIller gave a rundown to the House and Senate leadership on Sunday:
The scale of executive orders that Miller described to Republican lawmakers and aides was stunning, despite the fact that Trump had talked about many of them on the campaign trail for months. They cover immigration, energy policy and overhauling federal government operations.
Miller didn’t provide a tremendous amount of details to the 40-something lawmakers and aides on the call. Incoming Trump administration officials say many of these orders are “moving targets” and not finalized yet. But this is what Miller discussed:
Government reform. Trump wants to issue an executive order that provides a process for removing insubordinate employees; rewrite federal hiring rules; issue an executive order on the so-called Department of Government Efficiency; reform the rules for Schedule F federal employees; brush back on DEI in the private sector; and rescind DEI and gender-related orders from the Biden administration.
Energy. Halt spending on the “Green New Deal” and other climate-related priorities from the Biden administration; speed construction of pipelines; orders dealing with energy permitting, especially coal, natural gas and shale projects; open up offshore drilling; repeal rules on electric vehicles; open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling and speed the development of energy production from Alaska; and declare a national emergency related to energy.
Immigration and the border. Trump will classify drug cartels as “foreign terrorist organizations,” a dramatic move he never took in his first term; declare an emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border, which will allow Trump to deploy military forces to the border; stiffen interior enforcement; move toward reinstatement of the “Remain in Mexico” policy; end “catch and release”; and generally restrict entry into the United States.
I wish I had faith that the Democrats and their advocacy groups have gathered everything they have to resist and repel all this by any means they have at hand but I really don’t. Maybe they will surprise us. But it does appear that this is just going to be a full blown blitz of terror in the first hundred days and I honestly don’t know how much of it they can get away with.
The good news is that the Congress is paralyzed by idiocy so anything that needs money will at least be delayed. But there is an awful lot of damage that the Executive branches can do on its own and Miller and the Project 2025 folks have been thinking about how to do it for years now. Get ready.
When I look back on the past four years, I don’t just see the challenges we faced.
I see hope, progress, and possibility.
A picture is worth a thousand words, but these photos tell the story of an America that’s always moving forward – we must keep it going. pic.twitter.com/AmXq5FFGpj
Together, President Biden and Vice President Harris made historic achievements throughout the last four years – from tie breaking votes to the launch of the Office of Gun Violence Prevention.
Listen as Vice President Harris recounts the legacy of the Biden-Harris Administration. pic.twitter.com/zbiahERnU0
From Day One, this Administration has taken unprecedented climate and conservation action.
Now, @POTUS has positioned America to lead in the global effort against climate change and protect the health and resilience of our communities, lands, and waters for generations to come. pic.twitter.com/DrHrDdYwh6
For President Biden, it’s never been about red and blue. It has always been about red, white, and blue. @POTUS is ensuring that the progress made under the Biden-Harris Administration will continue to unfold in the coming years, benefitting communities all across the country. pic.twitter.com/ruJn87YAvI
It’s not just that Trump is personally stealing his followers blind and accepting vast sums in untraceable bribes. He’s also making sure his cyberbaron buds are working on behalf of special interests and zillionaires everywhere. All the lobbyists have found a perfect end run around regulations by going directly to President Elon’s shadowy DOGE:
The Musk-run initiative, dubbed the Department of Government Efficiency, is supposed to advise President-elect Donald Trump on spending cuts and regulatory reform. It doesn’t yet — and may never — have any formalized responsibilities or authority. So far, its recruits have been organizing in clandestine meetings blocks from the White House.
But already, companies and industry groups have started looking to the DOGE, above the more traditional committees of Congress and federal agencies, to advance their agendas and protect their interests.
The urgency to make inroads with Musk’s group underscores how special interests see the billionaire as a shortcut to Trump, a way to push their issues to the front of the line. It also shows how an entity ostensibly created to disrupt politics as usual is quickly becoming a target for Washington’s seasoned advocacy apparatus.
They don’t have to disclose these contacts because for all intents and purposes DOGE doesn’t really exist. How convenient. Burt some are just openly announcing their corruption:
Some are doing that work in plain sight. This week, defense contractor L3Harris Technologies Inc. sent a letter to Musk and his partner, former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, and posted it on the company’s website.
L3Harris urged them to endorse four technical changes to the federal contracting process “to unleash American industry and make defense acquisition more efficient.”
Why not? Who’s going to stop them?
Apropos of nothing, President Elon has a whole bunch of defense contracts himself.
Apparently, he’d tell suffering people in the middle of a horrific disaster to do what an imbecilic cretin tells them to do or go fuck themselves.
BREAKING: In a stunning moment, Mike Johnson refuses to rule out conditioning aid to California. Johnson continues to prioritize his politics over people’s lives. pic.twitter.com/EDHnaFDqUP
Now it’s back. In both instances its owners seized the opportunity to praise Dear Leader. Smart move. He loves to have his boots licked more than anything. They can totally manipulate him with flattery.
Trump has his own reasons for all this:
2021: Trump demonized tiktok because it was useful for Chinese xenophobia and he thought he could force them to sell it to his friends at Walmart and Oracle
2023:
2024: Trump wants to “save” Tiktok to help billionaire Trump donor and Tiktok investor Jeffrey Yass and force a sale to somebody like Musk
Now he’s indicating that he might nationalize it but I feel very confident he won’t do that. He’ll make sure one of his billionaire buds is in charge.
Trump’s shitcoin scam has now reached almost $60 Billion in 48 hours. No doubt he and his family are very excited. Some of his followers who understand what he’s doing are a little squeamish, however:
Yeah, “reputation” is no longer operative in GOP politics.
The $TRUMP memecoin — a financial asset that didn’t exist on Friday afternoon — now accounts for about 89% of Donald Trump’s net worth.
The coin (technically a token that’s issued on the Solana blockchain) has massively enriched Trump personally, enabled a mechanism for the crypto industry to funnel cash to him, and created a volatile financial asset that allows anyone in the world to financially speculate on Trump’s political fortunes.
After another massive overnight rally, as of Sunday morning Trump’s crypto holdings were worth as much as $58 billion on paper, enough — with his other assets — to make him one of the world’s 25 richest people.
While the Biden administration broadly took the view that memecoins like $TRUMP are securities subject to SEC regulation, the incoming Trump administration has pledged to be much more crypto-friendly and to regulate such coins with a light or nonexistent touch.
The coin’s official website, GetTrumpMemes.com, urges visitors to buy coins with either dollars or crypto in order to “Celebrate Our Win & Have Fun!”
The coin is “not intended to be… an investment opportunity,” per the site, which says that it “has nothing to do with any political campaign or any political office.”
That hasn’t stopped investors from making millions by speculating on the price of the coin, which was launched while Trump was reportedly hosting a “Crypto Ball” in Washington.
Some 200 million of the 1 billion total coins have already been released and are being actively traded. The rest, which are owned by Trump-controlled entities, will be able to be sold at various points over the next three years, starting in April.
On average, Trump’s companies will be able to sell some 24 million coins per month into the market, which at current prices (which keep moving), would amount to an income of $1.73 billion per month, or $20.7 billion per year. (Although no one has a clue what the value of the coin will even be this afternoon, let alone three years from now.)
[…]
Since then, Trump has listed a meme stock where he controls more than 50% of the shares — and, now, has a meme coin that’s even less tethered to reality.
Both of them represent a much more direct way of funneling money to Trump than staying at his hotel did.
The emoluments clause of the Constitution, written in 1787, hardly envisaged a world where a president could conjure billions of dollars of wealth out of nowhere just by endorsing a meme.
In the present day, it’s impossible to track who’s going to be buying this coin over the next three years and thereby directing their money directly at Trump.
Given the Supreme Court’s expansive view of presidential immunity, there’s a good chance that any such action will be deemed lawful.
They conclude: “The bottom line: Trump has just delivered a masterclass in the ability of a president to turn power into wealth.”
Nothing to see here folks.
Trump will be overseeing this arcane, new market that very few average people understand much less participate in. He is making himself into one of the richest men in the world right before our eyes.
This must be that populism everyone’s talking about.
