I don't quite take your point about the role of shame, because the rest of your argument seems to contradict it. Turning up the shame is something that we can do -- with only a fraction of the leverage that members of the community could exert, but still something. Their nerve always fails, but only after large unnecessary collateral damage has been done, and sometimes so late that it no longer matters; we need to make it fail sooner.
I must be missing something. One of the main reasons I am terrified of Trump winning is that I am 76 years old and retired. I am afraid that bull-in-a-china-shop Trump will do something that will tank the economy, and I will have no way to recover from it.
So interesting how the concept "nest" is in fact covering nearly all the reactions of the Trump voters. That idea of the nest is so brilliant.
I think there might well be a fringe of the MAGA who will not vote or might even in a very, very discreet way for Biden. Fear is what Donald, outside his ludicrous paradise promises in very simplistic words, fear is his tool, nothing else. But for republicans in Congress I would love to be a fly to see how they will vote.
Somewhere in my reading, I was informed that when Mitt Romney was asked if he would vote for Donald Trump again, he obviously said, NO. Then, when asked if he was planning to vote for Joe Biden, he also said NO. This boggles my mind, but it has a lot to do with this self-defeating tribal loyalty you discuss in this essay. (Tribalism, in some cases, can be a good thing; it’s what kept our Homo sapien ancestors alive.) Why, then, would someone who has at least some ethical compass like Romney cast a vote that can only help Trump? It simply doesn’t make any sense.
Reread And BLESS YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR HONESTY want you to know you are treasured by me and this Thanksgiving
Know from my heart and soul your words
Matter and Believe You are fighting for our Democracy as am I and I’m proud to subscribe to your Substack … I love that you have said out loud VOTE BIDEN 2024
Just returned from five days in CT with my son .. he works on Thanksgiving because it’s an American holiday and he has clients all over the world… so I will volunteer for eight hours at the Hospice Hospital because a lot of volunteers aren’t available on holidays … truly every second of the day I will be giving thanks for the gifts God has given me to do the work .. it’s such a privilege my
Rick, have you or any of the other LP group contacted your former clients(George W, Jeb, or others) and put them on the spot about defending democracy and not supporting MAGA? Make them tell you why they can’t support Biden.
I’d like to know this as well, because an endorsement from someone like a former republican president could have a positive effect on that 7 to 10% of persuadable Republicans who are disgusted with Trump.
It’s not Trump per se, it’s the voting bloc he created and controls that they all want to inherit as Trump slowly evaporates. It’s a very tricky and complex game. Who will be the winner?
The perception Trump is losing is what makes it true in this political climate. Certain interests will do and say anything to prevent this perception from taking hold of his groupies. They have lots of money, a strategy, and a motivated media to indoctrinate the public.
I believe Trump is losing and has been ever since 2018.
And yet the Never ending polls! Whether FOX media talking about how great his numbers are how every indictment generates another point to the the CNN, MSNBC talking heads all but throwing in the towel with self-fulfilling low numbers and Biden down talking.
I am totally with Rick on serving a Biden nd2 term no matter what. But this Trump popularity talk...that I don't get. I understand 25% of a solid stupid but how can it be that GOP voters & professionals can actually say, I don't smell it, nope, I can't see it and he won't be THAT bad...no, he'll be worse. WTAF people?
AND, it is more than the simplistic "money in politics " arguments. During the 80s getting Federally indicted meant a real threat of jail time. Example; the Savings& Loan scandal vs the Banking/derivatives/ Mortgage scandal of 2008. Who went to jail in 09? Actually, who goes to jail in any corporate actions? Big business brings in their 20 lawyers and DOJ settles. Example Purdue Pharma/ Sicklerville family -nothing for decades and corporate interests said, look no penalties and from the big distributors like Cardinal, McKesson thru Walgreens, CVS and every pill mill/ doctor throughout the country, became the throughput of the opiod crisis, w/heroin distribution mopping up after. Laws that followed are either toothless due to corporate interests or over turned in the change in majority. I don't mean nothing beneficial never gets done but the distinction of the 2 parties and what gets done is getting rather obvious and Trump made that clear in his 4 years.
The country has been for sale, from ketchup being a school lunch veggie to Medicare "Advantage". IMO, I do think the GOP kicked off the worst of it from Gingrich making Congress a casino or the K street lobbying to excess and availability to both parties. That metastasis and dark money engorgement helped by SCOTUS findings like Citizens United, put the For Sign up to foreign $$?. Most of the citizens were played whether by crisis like recessions or general confusion. I guess that's how you get a Trump for president-people can't tell shit from shinola or stopped caring.
You don’t get the Trump popularity talk because it’s not true. Not to the extent they would have us buy. I believe he is falling apart. Somebody stuck their arm up his back. They wiggle their fingers to make his mouth move.
I like what you are saying but to see the # in the millions from 2020 presidential race
something different, even if 1/6 followed With some rejecting him then. I believe there is a % of voters that may have voted for Trump once or twice that privately reject him from 3-7,8%?
The fact that anyone in the GOP power profile from Heritage to local state government belong to the willing group go along with anything to keep a majority. oor, similarly keep an in-group; family, work, others in a socially necessary membership. It is less of a stretch that this group found enlightenment but more likely going back to their in-group provides affirmation.
I hope so but there's a lot of people voting republican on auto-pilot. GOP politics was never a thinking man's game. Or they would be looking for the great legislative record. And using it. That left with the Trump "platform". I would laugh if it wasn't so serious.
I feel like the bottom line for MAGA is that millions of people don't want to think for themselves: let there be some common enemy and a leader to destroy their perceived adversaries. This cliff-hanger is not a comedy -right on!!
Yet they watch different media and canceled their local paper " because they disagreed with it" ( quoted from Trump's fan club from people I know) and their family & friends reaffirm everyday, how much Trump is their guy. They have drank the cool-aid that ALL of his legal problems are a conspiracy... so, in my opinion the fever has not yet broke.
They have nothing to offer? When has that simple truth ever had an effect on how they vote against their own interests?
An idea for how liberals can challenge conservatives to rethink their commitment: Ask the 'MAGA types' if they want/expect/need an honest President? If they agree with that (and how could they not), then recite Trump's 'honesty' record:
1) He cheats on his federal (and state?) income taxes
2) He cheats on the banks (e.g., Deutscher Bank) loaning him money
3) He cheats on the subcontractors doing work on his projects
4) He cheats on his wife
5) [Worst of all?] He cheats on his golf scores!
If they STILL vote for him, they'll have to live with their cupidity for the rest of their simplistic lives.
Your key word is in your last sentence: simplistic. As Cheryl wrote, these voters are either entertained by Trump’s antics, or they are bigots and haters, or they are removed enough from reality to believe that Trump is actually going to do something to make their lives better. Many of them are oblivious to Biden’s accomplishments, and even if they understood the bills he has enacted on their behalf, they are incapable of giving him the benefit of the doubt. They are living on a plane that does not intersect with reality.
We've seen illustrations of all these categories, and more in the past few months:
Larry Hogan, choosing money over country, to support No Labels,
Sinnunu who pretends that worries over a 2nd Trump turn are 'overblown',
Pence who seems to have exhausted his cache of integrity with his one act on 1/6,
Kemp, who withstood Trump's 2020 avalanche, only to declare his support for Trump in 2024,
Haley, who agreed with her fellow pathetic candidates to endorse Trump, even if he was a convicted felon.
Kelly will be remembered for his weakness in civilian life, not his courage on the battlefields.
McConnell, who has lost all control over his Senate caucus, and is a mere shadow of his former self,
On and on and on...
The most pathetic aspect is that no amount of groveling, endorsements, or even money will make the slightest difference to Trump on his retribution tour.
Each and every one of these weak, corrupted pretenders will be forced into acts of utter humiliation and subjugation for the 'privilege' of access to power. It's not as though they'll have a choice...their silence now will destroy every safety net.
Trump is motivated by a lust for power and greed. Those who confess shallow resistance but then capitulate and kiss the ring (remember My Kevin?) might avoid page one of his enemies list, but will never be trusted and if history repeats, will soon find themselves squarely in the target. His intensifying mania combined with the NRA-paranoia-fueled wild men who resolutely stand back and stand by is the greatest threat we have faced since the height of Cold War tension. And if 2020 is any lesson, a Biden victory, while essential, will not put this nightmare behind us.
I agree with every word. As I read your writing it occurred to me that over the last 40 years money in politics has spoken louder in each cycle to the effect that there is no honesty or truth in our representives whether true or an illusion and to the extent that the public just thinks everyone has a price tag on their backs. More or less like our major sports teams and the only option for voters is the spectacule.
Thanks for this. Knowing these kinds of people and seeing them in the upper reaches of politics (in both parties, my one bow to bothsiderism) is why I got out of professional politics and went to Hollywood where they make no pretense of being in it for anything but the money.
Maybe we should have started by cleaning House, of 147 GOP reps that were part or willing to go with the January 6th coup? By doing nothing and delaying legal action of Trump we have lost out moral and legal veritas and now Trump has regrouped and he will be allowed and accepted, again as a legit candidate. Of which he never was. But a silent or complacent press has made it "acceptable". Maybe Trump is right about something, though never the way he states it, fake news, indeed.
Rick, these people are ALL despicable, every single one of them, from George W to Mitch M to John Kelly and all the way down. The blood of our country is on their hands, every single one of these cult GOP'ers. History will judge every single one of them. "The sins of the fathers will be visited on the children, to the third and fourth generations." If DJT is elected by vote, or installed by theft or violence, as our next president, we are visiting something terrible on our children and grandchildren(I am 70 and have both!) Every single decent R "leader" should say "I am voting for Joe Biden because I love my country and do not want to allow the USA to become a dictatorship where enemies are punished by death, imprisonment, or God knows what." It is coming, I truly believe that. We really may be lost as a functioning democracy, or even a free country. We really are. We can survive an old and even senile or even dead Joe Biden. We really can. We cannot survive one more minute of DJT or one of his acolytes. Keep sounding the alarm, and please pray some of these R "leaders" wil speak that truth and vote out loud.
Totally agree. And no matter what, Trump is not a young man, so after him, what? One of his imbecile sons? The GOP voter seems all in for Trump but what happens after? They already can't find much to like besides him. We're already headed to ANOTHER election without even a platform-so what's next? Anyone that sounds like Trump so we can have Trumpism forever? For a group of people who fear and hate China it is amazing how fast these choices and cowardice will take us from a democracy to China #2 but no one can see it and when will the Trump goggles come off?
China has the highest rate of its citizens leaving or looking for a way out in probably 20 years. The New Yorker has a very good article written in the last month with amazing numbers. Maybe we can ask them for some pro-democracy support?
I don't quite take your point about the role of shame, because the rest of your argument seems to contradict it. Turning up the shame is something that we can do -- with only a fraction of the leverage that members of the community could exert, but still something. Their nerve always fails, but only after large unnecessary collateral damage has been done, and sometimes so late that it no longer matters; we need to make it fail sooner.
The other six words: D____ T____ should not be President.
I must be missing something. One of the main reasons I am terrified of Trump winning is that I am 76 years old and retired. I am afraid that bull-in-a-china-shop Trump will do something that will tank the economy, and I will have no way to recover from it.
Excellent essay. Good comments from the community. But more importantly, 🎂HAPPY BIRTHDAY, RICK!! Welcome to the club-it’s not so bad 😎
Thank you!
So interesting how the concept "nest" is in fact covering nearly all the reactions of the Trump voters. That idea of the nest is so brilliant.
I think there might well be a fringe of the MAGA who will not vote or might even in a very, very discreet way for Biden. Fear is what Donald, outside his ludicrous paradise promises in very simplistic words, fear is his tool, nothing else. But for republicans in Congress I would love to be a fly to see how they will vote.
Somewhere in my reading, I was informed that when Mitt Romney was asked if he would vote for Donald Trump again, he obviously said, NO. Then, when asked if he was planning to vote for Joe Biden, he also said NO. This boggles my mind, but it has a lot to do with this self-defeating tribal loyalty you discuss in this essay. (Tribalism, in some cases, can be a good thing; it’s what kept our Homo sapien ancestors alive.) Why, then, would someone who has at least some ethical compass like Romney cast a vote that can only help Trump? It simply doesn’t make any sense.
I think it was in the recent book about Romney that he said that he writes in his wife for president, which is VERY Mitt, but not that helpful.
Ugh!!!
Exactly!
Rick Wilson I’ve read the responses and
Reread And BLESS YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR HONESTY want you to know you are treasured by me and this Thanksgiving
Know from my heart and soul your words
Matter and Believe You are fighting for our Democracy as am I and I’m proud to subscribe to your Substack … I love that you have said out loud VOTE BIDEN 2024
Your words and actions are truthful and
Pray that our children and grandchildren
Will live in Freedom 💖 Marsha 💖
Yes, say it out loud, yell it from the roof tops "VOTE BIDEN 2024!!" 💖 xo
Happy Thanksgiving, Marsha. 🥂💜
Happy Thanksgiving, Janet! ❤️💜
Thanks, same to you!
Just returned from five days in CT with my son .. he works on Thanksgiving because it’s an American holiday and he has clients all over the world… so I will volunteer for eight hours at the Hospice Hospital because a lot of volunteers aren’t available on holidays … truly every second of the day I will be giving thanks for the gifts God has given me to do the work .. it’s such a privilege my
Gratitude is heartfelt ❤️Marsha
Happy Thanksgiving, Marsha! ❤️💜
Thank you for your service and your gifts to others less fortunate. Sending you a long distance hug.
Rick, have you or any of the other LP group contacted your former clients(George W, Jeb, or others) and put them on the spot about defending democracy and not supporting MAGA? Make them tell you why they can’t support Biden.
Dubya doesn’t want to risk his expensive speaking gigs to private conservative audiences. Jeb has zero influence.
I’d like to know this as well, because an endorsement from someone like a former republican president could have a positive effect on that 7 to 10% of persuadable Republicans who are disgusted with Trump.
Well. That's certainly depressing.
As Rick says, “Everything Trump touches dies.”
This has been truth for decades.
It is clear to those of us who have eyes to see and haven’t drunk the MAGOt Kool-aid.
Why do people still give him the time of day? Why do they allow themselves to be drawn into his orbit?
They each think they are special and that it will be different because they are oh so special.
Breaking news, You Are Not Special Enough.
Trump is a black hole of vileness and your association with him will ruin your life. You will crash and burn just like all the others before you.
When the leopard tells you he eats faces and you vote for him anyway, don’t be shocked and surprised when he eats your face.
DJT is the cult leader of the massive MAGA-CULT; millions are brainwashed and they're nuts!
It’s not Trump per se, it’s the voting bloc he created and controls that they all want to inherit as Trump slowly evaporates. It’s a very tricky and complex game. Who will be the winner?
The perception Trump is losing is what makes it true in this political climate. Certain interests will do and say anything to prevent this perception from taking hold of his groupies. They have lots of money, a strategy, and a motivated media to indoctrinate the public.
I believe Trump is losing and has been ever since 2018.
And yet the Never ending polls! Whether FOX media talking about how great his numbers are how every indictment generates another point to the the CNN, MSNBC talking heads all but throwing in the towel with self-fulfilling low numbers and Biden down talking.
I am totally with Rick on serving a Biden nd2 term no matter what. But this Trump popularity talk...that I don't get. I understand 25% of a solid stupid but how can it be that GOP voters & professionals can actually say, I don't smell it, nope, I can't see it and he won't be THAT bad...no, he'll be worse. WTAF people?
I can't wrap my head around it.
AND, it is more than the simplistic "money in politics " arguments. During the 80s getting Federally indicted meant a real threat of jail time. Example; the Savings& Loan scandal vs the Banking/derivatives/ Mortgage scandal of 2008. Who went to jail in 09? Actually, who goes to jail in any corporate actions? Big business brings in their 20 lawyers and DOJ settles. Example Purdue Pharma/ Sicklerville family -nothing for decades and corporate interests said, look no penalties and from the big distributors like Cardinal, McKesson thru Walgreens, CVS and every pill mill/ doctor throughout the country, became the throughput of the opiod crisis, w/heroin distribution mopping up after. Laws that followed are either toothless due to corporate interests or over turned in the change in majority. I don't mean nothing beneficial never gets done but the distinction of the 2 parties and what gets done is getting rather obvious and Trump made that clear in his 4 years.
The country has been for sale, from ketchup being a school lunch veggie to Medicare "Advantage". IMO, I do think the GOP kicked off the worst of it from Gingrich making Congress a casino or the K street lobbying to excess and availability to both parties. That metastasis and dark money engorgement helped by SCOTUS findings like Citizens United, put the For Sign up to foreign $$?. Most of the citizens were played whether by crisis like recessions or general confusion. I guess that's how you get a Trump for president-people can't tell shit from shinola or stopped caring.
You don’t get the Trump popularity talk because it’s not true. Not to the extent they would have us buy. I believe he is falling apart. Somebody stuck their arm up his back. They wiggle their fingers to make his mouth move.
I like what you are saying but to see the # in the millions from 2020 presidential race
something different, even if 1/6 followed With some rejecting him then. I believe there is a % of voters that may have voted for Trump once or twice that privately reject him from 3-7,8%?
The fact that anyone in the GOP power profile from Heritage to local state government belong to the willing group go along with anything to keep a majority. oor, similarly keep an in-group; family, work, others in a socially necessary membership. It is less of a stretch that this group found enlightenment but more likely going back to their in-group provides affirmation.
DJT and the GOP seem to be careening over the edge of a cliff. Later, alligator!
I hope so but there's a lot of people voting republican on auto-pilot. GOP politics was never a thinking man's game. Or they would be looking for the great legislative record. And using it. That left with the Trump "platform". I would laugh if it wasn't so serious.
I feel like the bottom line for MAGA is that millions of people don't want to think for themselves: let there be some common enemy and a leader to destroy their perceived adversaries. This cliff-hanger is not a comedy -right on!!
And how could they not be, Crocodile?
Oh, it's a cliff hanger for sure!
You are on a roll!
They have nothing to offer you but a perception.
Yet they watch different media and canceled their local paper " because they disagreed with it" ( quoted from Trump's fan club from people I know) and their family & friends reaffirm everyday, how much Trump is their guy. They have drank the cool-aid that ALL of his legal problems are a conspiracy... so, in my opinion the fever has not yet broke.
They have nothing to offer? When has that simple truth ever had an effect on how they vote against their own interests?
An idea for how liberals can challenge conservatives to rethink their commitment: Ask the 'MAGA types' if they want/expect/need an honest President? If they agree with that (and how could they not), then recite Trump's 'honesty' record:
1) He cheats on his federal (and state?) income taxes
2) He cheats on the banks (e.g., Deutscher Bank) loaning him money
3) He cheats on the subcontractors doing work on his projects
4) He cheats on his wife
5) [Worst of all?] He cheats on his golf scores!
If they STILL vote for him, they'll have to live with their cupidity for the rest of their simplistic lives.
Your key word is in your last sentence: simplistic. As Cheryl wrote, these voters are either entertained by Trump’s antics, or they are bigots and haters, or they are removed enough from reality to believe that Trump is actually going to do something to make their lives better. Many of them are oblivious to Biden’s accomplishments, and even if they understood the bills he has enacted on their behalf, they are incapable of giving him the benefit of the doubt. They are living on a plane that does not intersect with reality.
They either don't believe any of that, or they simply don't care.
Hi Cheryl, I feel the cult-factor needs to be considered: MAGA-CULT. Thanks.
We've seen illustrations of all these categories, and more in the past few months:
Larry Hogan, choosing money over country, to support No Labels,
Sinnunu who pretends that worries over a 2nd Trump turn are 'overblown',
Pence who seems to have exhausted his cache of integrity with his one act on 1/6,
Kemp, who withstood Trump's 2020 avalanche, only to declare his support for Trump in 2024,
Haley, who agreed with her fellow pathetic candidates to endorse Trump, even if he was a convicted felon.
Kelly will be remembered for his weakness in civilian life, not his courage on the battlefields.
McConnell, who has lost all control over his Senate caucus, and is a mere shadow of his former self,
On and on and on...
The most pathetic aspect is that no amount of groveling, endorsements, or even money will make the slightest difference to Trump on his retribution tour.
Each and every one of these weak, corrupted pretenders will be forced into acts of utter humiliation and subjugation for the 'privilege' of access to power. It's not as though they'll have a choice...their silence now will destroy every safety net.
Only the most soulless sycophants will survive.
Trump is motivated by a lust for power and greed. Those who confess shallow resistance but then capitulate and kiss the ring (remember My Kevin?) might avoid page one of his enemies list, but will never be trusted and if history repeats, will soon find themselves squarely in the target. His intensifying mania combined with the NRA-paranoia-fueled wild men who resolutely stand back and stand by is the greatest threat we have faced since the height of Cold War tension. And if 2020 is any lesson, a Biden victory, while essential, will not put this nightmare behind us.
I agree with every word. As I read your writing it occurred to me that over the last 40 years money in politics has spoken louder in each cycle to the effect that there is no honesty or truth in our representives whether true or an illusion and to the extent that the public just thinks everyone has a price tag on their backs. More or less like our major sports teams and the only option for voters is the spectacule.
Thanks for this. Knowing these kinds of people and seeing them in the upper reaches of politics (in both parties, my one bow to bothsiderism) is why I got out of professional politics and went to Hollywood where they make no pretense of being in it for anything but the money.
When can we lock up Elon, Trump, and all fascist MAGAt voters to protect our democracy?
Maybe we should have started by cleaning House, of 147 GOP reps that were part or willing to go with the January 6th coup? By doing nothing and delaying legal action of Trump we have lost out moral and legal veritas and now Trump has regrouped and he will be allowed and accepted, again as a legit candidate. Of which he never was. But a silent or complacent press has made it "acceptable". Maybe Trump is right about something, though never the way he states it, fake news, indeed.
Rick, these people are ALL despicable, every single one of them, from George W to Mitch M to John Kelly and all the way down. The blood of our country is on their hands, every single one of these cult GOP'ers. History will judge every single one of them. "The sins of the fathers will be visited on the children, to the third and fourth generations." If DJT is elected by vote, or installed by theft or violence, as our next president, we are visiting something terrible on our children and grandchildren(I am 70 and have both!) Every single decent R "leader" should say "I am voting for Joe Biden because I love my country and do not want to allow the USA to become a dictatorship where enemies are punished by death, imprisonment, or God knows what." It is coming, I truly believe that. We really may be lost as a functioning democracy, or even a free country. We really are. We can survive an old and even senile or even dead Joe Biden. We really can. We cannot survive one more minute of DJT or one of his acolytes. Keep sounding the alarm, and please pray some of these R "leaders" wil speak that truth and vote out loud.
Rick, Thank you for speaking out for the children for generations to come -we need that!
Rick A and TCinLA thank you
I Am 100% VOTING BIDEN 2024
Full Stop… I am a loyal American
My grandchildren MUST live free
It’s BIDEN vs Autocracy! Marsha
Totally agree. And no matter what, Trump is not a young man, so after him, what? One of his imbecile sons? The GOP voter seems all in for Trump but what happens after? They already can't find much to like besides him. We're already headed to ANOTHER election without even a platform-so what's next? Anyone that sounds like Trump so we can have Trumpism forever? For a group of people who fear and hate China it is amazing how fast these choices and cowardice will take us from a democracy to China #2 but no one can see it and when will the Trump goggles come off?
China has the highest rate of its citizens leaving or looking for a way out in probably 20 years. The New Yorker has a very good article written in the last month with amazing numbers. Maybe we can ask them for some pro-democracy support?
What will it take?