23 years and counting and this old blog is still standing. Can you believe it? I’m shocked and grateful that readers still come by every day to read our scribbles. I thank my lucky stars for this privilege every single day.
And once again the holiday season is upon us where I ask those of you who have a little extra to help us keep going for another year. We keep this blog free, rather than moving to a paid Substack (and I don’t run ads here so that the reading experience is more pleasant) because we want people to be able to access it if they don’t have the spare funds. But if you can afford it I would appreciate your support, as always.
I know this is only the first year of Donald Trump’s four year term but I think it’s the longest year of my life. In fact, I think I’ve aged ten years and I really can’t afford to do that at this stage in my life. But here we are, deep into the horror we all knew was coming. Last year on this day, I wrote:
This is a tough one, I know. Anyone can be forgiven for tuning out politics and spending their time doing something that doesn’t make them want to put their foot through the TV. Many people have cancelled their subscriptions to this site telling me that they just can’t stand to read about politics anymore and I totally understand it. For the first week after the election I pretty much only watched Netflix and Animal Planet. This is a grim time and we have to do whatever we can to keep our sanity.
But it you are reading this it means that you are still engaging, at least with us, and I want you to know how grateful I am that you are. For me, it’s not possible to stop paying attention for long. It’s just who I am. I can’t look away.I appreciate your sticking with us all this time and especially now. I think that once we’ve licked our wounds and recovered from the staggering disappointment of the last election requiring us to deal with that Orange Monster and his cult for another four years, we’ll all be ready to re-engage with the same commitment we’ve had in the past. What choice do we have?
We were all shell shocked. How could it have happened …. again? And, to be honest, I still feel the residual of it. I think I may have political PTSD for the rest of my life.
We knew it was going to be bad. None of us fooled ourselves about that. But it’s been so much worse than even I imagined.
I knew they wanted to deport millions of people but I never dreamed they would unleash masked thugs on the streets to brutalize anyone who looks like they might not of northern European stock and abduct them. I didn’t think they’d make deals with foreign despots to put deportees in gulags or send people to countries they’d never heard of. I didn’t think they’d have the nerve to go after citizens or shut down tourism or pretty much end legal immigration except for millionaires. But that’s what they’re doing.
I knew he was going to screw the economy. But these tariffs have been even more incoherent and stupid than I anticipated. Trump sees them as a tool to get his way when he has a tantrum and he’s managed to make the United States an unreliable, unstable, economic pariah. That’s quite a come down from our status for the past 80 years.
His vengeance campaign is going strong and he’s managed to purge the government of thousands and thousands of workers, replacing them with unqualified toadies and sycophants. The threats against dissent get louder every day.
Foreign policy and national security are much, much worse. He’s bought into his own hype, deciding that he has unlimited power to literally run the world based upon his own instincts. He listens to no one, has no respect for anyone but the strongmen despots he sees as peers and he’s wrecked the global order without the slightest idea of what to do with it beyond his latest whim. Now he’s starting wars, which one might find surprising for a man so intent upon being seen as the “peace” president but which was completely predictable when you consider his violent, hostile character and personality.
He has lost all restraint, believing that he can say and do anything and no one will stop him.
In a way, you can’t blame him. Everyone around him treats him like a god, slathering on praise that would make Kim Jong Un blush. He tried to overthrow the government and the Supreme Court granted him immunity. He was impeached twice, once after he had left office and yet four years later the people voted him back in. Anyone with his psychological and intellectual deficiencies would just assume they are omnipotent. And frankly, I think that many of the people who are kissing up to him now, have a sneaking suspicion that there’s something supernatural about him too — how else can he get away with what he gets away with?
The truth is that the man is the beneficiary of a political culture that went off the rails some time ago and ran straight into a wall. Only an ignorant egomaniac could climb out of that rubble and see it as a perfect chance to make “deals.”
So, here we are one year later. The good news is that the Democrats have finally cast off their hair shirts and joined the battle which I had begun to wonder would ever happen. But it isn’t because they saw the light. It’s because the American people have picked up the mantle of leadership for themselves.
From Tesla Take downs and Disney boycotts to Hands Off! and No Kings to the awe inspiring off-year elections, average Americans bounced back and decided they were not going to stand by and let this monster destroy the country without a fight. In cities all over the country, average citizens are coming out to support their immigrant neighbors, forming neighborhood patrols and setting up warning systems to sound the alarm when the masked thugs are coming for them.
The people are leading the resistance and the so-called leaders are following. And it’s not just about “affordability” although that’s a huge issue, especially since Trump ran promising to bring down prices on day one and has made everything worse. It’s the fact that everyone who isn’t a MAGA cultist sees that this administration has completely abandoned American ideals, flagrantly defying the Constitution and the rule of law and daring anyone who doesn’t like it to try to defy them.
This is what gives me hope. We are far down the rabbit hole but there’s still a chance to climb back out — and the tens of millions of people who are saying no to this tyranny are going to stand on each others shoulders and make it happen.
We’re going to keep going here at Hullabaloo as long as it takes and I hope that if you have something extra this year, and you value our work, you’ll put a little something in the Christmas Stocking to help keep the lights on. I know there are many great Substacks and other publications that are providing excellent political analysis. The competition for eyeballs is stiff. But the old blogging format still has its place. We do that too but blogging is also a way of synthesizing various trends and stories in the news cycle with both long and short takes every day. It can’t be comprehensive in this wild news environment but over all these years we’ve developed a pretty good instinct for where the zeitgeist is. For people who are busy living their lives, I hope we provide a little bit of insight, humor and shared astonishment at what we are watching take place in our country right now.
You can contribute or subscribe here, or if you’re old school, you can use the address on the left.
I am so very grateful for your kind support all these years and your commitment to our shared goal of trying to make this country a better place. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Happy Hollandaise everyone!!
cheers,
digby