Politicus Pod

The Moral Depravity Infecting the Republican PartyRepublican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene was caught bragging that if she and Steve Bannon had planned the attack on the January 6th United States, they would have won because they would have been armed.“If Steve Bannon and I organized [January 6th], we would have won.  Not to mention, it would have been armed.”  Then she got called out by the Biden White House, and so then she pulled the Trump card of denying the intention that was clear to all by her words.She was being “sarcastic,” y’all. Why don’t you get her humor. Also, ‘Hollywood and antifa and drag queens’. That’s her pivot.This tactic continues to work for those who weaponize the ‘both sides’ compulsion of our media.Deputy White House press secretary Andrew Bates triggered Greene when he commented,  “It goes against our fundamental values as a country for a Member of Congress to wish that the carnage of January 6th had been even worse, and to boast that she would have succeeded in an armed insurrection against the United States government. This violent rhetoric is a slap in the face to the Capitol Police, the DC Metropolitan Police, the National Guard, and the families who lost loved ones as a result of the attack on the Capitol. All leaders have a responsibility to condemn these dangerous, abhorrent remarks and stand up for our Constitution and the rule of law.”The Daily is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts, podcasts, and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Then on Monday White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre made the point,  “… (T)his is someone who is expected to have their committee positions restored.  So we should let that sink in.”She didn’t let it pass by that Greene is not only a member of Congress but that all leaders have a responsibility to condemn these remarks: “Again, this is coming from a member of Congress.  All leaders have a responsibility to condemn these dangerous, vile remarks and stand for our Constitution and also for the rule of law. This is what is coming from a member of Congress.  And what's more: She said to a group that lashed out against condemning Holocaust denial; they were giving her an award.“You have all heard the President warn about awful conspiracy theories and violent rhetoric that… undermine the rule of law in our democracy.  It is just antithetical to our values as a country for a member of Congress to wish that the carnage of January 6th had been even worse and to brag that they would have succeeded in an armed insurrection against the United States government.”This is the Republican Party. Marjorie Taylor Greene is an extremist within the party; however, she is getting her committee positions back and that’s where this is a very different story than just an extremist in the party.Republican Leaders? Where are you?Hopeful Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, who is working to get the votes to be Speaker of the U.S. House in the next Congress, is a no-show so far.The Washington Post noted, “Greene is scheduled to be sworn in for another term and take an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same.”McCarthy’s office did not respond to a request for comment Monday.”Conservative Bill Kristol commented in response to the Washington Post piece, “’McCarthy’s office did not respond to a request for comment Monday.’ If you can’t condemn the insurrection and its cheerleaders, you shouldn’t be Speaker of the House.”He’s absolutely correct. (If you’re listening, I went off script at this point for a side discussion about the two parties.)McCarthy is the one elevating Greene, catering to the Q-Anon extremists, the anti-Semites, the racists and worst bigots — all so he can hold power and become Speaker.McCarthy saw what happened to (former Republican Speakers of the House) Boehner and Ryan. And his answer isn’t: RUN, but rather, prostrate himself even lower to the worst impulses in his party and not only that, but empower them over the people by reinstating Greene to her committee positions.Is this a depth to which we have not plunged previously? I know, you’re thinking ‘hey we survived Trump’ and true enough. Under Trump, Republican leadership played coy to disguise their avarice. It was clear that Trump was signaling to the worst elements when some of his own conspiracies, echoed on conservative media like Fox News, were cited as the motivation behind mass shootings like the Tree of Life synagogue mass shooting in Pittsburgh.Somehow it seems worse, because a speck of integrity and patriotism could stop this. Right now. Could stop it in its tracks.But integrity and patriotism are not to be found in McCarthy’s elevation of Greene.Greene is no stranger to making inflammatory statements and even spreading conspiracies. She has claimed that the government was behind 9/11 and that Jewish space lasers were to blame for wildfires. In January of 2021, Parkland families called for Greene’s resignation after Facebook posts surfaced in which she appeared to agree that the 2018 mass shooting that murdered 17 innocent people was a ‘false flag’.Instead of addressing the posts, Greene pivoted to the exact same issue that she is turning to on her ‘we would have won if I had planned it because we would have been armed,’ which is her obsession with guns and blaming certain law enforcement while claiming to be pro-police. In this case, she blamed the deputy for the shooting and claimed that schools shouldn’t be gun-free zones.None of that is addressing her comments, her agreements with posts that claimed that this shooting was a false flag. There is a stark lack of personal responsibility and accountability? Oh, she also personally attacked the source, calling it ‘Communist Bloggers.’The lack of personal accountability is stunning. The lack of morality is profound. The failure to even pretend to have a moral position is concerning. This is a movement within the Republican Party that is taken over and is now running the whole show.One reason this tactic of claiming something was sarcasm - that the Republican base knows is not - works so well is evidenced in the success of the Babylon Bee, which markets itself as “satire” without mentioning the satire is usually aimed at Democrats and the conservatives who read it actually believe it’s news or treat it as news.I know this from real life discussions and from online commenters using the Babylon Bee as a source for a claim. When called out on it they then claim the Left can’t take a joke, when the real point is that Republicans don’t seem interested in even determining the facts; Instead, they’ll fall for anything they can use to fuel their hatred of Democrats, gay and trans people, Jewish people, women who aren’t subservient, Black people, Black women, Latinos, the list is endless at this point. It’s easier to ask who they don’t they hate.  And I think that’s noteworthy; it’s alarming. It’s not normal for an entire political party readying to take over an entire chamber of Congress in a democracy.This Trump tactic of saying something caught on video or audio and then denying it, while pivoting with an attack on the source or general attacks on the current Targets of the Republican Party continues to work for those who weaponize the ‘both sides’ compulsion of the media.  But this White House is learning how to use the bully pulpit to redirect the media to the actual facts and issues: In this case, maybe this person shouldn’t be on committees.It’s a shame that our media is so weak and obsequious and married to both sides are equal that they need to be redirected to facts when real people’s lives are on the line.Kevin McCarthy is putting this person back on committees. He is elevating her to committee positions where she will have power and authority over legislation that will impact Americans.All parties have extremists in them. The difference is that the Republican Party is led by a man who tried to steal an election including inciting a violent and deadly terrorist attack on the U.S. Capitol - and is not only still the Republican Party leader, but is still trying to steal the 2020 election, two years and a failed self-coup later.The Republican Party has elevated its worst elements to the highest levels of leadership, and that is why Kevin McCarthy’s cowardice and refusal to condemn Greene’s comments matters. He is animating and empowering Greene’s dangerous extremism.It shouldn’t be hard to condemn calling for an armed attack on the U.S. Capitol. But it is for the House Republican Leader.  And this fact evinces the grotesque moral depravity of the modern-day Republican Party.This is Sarah Jones with the PoliticusPod for PoliticusUSA’s The Daily. Thank you so much for joining me today and please consider subscribing and gifting a subscription to our Substack, which we are using to help keep information and analysis free for all on PoliticusUSA, where we focus on how the news impacts The People.Sources:* https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/12/greene-jan6-white-house-armed-insurrection/* https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/22/us/parkland-shooting-marjorie-taylor-greene/index.html* https://www.politicususa.com/2022/12/12/marjorie-taylor-greene-white-house-1-6.html* December 12, 2022 White House press briefing sent to PoliticusUSA Get full access to The Daily at politicususa.substack.com/subscribe

If you enjoy this podcast, please consider subscribing to our newsletter.The Daily is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.This is Sarah Jones on the Politicus Pod for PoliticusUSA’s The Daily.Harry and Meghan outed how the media works with the royal family in their Netflix documentary, and it turns out that it’s similar to how some of our media works with certain favored politicians. It tells an important story about how media is crafted for an audience, how hate pays, and how social media algorithms further incentivize hate, and an even bigger story about what is behind all of this hate and who benefits.“I feel as though being part of this family, it is my duty to uncover this exploitation and bribery that happens within our media,” Prince Harry says in the opening episode of Netflix’s new documentary series “Harry and Meghan”.Harry is referring to the bargain the royal family has made with the UK media, which is related to some of our own media issues in the United States in that it’s a form of “access journalism,” which can end up misleading the public about the subjects and even agreeing not to cover one thing if given a scoop on something juicy. It can mean agreements about how coverage is handled, including what is off limits.The podcast is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts podcasts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.This relationship between the media and the institutions they cover is important because this is the lens through which we are being informed, and when it comes to politics, that means it’s coloring events that impact our lives. But even when the coverage is seemingly trivial, when it stokes hate it is no longer just celebrity culture. It’s a weapon being used to distract and divide and make a lot of money for a very small group of people.Bot Sentinel’s Chris Bouzy found there is a $3.5 million industry behind Meghan Markle social media hate accounts. This hate is fueled by racism and misogyny, which are so prevalent in our culture that a story that looks unrelated to our daily lives and even our politics turns out to be actually a global political story.  Racism and misogyny are inadvertently, but sometimes deliberately as we can see with Meghan, fed to the audience by the mostly white media owners and storytellers who become the gatekeepers of information.Gatekeeping can play a vital role in vetting information, as we are seeing play out with the Republicans’ ongoing attempt to get a certain laptop to become The Issue of Our Times, instead of addressing the issues upon which they ran to get re-elected, like gas prices and inflation. Gatekeeping can be a good thing in responsible hands and if treated transparently.This is one reason why newsroom diversity has become such an important topic, but the individual journalists are not the reason why this is happening. They, too, are feeding a machine.Here in the U.S. it was clear that our media was at the very least unschooled in racism and so during President Obama’s two terms, we were often told that he was “causing” division, when it was actually racists reacting negatively to a Black man being their President that was causing the issues.President Barack Obama was often blamed for white grievances against him which were clearly based on stories that these people had been told and hate they’d been fed instead of the reality of him trying to help them get affordable healthcare, for example.In Obama’s case, it wasn’t necessarily that the people weaponizing racism were racists themselves (although plenty of them have since made it very clear that they are); rather, it’s that racism was used as a tool, as it has been throughout history, by white (mostly) men to achieve a political end through division. Divide and conquer the little people by telling them these people are to blame, it’s a lot easier to control the masses.That is the point of racism. The true believers think it’s about their “culture,” but their culture is how they are being fed to support policies that aren’t meant to help them.For example, currently in the UK as these Right-wing media outlets blast stories about how Meghan Markle has destroyed the monarchy, the economy is in a recession for the first time since 2008. They face inflation, damagingly high energy prices and disruptions in the supply chain in part as impacts from the war in Ukraine and the pandemic, as we do here.But more to the point, some of this was dramatically caused by Right-wing policies, like the previous far right Prime Minister Liz Truss (the one whose tenure was compared to a head of lettuce and lost to the lettuce) who planned to cut taxes for “financial growth” (I’m sure that sounds familiar) so drastically it scared the markets. So the Right-wing papers focus on Meghan. Hate Meghan, not the people covering for Prince Andrew’s payoff of a woman who accused him of raping her when she was a minor or the conservatives in charge of the government whose trickle-down economics have failed them so badly.A lot of this hate is pushed on the Daily Mail. We’ve talked before about bloviating billionaires who own much of our own media, and the story here is no different, with Jonathan Harmsworth, 4th Viscount Rothermere as the current owner of the Daily Mail.He is the great-great grandson of the original owner, Lord Rothermere. Sure, the Daily Mail is conservative, but it also has a history of supporting fascism. The original Lord Rothermere was a friend of Mussolini and Hitler.  Now, editors often have control over content rather than owners, so just because an owner is friends with Hitler doesn’t mean necessarily they’re pushing that agenda. But in this case, there’s a story that relates a lot to modern day Right-wing (and far-Left) talking points about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.Let’s see if this argument sounds familiar:On 24 September 1930, Rothemere wrote: "We can do nothing to check this movement [the Nazis], and I believe it would be a blunder for the British people to take up an attitude of hostility towards it.”He came about that feeling after being targeted by a Nazi Princess and spy who facilitated discussions between those in the UK who believed in appeasement of the Nazis. This part-Jewish Austrian princess was adored by Hitler, it was said, until her Jewish ancestry became a problem. (I mention this as a reminder to all who carry water for fascists that rare is the person who is the exception.)So Lord Rothermere was manipulated by a Nazi spy into using his paper to support appeasement of the Nazis. Now, fair enough, he didn’t have the benefit of hindsight and plenty of seemingly smart people are still falling for the ‘just give in so the Russians don’t have to keep killing people’ line today, even though they should know better.The UK’s far Right and ours are not exact mirrors and often our left is their center. But the broader context here is that there is a concerted global effort to push Right-wing populism as a cover for democratic backsliding, and culture wars like the hatred of Meghan Markle play an important part in that effort.Buzzfeed did a deep dive in 2017 into a now-indicted former Trump advisor Steve Bannon and how what he calls his “killing machine “dredges up the resentments of people around the world, sifts through these grievances for ideas and content, and propels them from the unsavory parts of the internet up to TrumpWorld, collecting advertisers’ checks all along the way.“These documents chart the Breitbart alt-right universe. They reveal how the website… links the Mercer family, the billionaires who fund Breitbart, to underpaid trolls who fill it with provocative content, and to extremists striving to create a white ethnostate.”Bannon, it turns out, was not only involved in the racist, Right-wing populist movement of the Tea Party during Obama’s tenure, but 2014 he launched a London branch of Breitbart to capitalize on rural white Britons’ anger about immigration and eventually became involved in the United Kingdom Independence Party and then celebrated Brexit.“Steve Bannon is done wrecking the American establishment. Now he wants to destroy Europe’s” the New York Times wrote in March of 2018. Bannon is creating a network of far-right groups in Europe to build "the infrastructure, globally, for the global populist movement” called “The Movement,” about which  Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orbán, has spoken positively. He is, of course, the man who literally gives instruction to American Right-wing conservatives on how to take over a democracy.I bring this up because it so clearly lays bare that there is an audience for racism, there are people willing to peddle it for political power, and there are millionaires and billionaires making a lot of money off of it and using it to get tax breaks and even religious policy implemented.And quite pertinently, there are rising global Right-wing populists using racism (and homophobia, bigotry, anti-Semitism and misogyny) as tools to propel themselves to power via a culture war. It hurts real people, first and foremost the targets like Meghan, but also all of the regular citizens of color who carry the burden of that racism on their backs. Because hate, unlike tax cuts, does trickle down.Racism is one of the biggest tools of power for Right-wing populists. It is their gateway to pushing authoritarianism, as we see from Hungary to Italy to Russia and here in the United States.When we see a media organization weaponizing racism, be it social media or news media, we should be aware of the consequences. Hate is the disguise for tyrants.I don’t have easy answers for this problem, but awareness can help us see when we are being played. One thing we can all do is not participate in the rage machine. While elevated and highly-platformed lies and hate need to be fact-checked, we don’t need to echo lies and hate. We ca

This podcast would not be possible without the support of our subscribers, so if you are enjoying my work, please think about subscribing.In history, on April 1, 1924: Adolf Hitler is sentenced for his role in the Beer Hall Putsch (apologies for mispronouncing Putsch) of November 8, 1923. The attempted coup in Munich by right-wing members of the army and the Nazi Party was foiled by the government, and Hitler was charged with high treason. Despite his conviction, Hitler was out of jail before the end of the year, with his political position stronger than ever.Germany was in the midst of a national crisis in the early 1920s. After World War I, its economy was in shambles, and hyperinflation caused widespread discontent. Hitler and the Nazis stepped into this breach with often-racist demagoguery that attracted a significant following throughout the nation.The failed coup turned out to be quite a boon for Adolf Hitler. His trial brought him more attention and publicity than ever before. With a crowd of thousands-including press from around the world-watching the proceedings, Hitler made the most of this opportunity by going on the offensive.Hitler rose to power through democratic means by exploiting the suffering with nationalism and scapegoating. Suffering is always an opportunity for charismatic con artists and brutally power-hungry, authoritarian leaning leaders; it makes people eager for someone to blame and more receptive to the dehumanization of the Other. Hitler went on with the help of millions to murder 6 million Jews.Only 43% of Americans know that Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany through a democratic political process according to Pew.The Holocaust didn’t start with the gas chambers. The Rwandan genocide didn’t start with killings that followed. It started with dehumanization. Dehumanization is behind cruelty, and it’s behind genocide. But it can be halted at any stage, according to the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on Prevention of Genocide.The U.N. points out we must have the will of applying the lessons learned from Rwanda, Srebrenica, and the Holocaust so that we can identify risk factors and prevent genocide rather than to wait to when people are being killed. Throughout history, dehumanizing rhetoric enables the path to mass killing. It’s not necessary, of course. There can be genocide without dehumanization. But dehumanization is understood by experts as a common preparatory path toward mass murder. It’s important to recognize and prevent dehumanization.How do we get to a point where large sections of society accept that others are “unworthy of life”? It takes a lot of work to upend the moral code that we are judged on how we treat the weakest and most vulnerable among us, but Republicans managed to do that with little blowback when they championed Trump even after he had mocked Gold Star families and a disabled reporter.The Daily is a reader-supported publication/podcast. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Mainstreaming that kind of cruelty shouldn’t be easy. In a healthy democracy, it wouldn’t be. With responsible corporate stewardship in media and social media, it wouldn’t be.But we don’t have either here. And so the House Judiciary Committee Republicans only deleted their “Kanye. Elon. Trump.” tweet after Ye praised Hitler, but they left it up even after he called for the death of Jews. This is not a party we can trust to guide us morally, after all it’s being led by Donald Trump.Authoritarians often use Christianity as a cover for their cruelty and as part of a cultural Christian nationalism underneath which they can grab massive amounts of power.Elon responded to Kanye after Kanye praised Hitler by suggesting Jesus would turn the other cheek. That’s a grotesque and wrong way of using Jesus to justify giving a platform to hate. Hate spreads. It has to be contained. It’s not something to be elevated. Remember, Elon had already given Kanye his account back after he called for the death of Jews. So he gave Kanye an account with huge reach and then suggested we turn the other cheek as Kanye’s speech created a path for violence against Jewish people at a time when the DHS already warned anti-Semitism is at a historical high.Elon unsuspended the Twitter account of a neo-Nazi who founded the infamous white supremacy website Stormfront and said women should be “raped and locked in cages.”“Officials are predicting that Twitter will contribute to more violence in the months ahead, citing the proliferation of extreme content, including support for genocidal Nazis by celebrities with wide followings and the reemergence of QAnon proselytizers and white nationalists,” the Washington Post reported Saturday.The New York Times reported: “Hate speech on Twitter has jumped since Elon Musk took over, researchers found. Musk ‘sent up the Bat Signal to every kind of racist, misogynist and homophobe that Twitter was open for business,’ the head of one of the research groups said.”Responsible people try to prevent dehumanizing speech. They don’t elevate it and give it a huge platform.Shouldn’t people who hold global communications power be expected to know the basics about how Hitler rose to power and the role that dehumanizing hate speech plays in violence? Or, do they perhaps know the basics and just not care. Or even worse, do they know the basics and seek to help rising fascism?Yet, we have to “educate” social media platform owners about the dangers of elevating hate speech. Of rewarding it with their algorithms. Over and over again.Elon Musk grew up in racist Apartheid Africa, an authoritarian culture that kept South Africa dominated by minority whites. The New York Times reported on Musk’s background, “Interviews with relatives and former classmates reveal an upbringing in elite, segregated white communities that were littered with anti-Black government propaganda, and detached from the atrocities that white political leaders inflicted on the Black majority.”That’s not encouraging. It gets worse, because his father Errol tried to defend Elon’s upbringing:“Still, Errol offered a description of their lives that underscored how removed they were from the country’s violent reality. They got along well with Black people, he said, pointing to his children’s good relationship with their domestic staff, and he described life in South Africa during apartheid as being mostly better and safer than it is now.”This gives a perhaps heightened example and insight into the kinds of people who own almost all of our media now: Out of touch billionaires whose idea of getting along well with marginalized people is that the people serve them and they feel they have a good relationship with the servants.  What is missing from this point of view is how the servant feels. The servants don’t get important jobs at prestige outlets. We don’t hear their voices. They aren’t humanized for the culture. They aren’t centered. The frontline workers, the people working in low level service industry positions, they aren’t telling the stories.We can’t be surprised, then, when Elon runs Twitter as a platform to disrupt the desire for democracy it helped illuminate and elevate under better leadership. Elon has brought in his Right-wing contempt for humanity and is elevating anyone who has a large platform to assist in this mission. Yes, it’s true that he finally re-suspended Ye after the man posted a swastika inside the Star of David. But much like the Republican Party finally deleting their “Kanye. Elon. Trump.” tweet, he managed to move the bar in the process simply by having no moral code and no one to stop him.It's predictably ironic that Elon, the supposed Free Speech absolutist, is using Twitter now to disrupt the power of societal response to businesses’ free speech.The first amendment provides no protection from negative public response, or what the Right contemptuously refers to as cancel culture. Twitter gave people access to mass communication, it gave the People power to talk back, to regulate if you will, what the government cannot. Globally, we started important discussions about racism, bigotry and misogyny.Elon is destroying the platform for those discussions and, in its place, elevating Nazis. Not only is he silencing his own critics, but critics of oligarchs, of unchecked power, of assaults on democracy and of encroaching fascism.Elon is using Twitter as a missile of harm, disinformation, and hate. We are all challenged to remember history in this moment, so we can push to inform others and hope to prevent another movement of mass violence. Human rights and human dignity are the antidote to all of this hate.As we struggle to center human dignity, it’s important to remember that Democrats just beat the odds during the 2022 midterms precisely because people are sick of the extremism coming from the Right. Plenty of Republican voters joined in to support Democrats instead of their own party to protect democracy. People don’t want this vile hate and extremism.Elon’s Twitter is putting all of that ugliness on parade for the entire world to see. It doesn’t speak well of the “values” motivating Republicans that they endorse and dine with people who praise Hitler and say horrifically dangerous things. They’re telling on themselves. This isn’t Russia or Hungary, and while it can most certainly happen here, so far it is not working for them. Stay vigilant and remember to stand up for those among us who are being targeted. Stand up for human dignity. Together, we can do this.Never forget.Top Stories From PoliticusUSA:Democrats Keep The Momentum Going In Georgia As Black Voter Turnout Is HighDemocrats have kept rolling in Georgia as black voter turnout in Democratic areas has been high for the Senate runoff. Trump Is Basically Promising A Coup In 2024Trump is off the deep end and making it clear that he intends to try to take back power by any means necess

If you enjoy this podcast, consider becoming a subscriber:After the last seven years, it is noteworthy when our President and First Lady show compassion and care for the American people, and even the country herself. So today I want to share First Lady Dr. Jill Biden’s theme for the White House holidays: We the People. Today, First Lady Jill Biden announced the theme for the 2022 White House Holiday Season: We the People. The East Room was filled with 150 volunteers and many National Guard families. It was packed. All were standing, according to the White House pool report sent to PoliticusUSA. Festive music was playing and the room was decorated for the holidays with (fake) snow-covered trees. The East Room is dedicated to nature, celebrating four national parks: The Grand Canyon, Yellowstone National Park, the Great Smoky Mountains, and Shenandoah National Park.“As our country gathers for the holidays, traditions may vary, but our shared American values—a belief in possibility, optimism, and unity—endure season after season. For this year’s holidays at the White House, we hope to capture the spirit embodied in the very idea of America: We the People. “We the People.  These words are the foundation of our extraordinary country and the Soul of our Nation. At the holidays, Americans come together each year in fellowship and faith, reminding us that we are stronger in community than we are apart. Each room and design element throughout the White House holiday décor represents what brings us together during the holidays and throughout the year.During your visit to the People’s House, through rooms full of history and holiday décor, in the mirrored ornaments and reflective lights, our hope is that you feel at home and find yourself in the great story of America. May the promise of We the People light our path forward into the New Year and bring us together always,” the President and First Lady wrote in a welcome letter at the beginning of the commemorative 2022 White House Holiday Guide, sent to PoliticusUSA.The White House expects to welcome approximately 50,000 visitors during the holiday season. Details will also be available on WhiteHouse.gov/Holidays. They sent along a list of each room, themes include: Kindness & Gratitude, Words & Stories, Honor & Remembrance, Nature & Recreation, Sounds & Songs, Unity & Hope,  Faith & Light, We the Children, Food & Traditions and more.… We’ve come a very long way from Melania Trump’s “Who gives a f*ck about Christmas stuff and decoration?" In related news, after Trump’s dinner with a Holocaust-denying white supremacist, the Republican Party played the same defense-through-silence game that worked so well during the Horrible Years. It worked for them, it worked for their base, it worked for Trump, it worked for the media. Everyone, except for people concerned with decency, was happy.But President Biden has the White House bully pulpit now and he is making Trump’s dangerous behavior an issue. Some in the media are catching on. CNN's Don Lemon pushed Trump's former Deputy Asst. Sec. of State to admit that Trump should not have had dinner with white supremacists and anti-Semites Kanye West and Nick Fuentes. Wait for the end, when finally, at long last, we get a definitive answer (note to media: It can be done!):It’s easy to stand up to Donald Trump now that he’s wounded, with the midterms showing that he doesn’t have the power he says he has. It’s good that the media is finally trying to hold Trump enablers accountable, but the media also needs to hold people who currently have power accountable. The Republican Party is not getting better because they don’t pay a price for this kind of behavior and every time the individual gets busted, the Republican Party just recycles a new leader of hate, as we saw with Sarah Palin to now Donald Trump. The ideas don’t change - just the face.Speaking of this kind of far-Right wing, anti-democracy person, Elon Musk spent the last 24 hours posting white nationalist memes and a photo of his alleged bedside, including what appears to be a toy video game gun and several cans of caffeine-free Diet Coke. So, his Twitter acquisition is… going as well as expected. He is rapidly devolving into a sad troll. He’s looking for a lot of approval and worship from the far-Right and he is getting it. I’m not sure what that does for his global reputation, however.My prevailing thought today is gratitude for a President and First Lady who are decent and responsible role models and a growing concern that our government allowed - and the Republican base supported - people who engaged in an attempted seditious coup to run for re-election and even new offices. The Daily is a reader-supported publication. Join us in the fight for democracy by becoming a free or paid subscriber.We are a nation that was unprepared for the rather blundering and incompetent assault of dictator-loving Donald Trump and is far less prepared for the assault of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán protégés like Republican Florida Governor and presidential seeming hopeful Ron DeSantis. Vigilance is always necessary to preserve democracy, but look at what You just did in the midterms. The People are powerful when they use their voices.What do the First Lady’s decency and authoritarian attempts to take over our democracy have in common, you’re probably asking yourself? Actually, a lot. One of the best ways to fight off a fascist attack is to show The People that the government is working and can do important things for their lives. Every time Democrats manage to pass another piece of legislation that is meant to help people, it is also serving as an attack on encroaching autocracy.A government that is headed by people like the Bidens is one of the best defenses we could possibly have right now. They know what we are up against, and they are doing their best to unite those capable of uniting. This is Sarah Jones with PoliticusPod for PoliticusUSA’s The Daily newsletter. Please consider subscribing if you are interested in hearing more from us and thank you to all who help us keep the doors open for all at PoliticusUSA.Thank you for joining me today, I look forward to talking with you next time. Get full access to The Daily at politicususa.substack.com/subscribe

Olga Tokarczuk's Nobel Lecture: The Tender Narrator, Dec 2019, edited for brevity:…I’m often troubled by the feeling that there is something missing in the world―that by experiencing it through glass screens, and through apps, somehow it becomes unreal, distant, two-dimensional, and strangely non-descript, even though finding any particular piece of information is astoundingly easy…The flood of stupidity, cruelty, hate speech and images of violence are desperately counterbalanced by all sorts of “good news,” but it hasn’t the capacity to rein in the painful impression, which I find hard to verbalize, that there is something wrong with the world. Nowadays this feeling, once the sole preserve of neurotic poets, is like an epidemic of lack of definition, a form of anxiety oozing from all directions.…Greed, failure to respect nature, selfishness, lack of imagination, endless rivalry and lack of responsibility have reduced the world to the status of an object that can be cut into pieces, used up and destroyed.That is why I believe I must tell stories as if the world were a living, single entity, constantly forming before our eyes, and as if we were a small and at the same time powerful part of it.I want to talk to you today about the level of angry noise in our current politics, because I hear from a lot of readers that this has made it increasingly unbearable to stay tuned to the news.It’s something that not only instigated my own desire to write to counter the screeching I heard on cable news in 2009, but it’s why I’m doing these podcasts in a way that I hope makes the unpalatable bearable, digestible, and informative while also if possible uplifting and uniting those who see value in our species getting over ourselves to be a part of the solution.The crisis in news was brought about by a number of factors, but it can be traced back to when news became profit-driven instead of a loss-leader.Neiman Reports delved into the history:  “Twenty years ago, there was no network news “business.” The Big Three broadcast television networks—ABC, CBS and NBC—all covered news, but none generally made money doing so. Nor did they expect to turn a profit from news programming. They presented news programming for the prestige it would bring to their network, to satisfy the public-service requirements of Congress and the Federal Communications Commission, and more broadly so that they would be seen as good corporate citizens.Back then, the networks earned enough money from entertainment programming that they could afford to run their news operations at a loss. And so they did.”But for my work it started under President Obama, when cable news and even C-Span became unbearable with the hyena-styled screeching of mostly Republicans, with a smattering of equally indignant Democrats. But it really came to fruition when a D-list reality TV show lead threw his hat into the presidential ring. The following seven years became increasingly intolerable to my ears.The era of the bloviating, narcissistic billionaire is heavy upon us. From social media to politics to news media, we are surrounded by raging egos for clicks. Deliberate division being stoked for power.I’ve often struggled as an editor of PoliticusUSA with questions like: How to report what’s happening accurately without furthering division? How to report what is happening without scaring readers? Because the truth is ugly right now, and we have one side fully embracing racism, bigotry, misogyny and anti-Semitism. It’s natural to be angry in response.But, it’s also exhausting. And eventually the brain gets fatigued from the outrage and it has to tune out, which only helps the oligarchs using that noise to further enrich themselves and empower people whose policies will help the very rich avoid any responsibility for our society via taxes and even any personal responsibility to be a role model, to contribute something of value and give back. Those values no longer plague the wealthy. It’s now celebrated to cheer on Neo-Nazi beliefs, as we see happening on Twitter under Elon Musk and a former president having Mar-a-Lago dinners with a white supremacist and an anti-Semite. (I’m not going to repeat the language used by them here, as I trust you know what anti-Semitic white supremacy sounds like and don’t need more of it in your life, but a link is in the show notes for evidentiary purposes.)The triumvirate of toxicity that comprises Trump, Elon and Kanye now owns social media apps Truth Social (which Trump started after he was kicked off of Twitter and Facebook for inciting violence on January 6th, 2021 in an attempt to hold power via violence, a coup attempt), Twitter, and Parler (which Kanye West agreed to buy after other platforms suspended him over his ongoing antisemitic speech). Trump has announced his 2024 run, Kanye has hinted at a run and claimed he asked Trump to be his VP, and Musk has massive governmental contracts.There should be laws against this. Bloomberg’s run was an early warning of this, even though his outlets maintained editorial independence. We can’t rely upon individual ethics. The Trump era demonstrated this beyond a shadow of a doubt.It’s way past time to question the power of social media apps in service to a power-seeking agenda that involves a role in our government. Why aren’t they regulated more stridently? The answer to that is complicated. There are powerful interests in both parties who do not want to seriously entertain the idea of getting on the wrong side of Big Tech or its enormous lobbying power, even as both parties say they want to regulate Facebook, for example.Back in October of 2021, when Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee, presented internal documents to lawmakers demonstrating that Facebook “knew its platforms had negative health effects on children.” Tom Wheeler, the former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission during the Obama administration, suggested a new agency be set up, one that was designed to deal with the speed of information in the digital age. But nothing was done. In part, because the two parties to not agree on what the issue is.As CNN wrote at the time, “Republicans accuse Facebook of anti-conservative bias, despite a lack of evidence, while Democrats are concerned that the company doesn’t do enough to protect against hate speech, misinformation and other problematic content.”The irony of that is that Facebook got busted via internal documents actively working to suppress popular liberal news sites. But Democratic lawmakers did not take up that torch, while Republicans continue to claim conservatives are being persecuted, when they are actually barely being held accountable for hate speech and mis- and dis-information.Before Musk purchased Twitter, it was a public platform. It had to follow rules. It had oversight. It had a board. Now it’s just Musk and his staggeringly incomprehensible self-aggrandizement, coupled with a hyper sensitivity about criticism that led him to ban Kathy Griffin for making fun of his bad policy ideas. He did this in the name of “free speech,” while parroting far Right talking points and actually engaging in public conversations with some of the most malignant personalities on the far Right, where they offer Musk the same worship they gave to Trump and he promises to do their bidding banning people they don’t like and unbanning people who were banned for serious violations of the terms of service.The result of these men buying social media platforms to echo their egos and elevate themselves is that there is only so much audience share for far-Right ideology (both Trump and Ye were suspended from multiple other platforms) and there are already so many social media platforms tailored specifically to them like - including far right GETTR and white supremacist, neo-Nazi GAB, as well as Facebook having altered its moderation standards to benefit conservatives and punish liberals under Trump (policies continued today, perhaps now unintentionally, because the algorithm rewards division, anger and hate) so now all of these apps are lowering moderation standards to compete and attract the same users.Anyone who doesn’t want to be in a cesspool of hate, spam bots and fraud will lose interest.What have these men done to our environment? The way we see the world?Truth Social and Parler are considered “conservative,” which is to say a place for hate speech and now Twitter is devolving into a venomous cesspool of hate, a platform on which 6 days ago I reported a user cheering the murder of gay people and Twitter has not responded. That’s the world being created by the richest man in the world. He wants to surround Twitter’s 396.5 million global users with hate and chaos.Elon is already banning Left wing users who annoy the Right, seemingly not for violations of Terms Of Service – but for being activists against fascism. There are global activists on Twitter. The platform has previously played an important role in democracy itself, by organizing and connecting people, and telling their stories. The story of what was happening in Ukraine is a big example of this. Twitter is where journalists hang out to find stories, which then elevates struggles big and small to new audiences who otherwise might not see them.After Kanye bought Parler, it sent out an email blast to “VIPs” without using blind CC for the email addresses. They shared emails of at least 10 lawmakers and lots of conservative “stars.” This is the kind of chaos these men bring to the world.Chaos is obviously not good for democracy.Conservative activists have been calling the banning of accounts pushing hate speech that resulted in violence, like Trump’s did, “censorship” because of their political views.That’s why Trump, Elon, and Kanye claim to celebrate “free speech,” which they are using incorrectly - and also dangerously - in a way to co-opt the notion that we are allowed to critique our government under the First Amendment as bei

President Biden has been given a mandate by the voters. It’s time for Democrats to boldly seize that power for the sake of democracy and freedom.Democratic s after the blue wave midterms, while Trump took a hit, a USA TODAY/Ipsos Poll found. “The number of Democratic voters who believe Biden could win the 2024 race for the White House has jumped to 71%, up by double digits from the 60% who felt that way in a poll in August.”“President Joe Biden's backing among Democrats to run for reelection has been significantly boosted in the wake of better-than-expected midterm elections results, a new USA TODAY/Ipsos Poll finds, while former President Donald Trump's standing among Republicans has been dented.”It’s even more encouraging that Democrats won the states Republicans need to win in 2024, by a solid margin. Senior CNN political analyst Ron Brownstein noted:“Looking at the Electoral College, this year’s results offered more reason for optimism to Democrats than Republicans. Five states decided the WH by flipping from Trump in 2016 to Biden in 2020 – AZ, GA, MI, PA & WI. Ds have already won 6/8 Sen & Gov races in them + maybe GA Sen”In 2018, Trump blew his midterms despite a great economy, arguably the best economy in terms of how it was experienced by voters since 1998. In 2022, amidst inflation, rising gas and grocery prices, President Biden came away with a clear mandate: Protect democracy, protect our national security, work for the people, protect a woman’s right to an abortion.This is a clear mandate by the voters.In Michigan, Arizona, Nevada, and Colorado, Democratic Secretary of State candidates ran even with other statewide candidates and sometimes overperformed. Early exit polling showed they got support from a large share of Republicans and Independents.  In states like Michigan, we saw the repudiation playing out against the Republican abortion mandate with Republicans splitting their ticket to vote for Republicans and to enshrine the right to an abortion in the state’s constitution. In Michigan and Minnesota, the Secretary of State race was won by more votes than the Governor’s race. That shows people were paying attention. They wanted an end to Republican chaos and crazy.This all sounds like a… mandate. Especially given that this midterm was expected to be a red tsunami and it turned into a red bloodbath for authoritarian election deniers and Republicans’ attacks on a woman’s right to live.I know what some of you are thinking: But is it really a mandate, Sarah? Republicans certainly don’t think so. So I thought we should have a Republican weigh in. Let’s go back in time to George W. Bush on Nov 7, 2002,  after his party swept the midterms post 9/11 in the “terror alert” days.Q Thank you, Mr. President. Do you believe that Tuesday's election gave you personally a mandate? (edited for brevity.)THE PRESIDENT: Yes. First, I think candidates win elections because they're good candidates, not because they may happen to have the President as a friend -- or a foe, for that matter. Races that were won, were won because people were able to convince the voters they could trust their judgment, convince the voters they care deeply about their circumstances. I believe if there is a mandate in any election, at least in this one, it's that people want something to get done. They want people to work together in Washington, D.C. to pass meaningful legislation, which will improve their lives.Of that same election, Senator James Merrill Jeffords from Vermont, a Republican until 2001 when he left the party to become an independent and began caucusing with the Democrats, wrote on Nov. 30, 2002:“If the new, razor-thin Republican majority abuses its power and moves forward with an extreme agenda that overlooks the concerns of the many and benefits only the privileged few, there will be repercussions.“Since the election, my decision to leave the Republican Party last year has been subject to new scrutiny. The attention on my personal decision, while understandable, is misplaced. If the Republicans read the recent election results as a rejection of moderation and a mandate to steamroll opposition from within the party, they will be making a grave mistake.”No matter which side of the aisle one stood on then and stands on now, Republican extremism has long been a problem and rejection of moderation an issue. So too has the seizure of power for purposes not intended.Does this apply to Democrats? Republicans would say it does. The mainstream media conflates AOC wanting Medicare for All with domestic terrorism speech on the Right, so it seems they would say it does.But if we look at government as an entity that is supposed to operate for the good of the people, to improve their lives, then no. Democrats might get “extreme”, in a way that Republicans easily mock, for their inclusivity, but how does that hurt anyone else? Aside from the culture wars invented and curated by people in power to distract voters, how does including everyone, no matter their personal sex lives, religion, colorof skin, hurt anyone else?When we look at the actual legislation passed and party platform, the Democrats are not failing to be moderate. Of course, the media told us that Democrats defending abortion was a losing topic and that the voters would reject it and they didn’t care about it. But that rather predictably turned out to be false. So when people used abortion to describe Democrats as extreme, the voters disagreed.The voters did not find Democrats to be the extremists even though the media has been working overtime conflating the two parties. In fact, the voters gave their trust in democracy to the Democrats because they are sick and tired of Republican extremism.I would argue that the opposite is true. Democrats often fail to move boldly because moderation is inherent in a party with such a big tent. Moderation is both a function and a result of the big tent, as frustrating as that can be when democracy hangs in the balance.Even so, Democrats need to seize the power given to them, in order to protect democracy. That is what the voters demanded.Republicans, of course, don’t seem to care what the voters want. And to that poit, inclusivity hurts the power of the Republican Party; it doesn’t hurt voters.Since Republicans have already announced their intentions to impeach President Biden, investigate Hunter Biden even though he’s already being investigated by the Department of Justice and never worked in the White House, let’s recall 1998.  Republicans have a history of using the House as a stage for drama and distraction, and issues that are not relevant to voters. The Republican-led Congress was threatening to remove President Clinton and Democrats suffered no net losses in the Senate and gained five House seats in that midterm.The man who had led the charge against President Clinton over perjury about infidelity, even though he himself had committed multiple infidelities including during the impeachment process itself, was Republican then House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Gingrich of course didn’t admit his affairs until 2007, during a presidential run which included an interview with Focus on the Family's James Dobson. In this interview, he confessed to cheating on both his first and second wives. So, he lied about his own infidelities for years.It gets worse in terms of hypocrisy and fake controversy.  His first wife Jackie Battley also said that Gingrich discussed divorce with her while she was in the hospital recovering from cancer surgery. He quickly turned around and married his second wife, Marianne Ginther in 1981. Gingrich admitted cheating on Ginther while he was leading the impeachment proceedings against President Clinton.Gingrich resigned after the midterm slaughter over his misguided impeachment over an affair. Haven’t we been here before? Will we learn from the past?Cut to today and Republicans have learned nothing. As Greg Sargent pointed out on Twitter over his piece in the Washington Post, “Don't overlook this: House GOP probes will be partly about discrediting what Democrats were able to learn about the role in 1/6 of *House Republicans themselves.*”Republicans are putting on yet another show, even though the voters have shown that even the media didn’t trick them into falling for Republican attacks on democracy during this last midterm. The voters are getting more sophisticated.Yes, this midterm is a mandate. It’s a mandate for democracy and freedom.Please consider giving a gift subscription to loved ones this holiday season! 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On this episode of the Politicus Pod, Sarah Jones and Jason Easley discuss what the American people can do about an out of control Supreme Court.

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Trump responded to the Blue Wave by firing his attorney general to try to escape Mueller delivered justice.

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Join Sarah Jones and Jason Easley as they preview Stacey Abrams and nation's hottest election in Georgia.

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I went to the Tree of Life Synagogue on Friday to follow up on the horrific slaughter of eleven innocent Jewish people by a man with an AR-15-style assault rifle and at least three handguns who shouted anti-Semitic hate as he was shooting, and I was surprised by what I felt and found.

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