Thanks so much for your support this year. I know there are a lot of claims on people who follow political news and it’s a special burden on those who really would like to just pull the covers over their heads (as I do pretty much every morning.) It’s been a very tough year and I understand if you just don’t have anything left to give. This site will always be free to read and without ads so I hope if you’ve decided to spend your money on sites that require a sub, that you’ll keep stopping by over here anyway.
It’s been a long year, full of horrors and barbarities. But we are 25% through the second Trump administration and I believe the next year is going to be different.
Last December we were all shell shocked and reeling from the election and it has taken months for many of us to snap out of it. I suspect many people found that their mental health and sense of well being was much better if they simply stopped paying close attention to politics. At various holiday gatherings I’ve attended so far this year, it’s been clear that a lot of us just don’t want to hear about it. And interestingly, that includes Trump people as well which I didn’t expect. Many Americans have lost the desire to deeply engage on a daily basis and networks are seeing that in ratings, newspapers are getting lower circulation and I’m seeing it in traffic and financial response. It’s understandable.
However, that doesn’t mean people are disengaged altogether. It’s just that they know their minds and don’t need to wallow in it. Progressives, mainstream Democrats and Independents alike are protesting and voting in large numbers and they are coming out in their neighborhoods to support their immigrant neighbors. The numbers tell the story.
They don’t need a lot of analysis or discussion to tell them that they are economically stressed or that the federal government is assaulting our democracy and setting the constitution on fire. And most don’t need to know what specific crimes Trump and his henchmen are perpetrating every day to know that we are in an existential crisis which must be repudiated at the ballot box.
But I think it is still important that some of us are dedicated to documenting the atrocities so that we can keep track of what needs to be done if we ever expect to make this country function under the constitution again. That’s what we try to do here, as best we can. It’s not comprehensive by any means but we are pretty good at trainspotting (and trainwreck watching.) With at least seven posts a day, seven days a week, we attempt to at least touch on the highlights and give you an easy way to check what’s happening without having to immerse yourself in hours of podcast interviews or several different newspapers and dozens of substacks.
If that service is valuable to you and you have the means and desire to help support that work I’d be so grateful for your support. This is the time of year that I pass the hat, and if you have been meaning to throw a few coins our way, you can do so below or over on the snail mail address on the left. And thank you so much for stopping by to read what we post and share it with others from time to time. It means the world.
cheers,
digby
Happy Hollandaise everyone!