“There exists no more sordid and unlovely type of social development than a plutocracy,” Teddy Roosevelt insisted in Provincetown, Massachusetts in 1907. Roosevelt saw the harms of the first Gilded Age and sought, with public support, to end them:
The utterly changed conditions of our national life necessitate changes in certain of our laws, of our governmental methods…. National sovereignty is to be upheld in so far as it means the sovereignty of the people used for the real and ultimate good of the people; and state’s rights are to be upheld in so far as they mean the people’s rights. Especially is this true in dealing with the relations of the people as a whole to the great corporations which are the distinguishing feature of modern business conditions.
One hunded plus years later, we are in a second Gilded Age. Or haven’t you noticed?
Robert Reich has:
Folks, we're living in a Second Gilded Age.
It can be easy to feel discouraged, but the First Gilded Age teaches us lessons on how we can fight back. Watch. pic.twitter.com/to7ISs45QA
Billions in campaign contributions. Jim Crow 2.0. Workers exploited. Child labor has returned. Staggering inequality.
Oh, and facsism.
We beat back the first five at the beginning of the 20th century. Reich believes we can do it again. (I wish I had his confidence.)
Teddy Roosevelt did not hesitate to go after the masters of passive income.
Many men of large wealth have been guilty of conduct which from the moral standpoint is criminal, and their misdeeds are to a peculiar degree reprehensible, because those committing them have no excuse of want, of poverty, of weakness and ignorance to offer as partial atonement. When in addition to moral responsibility these men have a legal responsibility which can be proved so as to impress a judge and jury, then the Department will strain every nerve to reach them criminally. Where this is impossible, then it will take whatever action will be most effective under the actual conditions.
In the last six years we have shown that there is no individual and no corporation so powerful that he or it stands above the possibility of punishment under the law. Our aim is to try to do something effective; our purpose is to stamp out the evil; we shall seek to find the most effective device for this purpose; and we shall then use it, whether the device can be found in existing law or must be supplied by legislation. Moreover, when we thus take action against the wealth which works iniquity, we are acting in the interest of every man of property who acts decently and fairly by his fellows; and we are strengthening the hands of those who propose fearlessly to defend property against all unjust attacks. No individual, no corporation, obeying the law has anything to fear from this Administration.
But for “malefactors of great wealth” Roosevelt promised to bring the law to bear.
The rich man who with hard arrogance declines to consider the rights and the needs of those who are less well off, and the poor man who excites or indulges in envy and hatred of those who are better off, are alike alien to the spirit of our national life…. There exists no more sordid and unlovely type of social development than a plutocracy, for there is a peculiar unwholesomeness in a social and governmental ideal where wealth by and of itself is held up as the greatest good. The life of a man who accumulates a vast fortune in ways that are repugnant to every instinct of generosity and of fair dealing… [and] the vapidly useless and self-indulgent life of the inheritor of that fortune… [are] contemptible in the eyes of all….
The UAW President Shawn Fain agrees 117 years after TR’s speech.
Wow. UAW President Shawn Fain isn’t mincing words.
“People just don’t want to work…I agree…The people I’m talking about are the Wall Street Freeloaders: The Masters of Passive Income.”
Where the power of the law can be wisely used to prevent or to minimize the acquisition or business employment of such wealth and to make it pay by income or inheritance tax its proper share of the burden of government, I would invoke that power without a moment’s hesitation….
You sure can see the tiny hands of Donald Trump on the party apparatus. Most Republican officials, even MAGA, do not want any of this. They know that people like to vote early and they know that it can benefit them. But no, “Honest Don” wants people to only vote on election day because he’s so stupid he thinks that allows him to win. He also wants all counting of all the (paper) ballots to stop on election night. Did I mention that he very stupid?
Racistpseudo-science is making a comeback thanks to Elon Musk. Recently, the tech billionaire has been retweeting prominent race scientist adherents on his platform X (formally known as Twitter), spreading misinformation about racial minorities’ intelligence and physiology to his audience of 176.3 million followers—a dynamic my colleague Garrison Hayes analyzes in his latest video for Mother Jones.[…]
In 2022, just one week after Musk purchased Twitter, the Center for Countering Digital Hate —an online civil rights group— found that racial slurs against Black people had increased three times the year’s average, with homophobic and transphobic epithets also seeing a significant uptick, according to the Associated Press. More than a year later, Musk made headlines once again for tweeting racist dog whistles in a potential attempt to “woo” a recently fired Tucker Carlson. But, his new shift into sharing tech-bro-friendly bigotry carries its own unique set of consequences.
Garrison also talks to Dr. Sasha Gusev, a statistical geneticist and associate professor at Harvard Medical School, who points out that because this racism is seemingly backed by scientific fact, people often lack the language to call out its problematic nature.
“There’s a kind of fusion between old-school gutter racism that everyone can recognize and this new-school Silicon Valley, data-driven analysis. And I think that this is very confusing to people,” said Gusev. “They don’t know what to do with it. They say, ‘Hey, there’s this thing that I recognize as ugly, and then there’s somebody posting a hundred charts that seem to support it.’”
Musk is a racist. And an immigrant. A white South African immigrant.
This little problem with Don Lemon must be a coincidence, right?
That he’s managed to convince so many people that it was the greatest they’ve ever experienced is a testament to the power of lying repeatedly
I know that the media is hooked on telling the “vibes story” but maybe if more of them would tell the “facts story” like the following, the vibes would be different:
.@SteveRattner: Trump’s tax cuts increased the deficit, even before COVID. Biden brought it down. Trump added more debt than any other president in history. The idea that he was going to attack the deficit and debt problem is actually completely false pic.twitter.com/Jwe1CoxL0d
Trump’s tax cuts increased the deficit, even before COVID. Biden brought it down. Trump added more debt than any other president in history.
Also:
Chris Hayes has been doing this all week and it’s excellent too.
🔥FANTASTIC summary by Chris Hayes of why Americans are much better off under President Biden than under trump: jobs, wages, manufacturing, stock market, disposable income — all UP!
I can’t even believe we have to have this conversation. The idea that the MAGA dunces would actually be asking it says everything about their bizarre confidence that the majority of Americans have forgotten everything.
These interviews with former Republican operatives and pundits in Politico about why the Never Trump movement in the GOP primaries failed says it all:
The Never Trump movement is a big tent, to be sure. For years, Republicans held on to the belief that Trumpism could be beaten in a battle of ideas. The ideological keystone the movement held at its core was the idea of fighting — in truly small-c conservative fashion — to return the party to its pre-Trump dogma of internationalism abroad and a rising-tide-lifts-all-boats economic policy at home. Haley’s campaign was its last flagship, if imperfect, vessel.
Here, in their own words, influential Never Trump strategists and former GOP operatives answer what went wrong and grapple with where their faction lands in 2024 — and beyond.
Tim Miller, host of The Bulwark Podcast and former adviser to Our Principles PAC
Haley’s exit was kind of the end. It’s been in hospice for a while. It’s the official end of the Bush, neocon, compassionate conservative-Republican Party, and there’s no going back to it. Even if Trump, God-willing, loses in a landslide, I think the party would move more towards some kind of hybrid model of a JD Vance or something like that.
Nikki Haley is not going to be the party’s nominee in 2028. Neither is somebody from that era, nor is anybody who reflects an internationalist perspective. The kind of perspective — of America should have a role in the world, that immigrants are welcome, economically conservative and socially conservative or moderate — those types of candidates are just … that’s just not the party. Could somebody win on that platform in one random race? Sure, but it certainly is over as far as being a relevant part of the party.
The Never Trump thing will be around as long as Trump is around. That’s a coalition of convenience. It’s been so long now, this feels kind of quaint, but that came originally when we all thought Hillary was gonna win. It was literally a marriage of convenience. It was like, “We all expect to be fighting again next year.” Like, she’ll win. And then we’ll go back to working for RINOs and the Amanda Carpenters and Jonah Goldbergs of the world will push for more conservative types.
This is the one that chills your blood. Sarah Longwell, publisher of The Bulwark and CEO of Longwell Partners
I certainly began my Never-Trump journey with the hope of saving the Republican Party and the belief that Trump was an aberration. But I watched after January 6, the way that voters slowly made excuses for Trump, where they were horrified by what happened — they walked it back. They either said it was Democrats who did it, or ultimately, well, it wasn’t that bad.
I hear this from voters all the time in the focus groups, they say it clearly — they say, “I’m not going back. I don’t want politicians like Nikki Haley. These people are RINOs.” When the Freedom Caucus says “Mitch McConnell, D-Ukraine,” that is a widely held sentiment in the party. I listen to these voters, and they don’t not like Mike Pence’s policies. They hate Mike Pence. They hate establishment Republicans. That’s why anybody who thinks that Nikki Haley, by being the last woman standing, becomes the putative front-runner in 2028, has completely missed what is going on with the party.
There have been stages in the Never Trump movement. “Never Trump” was really born out of people who were Republicans going into 2016 and already didn’t support Trump. During some of Trump’s actions in 2016, new Never Trumpers were born. Going into 2020, there was a new group of people who had been Republicans but who said “absolutely not” to Trump — “Never Again. I absolutely won’t vote for him again.” And then, after the January 6 assault on the Capitol, a new generation of Never Trumpers were born: Never Again Trumpers. So … a new Never Trumper is born every minute.
There’s a lot of talk about new parties in the circles that I move in. That’s always been what’s interesting about the Never Trump movement: there are people for whom the Democratic Party is anathema. Maybe they’ll vote for Democrats in the short term, but they don’t consider themselves Democrats, and they want a third-party option.
This is why the No Labels threat actually is so dangerous to Joe Biden, because No Labels is never going to win a majority of the country, but it can peel off 10 percent to 15 percent of right-leaning independents and soft GOP voters who might otherwise vote for Biden given a binary choice between Trump and Biden. But like you give them an off ramp, and they’re gonna take it because it’s much closer to who they are.
Mike Madrid, political consultant; co-founder of The Lincoln Project said this. I think he may be right. The battle for control of the GOP post Trump is going to be something to see:
The Republican Party has not been the party of classical conservatism, of Reagan-Bush, for six or seven years now. But any doubt that remained was removed when Mitch McConnell bent the knee, and John Thune, his lieutenant likely to take over, had gone for Trump as well. It’s fully Trump’s party — completely.
I don’t know who believed that Nikki Haley would bring back traditional Republicanism. If you believed that you weren’t paying attention for the past eight years. There was never an ideological lane for Nikki Haley or anybody else to be a viable anti-Trump candidate. This is a nationalist-populist party that is not tethered to an ideology, certainly not conservatism. That’s clear now. The revolution is complete.
The Never Trump movement is finding our feet better than we have at any point since Trump came down the escalator. There’s a lot more of us. There’s actually infrastructure. There’s influence in the media both on the left and on the right. There are actual talks now about formalizing the organization. That’s happening a lot more now. It used to be sort of guerrilla tactics.
Now, the question becomes: Do we want to be a faction? Or is there an attempt to kind of create a new party? I think that right now, the best thing to be doing is to demonstrate the power of the anti-Trump faction by defeating him. And then once that happens, you’re going to see, I think, a ton of movement, because the Republican Party will essentially shatter. It’s going to atomize once Trump loses.
There are going to be a bunch of people trying to be the next Trump. That will not work. It’s a cult of personality. Then there will be a handful of people trying to reconstitute the pre-Trump ideology that the party had. And that’s not going to be possible.
Mike Murphy thinks they’ll revert to fiscal conservatism after Trump is gone. Really? Where’s the constituency for that after all these years of MAGA? Good luck. Ben Howe says the Democrats need to appeal to the Never Trumpers. Ok.
Charlie Sykes, conservative commentator
It felt like the closing of the doom loop there: That any hope of a return to what Haley called normalcy was gone. I keep coming back to the difference between rallying around Trump in 2016, and 2020, and 2024. It’s not the same thing.
You think of all the things that have happened. You could rationalize 2016 by saying he would grow into the presidency. In 2020, he was the incumbent president, and there was a lot at stake. But in 2024, you’re basically surrendering to someone who has been found liable for rape, facing 91 felony charges, who continues to be increasingly unhinged in threatening retribution. And yet Republicans are recapitulating the surrender of the last eight years as if nothing’s happened.
[…]
It is as if we’re in this massive simulation: what if he crossed this red line? What if he actually didn’t just talk about grabbing women by the pussy, what if he actually raped a woman? Is that too far? What if he actually tried to overthrow the government? What if he actually incited violence? And the Republican Party is in the process of just shrugging and saying, “Yeah, four more years. We want four more years of that.”
There’s no doubt about it. But the one thing these guys really need to grapple with is what Stuart Stevens did a few years back — how the conservative movement they believed in and served paved the way for Donald Trump. He admitted after soul searching that that it was all a lie and that they’d been willfully blind to the attitudes they were creating in order to win.
Still, it’s important to know that there are Republicans who did finally reach the end of the line and we have to hope there are a few who will not vote for Trump in November. These 3rd party miscreants could screw it up and it wouldn’t be the first time. The last time they did we ended up in Iraq.
Considering I just filed my taxes for free using an IRS-approved vendor (and I’m not in one of the pilot states AOC mentions), if you have not yet filed, Turbo Tax refugee, check this out.
Post by @democrascene
View on Threads
Of course, free filing is a crime against capitalism and must be stopped. So by all means, pay an exorbitant amount to file your taxes.
Indulge me. I still struggle to get campaigns here to rethink their strategy and to cast a wider net for “low-propensity” voters Democrats here cannot win statewide races without. Without getting into the weeds, a short thread by Anat Shenker-Osorio gets at what I was already recommending. It’s related to how Jay Rosen a full year ago recommended the press approach this election: Not the odds, but the stakes.
Not the odds, but the stakes.
That's my shorthand for the organizing principle we most need in journalists covering the 2024 campaign. Not who has what chances of winning, but the consequences for American democracy. Not the odds, but the stakes.
For individual voters, the stakes are also high, but democracy may seem an abstraction. Shenker-Osorio’s observations are based on preliminary findings, but what seems to move voters is reframing how Democrats pitch their message: from vote for us to vote for you.
“We must shift folks from seeing election as contest between 2 (or more) people to seeing it as fork in road between 2 different futures.”
It is old hat to ask people if they are better off now than they were four years ago. But they might disagree that they are, no matter how much data you throw at them. It’s almost reflex on the left to try to browbeat people into submission with our supposed superior command of the facts. But it’s the facts of people’s own lives, not abstractions about the economy or democracy, that matter most to them.
This is a time for choosing. Yes, it’s a choice between democracy and neofascism. Aided by the Dobbs decision, President Biden argued that successfully in 2022. But what motivates people more, Shenker-Osorio suggests, is how those alternate futures could impact them.
Here's how I'd summarize the electoral task for us based on slew of recent focus groups and battleground segmentation and message testing: We must shift folks from seeing election as contest between 2 (or more) people to seeing it as fork in road between 2 different futures.
Reporters cannot seem to resist framing elections as horse races. Who’s gaining ground?Who’s falling behind? What do oddsmakers say? And public opinion polls?
And campaigns? Campaigns dispatch their volunteers to people’s doorsteps like Jehovah’s Witnesses, tracts in hand, to evangelize for their candidates. Enthusiasm for particular candidates or parties is why volunteers volunteer. Sure, this year there is more deep canvassing going on earlier to build relationships with prospective voters. But ultimately, candidates want their volunteers to pitch them.
So far, early days and largely qual so…TBD, showing them concrete list of the VOTER FACING impacts of Trump's agenda is what most moves them. So, the things he plans that will hurt them, as opposed to undermine "democracy" or institutions.
But registrants disenchanted with both parties, the growing ranks of unaffiliated registrants in particular, are less moved by the rah-rah for this team or that candidate. Shenker-Osorio’s preliminary findings back up what I’ve been suggesting: showing voters a “concrete list of the VOTER FACING impacts of Trump’s agenda is what most moves them. So, the things he plans that will hurt them, as opposed to undermining ‘democracy’ or institutions.” Your future is on the ballot.
Voting this fall has to be about the reluctant voter, not about this or that team or this or that candidate. Candidates are stand-ins for alternate futures. Voters get to choose which.
But try asking campaigns built around individual politicians and their egos to approach voters about voting for their own futures and not the candidates’. It’s their mugs on those glossy palm cards. That’s a tall ask. It requires rethinking and reformulating how they’ve traditionally campaigned. It’s tough teaching yellow dogs new tricks.
J.V. Last argued yesterday that the Air Force’s “platform dependence” leaves it not nimble enough to be fulfill its core mission in the age of cheap drones. Prioritizing the means (pricey manned aircraft) over the end (defending American troops and interests) is a mistake. There’s a lesson there for Democrats stuck in campaigning the only way they know how. This is a time for choosing for them as well.
Republicans leading the party’s effort to defend the House in this fall’s elections are pushing GOP colleagues to openly discuss their positions on abortion, rather than try to sidestep the issue like many did in the previous campaign, arguing that doing so will be critical to winning competitive races.
A memo prepared by House Republicans’ campaign arm and viewed by The Wall Street Journal says Republicans have a “brand problem, not a policy problem,” as their reluctance to discuss the issue left it to Democrats to define where the GOP stood. Many voters view the party’s hopefuls as opposing abortion under any circumstances, when there are actually a variety of positions held by candidates, particularly in swing districts, the memo states.
The guidance tells candidates that they must “confidently articulate” their stance and that “being unwilling to stake out a clear position with voters is the worst possible solution.”
Abortion has weighed on the party’s success in recent years. Republicans won back the House in 2022 but by a narrower-than-expected margin, a far cry from the “red wave” they had hoped would sweep them to a big majority in the chamber. Lawmakers from both parties say the Supreme Court’s decision that year ending the right to an abortion revved up abortion-rights voters and helped Democrats defend seats.
The party is trying to figure out a better approach headed into the 2024 contests, when the White House, the Senate and the House are all seen as tossups.
The guidance, which will be presented to GOP colleagues by Rep. Richard Hudson (R., N.C.), chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, also recommended that members express empathy for women, discuss “common sense” solutions and push back on what it calls Democrats’ extremism on the issue. Hudson plans to share the guidance with his colleagues on Wednesday night at one of the kickoff events for the party’s three-day retreat in West Virginia.
Hudson intends to back his argument up with a poll conducted in more than 60 competitive House districts by Kellyanne Conway, a pollster and former senior adviser to Donald Trump. The polls found that about one-third of people surveyed associated Republicans with wanting to outlaw all abortions, while a similar number showed respondents saw Democrats favoring abortion for any reason at any time. Republicans say that underneath the basic abortion-rights and antiabortion labels, voters generally back some restrictions on abortion, putting them more in line with the GOP than Democrats.
Democrats counter that they are better aligned with voters. If Republicans “think people need to hear more about their unpopular antiabortion policies, go ahead. We’re confident voters will respond accordingly in November,” said Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesman Viet Shelton.
