It’s too late for the Republican Party

There are less than seven weeks until the midterm elections. That is a hard reality that means very little will change between now and then, and that is very bad news for Trump and the right. Their voters, disgusted by the cost of living and a war that is stalemated, are checking out. Evidence grows that they are not going to vote.

A form of silent protest from the core supporters of this administration and the Party that surrendered to them years ago.

My writing is about trying to sort out what I think is happening without insider information, DC stuff. But you don’t need to be an insider to feel which way the wind is blowing and to know the time has run out. People’s minds are made up.

There’s the political money thing. The Washington insider press is still tracking how much money various politicians have on hand to spend in the next few weeks. The President’s PAC has a reported $400 million dollars in his war chest. But Donald Trump is a notorious cheapskate and is not going to spread that around in a last ditch effort to prop up his Party.

Instead he makes vague threats to use the money to tell us all the wonderful things he personally has accomplished, most of which only exist in his mind, encouraged by a bubble of yes men and women whispering sweet things in his ears. That’s very bad news for his Party, or was, because even if he barraged us with those kooky messages, they would not change anything.

Personally, and I am surprised I am not reading more about this, I think the influence of massive amounts of cash on elections reached its peak years ago, but conventional thinking is having a hard time letting that idea go. This is accelerated by the general disgust with a federal government that has been gutted and is incapable of even acknowledging the economic reality driving this election.

But all of that does not matter. This ship is simply too big to turn around before November. So we are going to read about this thing or that thing that DC is hot about from moment to moment but it is meaningless.

Crystal ball gazing is a political pundit’s primary skill at this point in any election and the reality is that it’s just so much noise intended to keep those pundits in business. I can’t claim access to that crystal ball but it sure looks like the GOP is in for a major shock, not because of brilliance by the Democrats, but because of astounding incompetence in everything this Presidency and Congress does, or does not do.

That’s not changing in the next few weeks. Only something major, like a war, might do that. Except they already tried that and failed dismally. And now that costly experiment won’t go away for years. So Trump has pivoted to grabbing up as much loose cash as he can from extremely questionable deals like the recently announced Venezuelan oil grab.

This is perfect timing for a massive scam involving a corrupt leader in Venezuela, a sketchy businessman accused of money laundering in Europe, and President known for running petty scams that mostly failed, for most of his adult life. Now he has the cover to pull off the big one as we watch his Party go down in flames, while he rants and raves about nothing.

One thing he is really good at is smokescreens. And the smoke emanating from the White House is covering our Capitol, hiding the stumps of cherry trees along the Potomac as Congress runs for the hills without finishing anything. The Republican Congress that is. They can’t blame the left because they have done such a good job of keeping Dems from power.

The Democrats don’t even need to try and appear competent.

So, plunder, blunders, empty wars of words, a Washington where the truth is now meaningless, and an impending election that will ensure the next two years are ugly beyond imagining. And an American public utterly disgusted at all of it, across the board.

That is the last legacy of Donald Trump and his army of ass-kissers and enablers. Most of us simply want to move on and erase the memory of this monumental mess from history.

The record of shame is not going to go away and that record is permanent. Trump can build monuments to himself but history has a way of tearing things down, which is much easier than building them up. It only takes a tsunami scale wave to wash away all the scum, leaving a clean slate for the next group of wannabes.

But the rest of us need to be able to see a future because we have to live in whatever it will be. This is not true of many in the White House, already insulated from that reality by wealth beyond imagining. To them this is all simply a game that they can move on from and the bags are being packed.

They’re checking out.

But voters don’t get to check out. And we are royally pissed off. These people can scoot off to their superyachts and gated communities and go back to the rarefied but dead air of the very wealthy, those who do nothing and make nothing. The consolation is that they are going to be stuck with Donald Trump and his cheating at golf, constant needy bragging, and his abiding belief that he is the greatest of all.

Sounds like a life in a padded hellscape to me. A life of privilege, but not a life at all.

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Times are tight and your support helps me justify continuing my observations of this historically consequential time for our nation. If you are capable please consider upgrading to a paid subscription or smaller donations via the Buy Me A Coffee site. It’s beyond the money, which is welcomed, it’s a show of support that means a great deal to me.

Thanks for the real,

Martin

(Need a break from the mayhem? Check out my new newsletter, Rich, Without Money. It’s my counterbalance to what I write here. Simple observations of what we should really be paying attention to).

Humans should worry, but nature will be fine

I have not written much about global climate change here, something that is now impossible to dispute, unless you are a politician in thrall to the deep pockets of big fossil fuel, which apparently includes a large majority of our elected federal officials. Pretending humanity does not face an existential threat when faced daily with deadly evidence may be the single worst effect of Donald Trump’s reign.

You’ll note that I said the threat is to humanity, not the planet as a whole. An important distinction. Yes, we are doing catastrophic damage to our environment but the ultimate price may be paid by us in the long run. The planet will be just fine. Why? Because as a system it is naturally self-righting and balanced. Eliminate the cancer, us, and nature will bounce back, fast.

I suppose we should take some kind of reassurance from that but in reality no one wants to die in a flood, lose everything to fire, or watch some unexpected virus ravage mankind, all potential effects of our addiction to burning fossil fuels. I think I speak for most by saying I want to live and fix this mess. It’s not too late though many will die before we actually take this thing seriously.

The oil industry has known this was coming since the sixties. They invented scenario planning where they had scientists theorize about the effects of their products long term and create logical projections of the future, a future we find ourselves in right now.

That big lead time, and their knowledge of what was coming, gave them a huge jump in dealing with global warming. Instead they chose a massive spin campaign spread over decades to sow doubt while they raked in massive profits. And used a fraction of those profits to buy influence until no U.S. politician could survive without their addictive flow of money.

Cynical? Not really, this is not news to anyone who pays attention. There’s simply too much evidence to the point where the oil lobby doesn’t really even try to cover anything up anymore.

Example. Donald Trump, with our money, has been buying out offshore wind energy leases, paying companies to stop building alternative (non oil) energy resources, energy resources that do not pollute and are sustainable. The payments are in the billions, like everything else these days, and when everything is measured in those huge numbers there are plenty of opportunities for enterprising crooks to skim off lucrative bits for themselves.

Those ‘bits’ can easily add up to billions and we are seeing lots of evidence that Trump and his people are taking their share. This is compounded by a leader who has no empathy for anyone or anything due to his monstrous narcissism. There is no such thing as guilt, he simply does not care and he has surrounded himself with others of like mind.

Get what you can while the getting is good and to hell with the future.

Unfortunately it looks like that mantra has infected much of our Congress and even the highest court. The oil companies and others have succeeded in convincing us that it’s hopeless to fight this thing. But, as floods, fires, crazy weather, and disease flourish, those jaded politicians still have to go home and pretend things are not changing.

Except they are and it has become impossible to deny reality when in front of a room full of voters who have lost everything. Yet, nothing is getting done, in reality we don’t even mouth the words ‘climate change’ or ‘warming’. It is looking like the only thing to break the stranglehold of money and denial is for people to lose their lives and livelihoods. Ask any farmer.

When you work outside all day trying to grow or build things, you get a sense of the weather that most of us rarely understand. It’s like old sailors who can smell a windshift or pressure change instinctually. And farmers know how bad it is because they live it from day to day. All the advanced farm technology cannot hide that fact.

The really frustrating thing about this, and ironically, the best thing about this is that alternative clean energy is flourishing despite efforts to shut it down. It flourishes because it is profitable, more profitable with growth than fossil fuels like coal, oil, and natural gas which require huge systems to burn it into energy, transmit it, and dig it out of the ground.

Building a modern oil refinery is very expensive compared to building a wind farm or solar array and once built those clean sources are low maintanence and work 24/7. Where’s the proof? Look to Europe and China where alternative energy now generates more energy than the dirty coal it replaces.

Right now the biggest impediment to expanding these resources is our own government which has been stonewalling true innovation and widespread deployment at every turn. It defies logic that any politician with grandchildren would act to ensure those children’s lives will be lived on a planet being torn apart unnecessarily because of short term profits.

I’ve written about the growing movement to rebuild our democracy after the debacle of the Trump years. The theme there, articulated best by Pete Buttigieg, is the need to not just return to normal but to build something new. A major effort to repel the fossil fuel consortiums and invest in clean energy has to be central to that plan.

Encouragingly, the innovation has continued with amazing improvements in energy storage and transmission but these require major capital investment. One great example of innovation going on now is the agrovoltaic movement that combines solar arrays with farming under those arrays. The solar panels provide protection from heat and broiling sun in more arid areas where that sun can be harvested for energy.

The earth doesn’t care. Mother Nature will thrive but maybe not in ways we can live with. This place seems to be unique in the universe in how the planet evolved to be an ideal home for humans and a vast array of flora and fauna despite our boneheaded and shortsighted insistence on living for today and the hell with the next generations.

The good news is this current aging generation of leaders, who have largely gone along with the conspiracy to keep us burning fossil fuels, are on their way out, as is a President who never thinks of anything but his own needs for adulation, adulation which is souring fast.

He is done and now is the time to get this thing back on the right track.

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Times are tight and your support helps me justify continuing my observations of this historically consequential time for our nation. If you are capable please consider upgrading to a paid subscription or smaller donations via the Buy Me A Coffee site. It’s beyond the money, which is welcomed, it’s a show of support that means a great deal to me.

Thanks for the real,

Martin

(Need a break from the mayhem? Check out my new newsletter, Rich, Without Money. It’s my counterbalance to what I write here. Simple observations of what we should really be paying attention to).

It’s gets boring for one thing

Voters this year are not bored, they are mad. Mad about prices and the daily cost of living above all, but also mad about the Iran war, about ICE agents shooting people, deporting children without their parents, and now, wearing electric shock gloves. All very good reasons to be pissed off.

But, in the midst of that anger, there is something that changed, a political tactic that is not working. The Trump administration seems to be creating a series of crises, one after another, without ever going back and resolving them. In other words, more distractions, so many that I suspect most of us are no longer paying attention. Why?

See the opening paragraph. We have real day to day concerns about real things like somehow paying the bills, keeping food on the table, and gas in the car. Starting a war with Canada looks pretty silly in comparison, just one example.

We want fixes, not a new crisis, seemingly every hour. Whenever the real issues come up, Republicans cry wolf about really scary things like trans people, commies, and hungry Haitians eating our pets. That’s because the obvious solution to our real problems is something the right, and Trump, cannot touch.

Tax reform. Specifically, developing a tax system that taxes those who can afford to pay and helps those who can’t. It’s called doing the right thing, but for some reason many people and institutions in this country just want to take more and to contribute less; nothing if possible in many cases.

The source of this selfish greed is not hard to track. We have a billionaire President who inherited the lion’s share of his wealth as a young man and has never given a dime of it to anyone or anything promoting the general good. In fact he has been sued for creating fake charities.

That is the kind of leader we chose and we are now paying for it. And we cannot rely on politicians to change that, we need to do it ourselves, step by step. Electing people with track records of helping our society and rebuilding a Congress serious about its role as a check and balance on the Executive and Judicial branches. And taking a long term view of the process of rebuilding the democracy better than it has been.

Not tearing our hair out about the latest crisis, most of which have been created by leadership who no longer have ideas. Or if they have, live in fear of consequences without even trying anything new.

Innovation has been an American buzzword from day one. We built this thing by trying new, unproven ideas, constantly. Many crashed and burned, but those that made it through changed the world.

No one talks about changing the world for the better these days. If they do, they get stamped with silly names like communist or accused of things that have nothing to do with improving our world. Or we get amorphous solutions like tax credits that mean nothing when you’re checking your balance in the grocery checkout line.

When the best a politician can do is talk about something like tax credits, as though they are exciting, we are in trouble, and we are in trouble.

So, let’s go after those crafty, evil Canadians. Some of them speak French. Can you imagine such a thing? And it’s not even real French…but it is a major crisis, the crisis of the week…until next week.

Instead of riling up the electorate, what this stuff is doing is boring the hell out of us. We are not idiots, something the Trump war mongers seemed to assume when they started a war anyone knew we could not win. I think maybe at this point, they are the idiots.

I don’t think it, I know it. And I am not alone.

When an establishment politician, particularly those on the right, goes in front of a town hall and talks about tax credits or this war we just had to fight because, you know, nuclear things, no one pays attention. They can’t because the crowd is yelling about prices and real fears.

This coming election is going to be about politicians who know the difference between double talk and real stuff. The problem with the establishment in DC, the swamp if you will, is they no longer speak the same English the rest of us do. Kind of like those Canadians who speak weird languages and live off of maple syrup.

Bogeymen. Up somewhere in pinetree land. Those are what we should be afraid of, this week’s special crisis.

We have less than ten weeks until Election Day and I can guarantee there will be a new crisis threatening the American way of life, each week, until we vote and the dust settles. When that dust settles, and all the new crises and voter fraud prove fake, our best defense of democracy will be if enough of us voted for what we want that it can’t be disputed.

It worked last year in Hungary, when the majority votes against dictator Orban were so large that even he could not deny them. And he controlled all the media, meaning he could manufacture crises daily and force them on the people as reality.

They weren’t buying it and neither should we. By the way, you know what Orban’s number one crisis was? Immigration by non white people.

The Hungarian example might seem to not compare with a world power like us. But Orban was one of Trump’s global role models for how to rule. His downfall, definitive as it was, was undeniable, and that is what we need to face Trump with, overwhelming losses.

The truly nefarious aspect of this is how it will play with Trump’s narcissism, losing by a landslide. It might just push a mentally unstable man over the edge, but I’m not sure we’d know that was happening because it appears he went there long ago.

It took four years but he got away with his last insane rant over his 2020 loss. We re-elected a man who literally tried to violently overthrow the government. Though that failed back in 2021, he succeeded in creating an environment in his party that ruled through fear, forcing otherwise sane men and women to bow to his mythology of voter fraud, or lose their careers.

The question this time around is, did we learn anything? And if we did, we need to definitively throw these people out for good. Then we need to get back to work creating a stronger, better country and world.

I think we are ready. I hope we are ready.

I was done with this piece but, as usual, there is a new wrinkle in the news and this one is very bad for Republicans in Congress running for reelection. Trump is making noises about spending his war chest promoting himself and all the wonderful things he has done. No big surprise there except…

He is also going to go after his own people for doing nothing. Yup, he has turned on his own Party.

Will wonders never cease?

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Times are tight and your support helps me justify continuing my observations of this historically consequential time for our nation. If you are capable please consider upgrading to a paid subscription or smaller donations via the Buy Me A Coffee site. It’s beyond the money, which is welcomed, it’s a show of support that means a great deal to me.

Thanks for the real,

Martin

(Need a break from the mayhem? Check out my new newsletter, Rich, Without Money. It’s my counterbalance to what I write here. Simple observations of what we should really be paying attention to).

Cage, 3D box by Richard Edic, 2026

I’ve been a busy bee the last few weeks, launching a new newsletter, Rich Without Money, as a foil to the endless crazy in Trumpland as recorded in The Witness Chronicles. So much so that keeping track of writing, editing, and publishing has proven to be a little more challenging than I thought it would be, if I thought about it at all.

I’ve been planning on creating the new thing for awhile now, but it took some time for it to jell, though it still has a ways to go. Writing my thoughts about US politics on a nearly day to day basis is my passion, but so is trying to balance that with simply contemplating life here on the ground. Events in DC are not mirrored by what I see and think when I get outside and try to chill out.

Both subjects are important. Rich Without Money, slowly building a handful of subscribers, is finding its way, hitting a lot of observations about seemingly small things in life that are proving to be small on the outside but bigger inside. I hope those of you who have not yet checked it out will take a few minutes to see what’s in the other side of my head.

Both to help me keep track, and to get the week’s stories and thoughts out to you, I’ve decided to offer up a weekly list of the past week’s publications. My total word count for the week is somewhere around 8-10 thousand, a lot, but hopefully readable in ~thousand word chunks. Here we go for my first week of this insanity.

From The Witness Chronicles:

8/23, Money, Does It Really Matter in Politics? A lot of primary winners seemed to win despite fighting huge sums of money spent by interest groups all around the country. What if money is no longer a primary mover in elections?

8/24, Has Hakeem Jeffries Lost Touch With Reality? The Democratic minority leader in the House made what looks like a huge mistake in meeting with Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, a guy no one likes or trusts and who was elected to nothing, to find common ground. Jeffries may have cost himself the leadership after the midterms.

8/25, Data Dumps, An Issue No One Saw Coming Only a Few Years Ago. All over the news we are watching politicians scramble to get on the right side of this toxic issue, including switching gears from super supporters to avenging enemies. It looks like the establishment Republicans only saw big numbers and job creation while the rest of us saw huge ugly blights that suck up power and fresh water solely to enrich the AI aristocracy.

8/28, Tempering the Rage, It’s Too Easy to Just Rant. To rebuild our democracy we need to go from outrage and disgust to a slow burn as we undo the damage and build something newer and better. That’s the big challenge of the next two years.

From Rich Without Money:

8/23, Weather. It’s late summer in Western NY and the weather is changing like it always does. A bit melancholy every year as usual but still lovely, at least around here where we live in what I call a climate island. That’s my term for a place not typically subject to floods, fires, drought, tornados, etc., and surrounded by fresh water, for now.

8/26, Coffee Changed the World. We take coffee for granted but it may not get the credit it deserves. Did coffee usher in the Industrial Revolution? Something to ponder over while enjoying a foamy cortado.

8/27, Instinct and Intellect, One Can’t Live Without the Other. Logic vs intuition is not one or the other, we need both, and both are integral to being a balanced human, including not only survival but full appreciation of life.

8/28, Think, Wait, Fast, Three Life Skills to Cultivate. Three books I reread yearly and a core lesson from one, Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha, on essential skills we can all fall back on, with training.

Quite a week writing and thinking, not too much fasting! I’m not sure this pace will continue though there is no shortage of subjects and ideas. Daily meditation in a calm place helps a lot and writing for me is therapy, not work.

Enjoy!

Martin Edic

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We need to quietly set our teeth and get things done

We are in put up or shut up territory for the resistance. It is far too easy to get cynical and negative all the time but that will not move us forward. Divide and conquer has been the mantra of Trump and his people from day one, and it proved exceptionally powerful. He tapped into a great disgust with our lives and found a way to make Democrats and the DC establishment the enemy.

And now add in the Democratic Socialists of America, those commie bastards (except there’s nothing communist about them).

Division worked, mostly thanks to the blindness and arrogance of the Democratic Party, post Obama. And now they are trying it again but things have changed. Boy, have they changed. It took a lot to break up the Trump deadlock on the regular people. But when that dam did start breaking, it was his actions that triggered it.

Stupidity, greed, lying, and an ego as big as the moon. And as empty. That emptiness has caught up with him and not on just one front. He messed up everything about as bad as anyone could imagine. Actually far worse.

Many Dems and independents want to march into Mar A Lago with flaming torches and pitchforks, backed by an angry mob frothing at the mouth and out for blood. But why bother, the guy is on the ropes bigtime, flailing away at anything within reach. And failing every time.

Since the ill fated Iran war, the ultimate image of Trump at work is practically devoid of meaning as is everything he touches. The recent disclosure through reporting, that 57 people in the Trump administration have a net worth of $100 million or more should make it abundantly clear that they have no realistic idea how the rest of us live. When you have that kind of money, the cost of things is no longer an issue and never will be.

So, why should they pretend to care? It doesn’t matter because these days they don’t bother to pay lip service to caring about the American people, the economy, the war, or even immigration. In their minds they have earned the right to be above the law and are no longer obligated to tell the truth if it doesn’t serve their personal purpose.

Note the word ‘personal’. They are not acting in our best interests, they are solely concerned with their own futures. And that will be their downfall. So far, in this democracy, money does not wholly protect a person from the law, a fact they seem to have forgotten. And why not, no one else seems ready to step up and call out their actions and motivations.

This fall all indications are that this is going to change and change fast. There is a new class of Democrats going into the races and a lot of the lifers in Congress are waking up to a new reality, that they may lose their cushy jobs because they did not stand up to these jokers.

The realization that change is coming is sowing panic across old school DC and especially the Executive branch where minor things like war crimes and open financial corruption will be on the table. We need to make it clear that the free ride is over and we are coming after them with everything we have.

But there is a secondary thing to consider and that is the 2028 election cycle. It will start in earnest the day after Election Day and accelerate all the way to the Presidential election. And the people will be calling for revenge, serious revenge for crimes against the people, the planet, and the global community. But we must look forward to the day when Donald Trump is gone and have a plan for transitioning to a democratic country once again, bigger, brighter, and more forward looking, a new era.

I realize it can be difficult to imagine undoing the widespread destruction Trump’s cadre have wrought, but it may happen faster than we can imagine. The latest news is Trump’s inexplicable fight with Canada. It has been speculated that he is afraid to confront our real and dangerous enemies, including China, North Korea, and Iran.

Instead he picks fights that are safe, though Canada is certainly not having it. Even here in Western New York people are up in arms over his idiotic desire to rename Lake Ontario to the glum Lake America. I grew up a stone’s throw from the lake and feel ownership over its history. I’m not alone around here.

There is an emerging realization that we need to hand Trump a major defeat in the midterms, in part to make his efforts to claim fraud impossible. That’s why I’m going to be harping on the importance of getting the vote out.

It’s the responsibility of every one of us. Not just to vote but to encourage others to come out. The stakes are as high as any we will face in this lifetime.

There is a strangely timed diplomatic event coming in the next few weeks, Xi Jinping’s visit to the U.S. This week Treasury Secretary Bessent issued a vague threat of economic war with any country doing business with Iran but did not mention China (or Russia), Iran’s biggest economic partner. Essentially undermining the seriousness of his threat.

We are witnessing a series of these empty threats that fail to offer anything substantive and that are never followed through with actual action. The results of these fake power claims are having an effect on the reputation of the U.S. that may prove to be the hardest thing to fix after the Trump years.

Trump may think he carries a big stick but the world knows there is nothing to back it up and global leaders no longer fear his retribution. Trump’s ego, which is all he has left, simply cannot stick to any hard choices that might risk his imagined popularity. That simple fact explains how the constant TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out) meme has held up. It defines the central weakness of the man.

That weakness is now an accepted reality among global leaders who should be allies but are now openly antagonistic. Trump always needs any scrap of praise, rarely recognizing the cynicism behind any of it.

The next Congress and President will need to show us how our country can regain respect and trust, a big task after the last ten years. Instead we get Trump insulting allies constantly, demeaning our neighbors like Canada who have always welcomed Americans, and openly lying to his own voters, who are slowly realizing that reality.

His time is over. But he and his cadre can and are doing a lot of damage as their regime goes down. These past two years have been very hard on our country and there is no sign anything will be different through 2028.

The only big change that could end this chaos is the mental and physical health of the President. He has never wholeheartedly endorsed a successor; no narcissist could. In the event of his decline, we would get JD Vance, Hegseth, Stephen Miller, and others fighting to take the reins. None are remotely capable of driving this machine we call a nation.

I take some comfort in that but there is a rocky road ahead that is going to get worse before it gets better. These are the stakes we face and we must face them head on.

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Times are tight and your support helps me justify continuing my observations of this historically consequential time for our nation. If you are capable please consider upgrading to a paid subscription or smaller donations via the Buy Me A Coffee site. It’s beyond the money, which is welcomed, it’s a show of support that means a great deal to me.

Thanks for the real,

Martin

(Need a break from the mayhem? Check out my new newsletter, Rich, Without Money. It’s my counterbalance to what I write here. Simple observations of what we should really be paying attention to).

The AI overlords are failing to make a case

Huge boxes spread out over acres of farmland, windowless, and no sign of any humans in sight, by design. The hideous culmination of human greed?

I’m very mixed about AI, to put it mildly. So far my experience with it is limited to seeing the brief overviews it offers during searches and the ridiculous slop generated by someone for Donald Trump in the middle of the night; the bizarre fantasies of a man consumed with visions of himself as Jesus or Genghis Khan, always sporting an American flag and smiting someone.

Incredibly useful and productive stuff if you are lazy. It’s too early to tell, but the immediate effect of this stuff seems to be to dumb down students so they can move on to another grade level, having failed to actually learn to read, do math, or think for themselves. A generation of intellectual zombies.

Worst case scenario. Don’t get me wrong, I am not an anti-tech zombie. Tech has been a great enabler of my existence. I would not be a writer without that first Mac that allowed me to discard all those bottles of Whiteout years ago. I can’t touch type but I can hunt and peck like a demon.

So, early impressions are that AI might be a bad thing and might be a good thing, though the frenzy in the financial markets over it also reminds me of the great Dot Com crash of the late nineties. Too many companies with huge piles of cash seeking market share by shredding the competition daily.

Growth. The magic word. Back during that early tech crash, losses were measured in hundreds of millions, today it’s billions. But if this thing crashes and burns those communities who welcomed those faceless buildings to their countrysides may find themselves saddled with useless hulks full of endless rows of old dusty servers.

A sci-fi wasteland. But the AI guys need those data centers, lots of them, and they, in turn, need all the fresh water and all the electricity, while not creating any long term jobs. A few construction jobs initially, some maintenance and security work, unlikely to pay much, and a blight on hundreds of acres of once bucolic farmland.

Is it any wonder these things are unpopular? On top of their hideousness the money they generate goes to a few wealthy executives and traders living long distances from them. Basically, it’s stick them in some poor rural community, promise some jobs that never materialize, and abandon them when markets fluctuate, as they inevitably do.

Google has been operating these things for years, processing our need for search results and serving up ads by the billions. But when they started building these monoliths, they did a smart thing. They kept them as secret as they could. Their own employees could not know where they were, what they actually did, how much power they required or how much water they needed for cooling, etc.

To this day their data centers have been operating in communities that barely know they exist. But big AI seems to have decided that shoving monumental data centers down the throats of rural communities should be promoted as some sort of gift to mankind.

The backlash is having an interesting effect on the looming midterm elections and the effect is not partisan. Politicians who have embraced these things as economic wonders, while quietly counting huge campaign contributions, are belatedly realizing they might be deal killers.

This might be seen as the ultimate NIMBY movement. No one wants these things in their backyards. How big is the issue? Ask Texas Governor Abbot who is basically a racist dictator in his state. He reversed course and is now a virulent critic of these very unpopular projects. I think he is a real jerk but he is politically savvy and knows when to shift gears as the winds shift.

Texans know from bitter experience that their electrical grid is ancient and frail after years of those same politicians failing to upgrade systems we take for granted. And in the southwest we all know they have way too much water. Not.

That scenario is playing out all over the country and it is putting a lot of old school politicos in a bind they didn’t see coming. After all, constructing huge boxes full of electronics means jobs and a step into the future, right?

In my state, New York, we have a limited moratorium on these projects. We are forcing their builders and supporters to make a clear case for why we need them and what their real long term impact might be. That is proving to be a tough case to make, especially given that they actually create few jobs, require resources we don’t have, and any profits to be had never set foot in our state.

Our AI overlords, an unimpressive bunch seemingly living in a lalaland of their own making, really don’t get it. In fact, they don’t even know if their products are a good thing. We have impressive AI, but it isn’t that bright, often makes bizarre errors, and seems equivalent in its evolution to a baby barely out of the womb, extremely needy and requiring a lot of the collective knowledge of mankind while contributing very little.

Yes, there are some miraculous uses in places like drug research where AI can compress what took years to do into days or even hours. But building data centers everywhere to create what we already call slop, seems to be rushing into something we may not even need or want.

As a political observer my interest in the short term is how this issue plays out in the next few months. Will it topple some dinosaurs? How will politicians weigh their options when faced with piles of AI lobbying cash while their constituents collect their pitchforks and torches back home?

Long term I can’t say. It may prove a miraculous development or it may go off in some Matrix-like out of control direction. I suspect the immediate result might be a generation of students who don’t know how to think or make a living, which would be a major disaster for society.

In the meantime we need to go a little slower on building these things. If for no other reason than building resource needy things in a world being consumed by climate change is a crappy idea.

If we are going to build over farmland, I’d rather it was solar arrays with Agrivoltaics that actually generate clean power we need to change the world, while growing crops on the same land.

That sounds more like actual progress.

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Thanks for the real,

Martin

(Need a break from the mayhem? Check out my new newsletter, Rich, Without Money. It’s my counterbalance to what I write here. Simple observations of what we should really be paying attention to).

And where the hell does it go?

I want to throw out a challenge to the journalists out there. Track the millions in campaign spending we hear about being thrown around and tell us where it really goes, who profits from it, and how do they track its effectiveness. This is an opportune moment to pursue this because the role of money in elections appears to be changing.

Bad news for the old school political operators and lobbyists. And the corporate and moneyed interests they represent. Yes, those political operators too. They are all beholden to the money, but is that money losing its grip?

The numbers we throw around these days are nuts. Tens and hundreds of millions of dollars being spent on things that add nothing to our society, only attack ads and very tossable mailers. Not to mention payoffs, often made legal by arcane laws tucked into other bills.

I had a CEO I worked for who engineered an acquisition and walked away with something like twenty million. A young man. He moved to Silicon Valley back in the heady days of overnight wealth but returned a bit dispirited and angry. His millions were chump change to the others he met out there.

But he had an epiphany. He told me, as he prepared to backpack around the world, that twenty million was enough to do or have anything you ever wanted. But, apparently not these days. I haven’t seen him since but I have no doubt he is out there making money somewhere. That’s capitalism the way it should be.

In Michigan last week Abdul El Sayed won the Democratic primary for a Senate seat. He beat an opponent that spent thirty million dollars of AIPAC money and still lost, barely. Fortunately she immediately declared unity in their desire to defeat the right wing GOP candidate.

But if I was the campaign manager who spent that money I’d have some ‘splaining to do. Part of it was the source of the money. AIPAC is the American Israel PAC, a huge spender across the country whose cause is not being helped by Netanyahu’s genocide in Gaza and the West Bank, not to mention Lebanon. It’s a big hot button issue these days, as it should be.

And the man who won is a Muslim, though that is not what he campaigned on.

I throw this out there because this is happening all across the country. Establishment candidates with huge war chests are losing races to upstarts, often more progressive upstarts. The money is not winning, which is a wonderful thing. Because it has been out of control for decades.

The Supreme Court, in their perverted wisdom, gutted the Voting Rights Act that was designed to limit the power of money by revealing and limiting its sources. If you donated you were subject to public scrutiny. No more. Anonymous sources can try to buy elections with impunity. And they have.

That appears to be changing. Voters have a thousand ways to get information that costs nothing to buy or disseminate. In a heartening development, they are showing up in crowds for old school public meetings with candidates where they can actually ask questions and express opinions. And these town halls are not partisan. When Pete Buttigieg shows up in Nebraska, lines form and they are not one party but every point of view out there.

I’m quite sure this alarms Party management a lot. The apple carts are being overturned by angry voters, just like the old days. Yowza.

I recently read a piece that estimated that for a single adult to live reasonably comfortably in a midsize city they need to earn at least $150,000/year, pretax. How many younger people do you know who make 150 grand or more? Not many I’d guess.

This graphically illustrates the growing money gap that is crippling our country and the future for many. So when I read daily about the astronomical amounts of money available to even down ticket candidates, I smell a concerted effort to compromise our democracy by making the cost of entry far beyond the average would-be candidate.

If you are spending $150k a year just to live comfortably, how could you give that up to run for office and serve? House members only make a little more than that and they have to live in notoriously expensive DC part of the year. You may not know it but many of your distinguished Congresspeople live with roommates when in Washington.

Those same men and women spend a huge amount of their time, your time, raising money. At least as much as they spend serving us. They are often beholden to that money, which is why so little governing gets done in Congress. Money has had a stranglehold on our democracy for decades, if not longer.

But I always have my nose in the air for windshifts, changes that underlie the political currents, and I smell the lessening of the power of money in that world.

God, I hope so. Because big money is the ultimate divider these days, a gap that is increasingly harder and harder to cross. Which illustrates the blindspot the Republican Party, in particular, has for the affordability issue. They are largely a Party entirely driven by money, which breeds arrogance. Even those on the Right who struggle must pretend to be successful all the time.

Money buys respect in those circles. If you are ancient or a big movie buff, you probably remember Jimmy Stewart in Mr Smith Goes to Washington. A small state hick finds himself suddenly in DC after a series of events that throws him to the top. He must navigate a world as foreign as another planet, including big money men who swoop in to buy his soul.

That film, released in 1939, still holds up today, in part by Stewart’s brilliant performance going from bewilderment to outrage at what our system has become. History repeats itself endlessly.

For some reason that is reassuring because Mr Smith wins out in the end, at least for the moment.

Addendum: Our national debt reached $40 trillion this week, a truly incomprehensible amount. Interest on it is costing us over $1 trillion annually. The debt has increased under Donald Trump by several trillion despite his promises that the big beautiful thing would change things.

We can’t reduce debt and give our money to billionaires and big business at the same time. It is simply impossible to understand how a Party that ran on cutting national debt could have voted for that bill, possibly the most cynical and self-serving law ever passed in our history. Shameful. Throw the bums out.

Follow the money!

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Times are tight and your support helps me justify continuing my observations of this historically consequential time for our nation. If you are capable please consider upgrading to a paid subscription or smaller donations via the Buy Me A Coffee site. It’s beyond the money, which is welcomed, it’s a show of support that means a great deal to me.

Thanks for the real,

Martin

(Need a break from the mayhem? Check out my new newsletter, Rich, Without Money. It’s my counterbalance to what I write here. Simple observations of what we should really be paying attention to).

When things are this bad people want big change

I’ll admit it, I have never paid as much attention to primary elections in a non-Presidential election year. There are literally hundreds of them for Senate, House, and Governor races across fifty states. Keeping track is why we have wonky sites where staticians are paid to track everything and make ongoing predictions that often vary week by week.

Pretty boring stuff, in a normal year, which this ain’t. Not even close. Donald Trump has completely reverted to type, saying anything to get in the news cycle and distract from the epic corruption he and his family are engaging in. That’s the family business, stealing shit and scamming people, has been for a long time, far before they entered politics.

But somewhere between shilling gold bibles and Trump sneakers they realized that was chump change compared to what they could do if they completely corrupted the Department of Justice with revenge arrests and harassment of the media, and that most profitable of endeavors, starting a war.

Especially a war that is a confusing mess exasperated by constantly contradicting each other on a daily basis about ‘progress’. They don’t want progress because in the fog of war there are riches to be taken. Remember that $13 billion in stolen Venezuelan oil revenue that has simply disappeared?

The few times they got pressed on that they changed the subject or Trump went on one of his incomprehensible rants. And the questions went away, to the eternal shame of the so-called journalists covering the White House. Big surprise.

The current dialog is that Trump has gone over the deep end and constantly shows signs of dementia. I’m not buying it. Yes, the guy is nuts but so are most crooks. That veneer of crazy has been very effective as a distraction. So has his decision to simply blow off any responsibility for anything, openly stating he doesn’t care about the economy, the election, or what anyone thinks of him.

That’s a tactic not a capitulation, just one more headline maker that provides more cover for monumental theft. But there are signs that we are growing wise to his schtick. He has made a huge mistake. He has truly pissed people off with his war, his disdain for our soldiers and sailors, and his constant coddling of perverts and pedophiles, among many other things.

But even his hardcore MAGA supporters are getting wise to his grift. That’s not surprising given that they follow his every action with nearly religious fervor. That kind of adoration eventually falls apart as their object of veneration starts showing cracks. That happens when his actions start hitting everyone in their wallets and pocketbooks.

Mocking fighting patriotic military members is really a big no no, especially when it comes from a known draft dodger with a long history of mocking brave citizens who are defending our country. This goes far back beyond his Presidency. Ask any native New Yorker.

You may note that I have not mentioned Congress or the Republican Party. Why would I? They checked out early on, content to take huge checks from special interests and enjoy their cushy status as senior politicians, our country’s esteemed leadership. But we are no longer buying that either.

Which gets me back to those arcane primaries. They suddenly mean something because we are seeing something unusual in the people who are running. They are less white, less Anglo-Saxon, their names are different, and they are younger. In other words, more representative of our country today, not in some old white guy’s fantasy world.

And they are angry and channeling the anger of voters. Which is why we are seeing the rise of formerly forbidden political stances like socialism, and religions like Islam. Of course, the right had to jump all over that, being those old white guys and many openly racist and misogynistic. This stuff is an existential threat to a world slipping from their fingers.

About time. That seems to be an underlying sentiment across the country. We’re sick of it all and we’re not going to take it anymore. If you don’t know the movie reference*, look it up, it’s a great and relevant black comedy that would be a huge hit today.

All of this is cyclical but we have not experienced a cycle as radical as this, going back to the Vietnam era. That may be why those big No Kings protests are largely populated by people who look like me. We remember those days where it felt like we were making a difference.

I do not believe mass protests move the needle with the guys in the White House. To them it is a big joke because they know the inside deal.

But leave out my boomer generation. There are at least five more generations since our time. And they are waking up and finding their future looking pretty bleak. The American Dream looks like a bad joke if there is no visible path to achieving it. Those generations are finding their own ways to get angry and involved.

Virtually all of the demographic groups that elected Trump in 2024 are splintering, or going to the other side. When we learn that 57 people serving in the White House are worth $100 million or more, we know they have no interest in our lives, why should they?

The rise of political violence on both sides is the extreme result of rising anger in our country. In history, when ruling classes get too far out of touch with the masses, revolutions broke out. People like Pete Hegseth know that which explains why he is purging our military of anyone who might put the country before the king.

But Hegseth, like all these people, is an incompetent moron who has failed at virtually everything he has tried. That incompetence and arrogance will be their undoing. It always has.

Et tu, Brute?

*Network, 1976

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(Need a break from the mayhem? Check out my new newsletter, Rich, Without Money. It’s my counterbalance to what I write here. Simple observations of what we should really be paying attention to).

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Times are tight and your support helps me justify continuing my observations of this historically consequential time for our nation. If you are capable please consider upgrading to a paid subscription or smaller donations via the Buy Me A Coffee site. It’s beyond the money, which is welcomed, it’s a show of support that means a great deal to me.

Thanks for the real,

Martin

Hosta flower, Image copyright 2025 Lucia Falsetti Guarino

An announcement to my current readers of The Witness Chronicles, Politics Decoded.

I’m launching a new newsletter, Rich, Without Money and it is not about politics, it’s about life, a personal observation.

I’m doing this in part as a counter balance to writing about American politics, which can have an element of stress to it (you think?). But events driving those politics, including the rise of an American oligarchy, contributed to my developing theme.

Rich, Without Money is not a diatribe against money. I hope it is not a diatribe about anything, but no promises. Instead I want to put forth a different POV about what constitutes riches in America. Not wads of cash, but daily observations of the intrinsic value of life.

I’ve been mulling this over for some time, trying to find a unifying theme but I think it will emerge on its own. I hope you take a look, try a free subscription, and give me feedback. No paywalls ever and no AI ever. I hope you enjoy it. A sample of the first post follows.

Martin Edic

Rich without money, poor without money. The difference?

The expat writer Henry Miller (Tropic of Cancer) once wrote a satirical piece called ‘Money and How It Gets That Way’. Critics viewed it as a satire of Ernest Hemingway, but I never saw the connection. Miller celebrated poverty because it allowed him an unfettered life where he could say and do anything. But he didn’t sugarcoat the glories of not having any money.

He did savor it when some fell into his lap and his descriptions of food fantasies in 1930s Paris are mouthwatering. Hemingway did the same in 1920s Paris, but by the thirties the Depression was global, Hemingway was on the way to riches, and Miller was still dead poor. Then the war came.

They both survived and Millier eventually did well, though by the time it finally happened I do not think he cared. We all know what happened to Hemingway, a tragedy. Both, in my opinion, were great writers of their time and influenced me to write, which I did and still do.

I am poor in my retirement. It is no one’s fault but mine. I made money and spent money and put little thought into the future. Instead I enjoyed good food, strong drink, and a wide social circle. I was the grasshopper in the Aesop’s fable, living for the moment and unprepared for winter.

When I decided to take a shot at writing a newsletter called Rich, Without Money, I found myself undecided what it might be. Self-help? Inspirational? A long rant about inequity? Some kind of spiritual journey?

Stalled, I let the idea sink into my subconscious knowing that if it had legs, it would sort itself out. And now it appeared, semi-formed, and I had to take a crack at it. So, I’m starting once again,

I am poor in my retirement but I do not feel poor most of the time. Unlike truly poor people I have some fallback in the form of family and friends. Those represent some of my portfolio of riches without money, a concept our society lacks entirely but seems to need.

I write a substack about the current state of American politics, The Witness Chronicles. That may be my penance for all my irresponsible excess and foolishness regarding money. But it keeps me writing and I still crank out thousands of words a week driven by the insane place our country finds itself in.

That’s gratifying but this is not that place. As a writer and a human I need more (and as an artist) and I think there are a lot of me out there. Those are the riches anyone can mine and money cannot buy them. I’m going to digress.

Because this is my first post here I should provide something about me. I am a seventy-one year old white male in America, a member of the most privileged class ever to reside on this planet. It’s 2026, a fact that when I think about it is astounding. How the hell did I/we get here?

Good question. We as writers and humans should always start with a good question. I wrote my first novel, unpublished, with a simple ‘what if?’. My political commentary typically starts with an incredulous ‘why?’.

So, why, and why did I not consider the what of not having money in my third third of this life? I’m a sort of lazy Buddhist, and as such, do not concern myself too much with the hereafter. When you are poor, you live in the now whether you like it or not. Why pine for what you don’t have and are unlikely to get? Yet people tear themselves up wanting things.

Not caring is a form of wealth. I’m not talking about carelessness, I mean not being owned by desire. A very Buddhist statement but it says an awful lot about America, the country I grew up in and love as much as you can love a place (very much sometimes). We have a real problem about money vs happiness and growth.

It’s a steamy hot August day with smokey blue skies, breezeless, and little stuffy with heat and humidity. Summer in the northeast, in other words. Watching the news, which I do far too much, reveals that I have nothing to complain about compared to practically everywhere else in the world.

If that is riches, I’ll take them and call myself rich. They don’t pay the rent but those kinds of riches are priceless.

There’s another kind of rich calling to me right now. It’s lunchtime and there is a half of a roast beef sub in the fridge…

Welcome to Rich, Without Money. I am, and you are, if you look at it that way. ME

A quote about fear, author unknown:

“Fear does not stop death, fear stops life.”

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I’m just getting started with this so offering subscriptions seems silly. Even with my other newsletter, The Witness Chronicles, paid subscriptions do not get access to paywalled content. They are strictly a way to show appreciation. A little early for that here.

I do want to offer a way to show a little support and that is via Buy Me A Coffee, a site where you can contribute in $5 increments. It’s legit and uncomplicated.

Thank you for joining me on this new little journey. It’s evolving, so you never know what will come up. Subscribe (free) to see for yourself.

Martin Edic

It appears there is no one running our government

With the midterm elections only two months away, and an economy in tatters, a war without end, and a President who is crawling towards dementia, it is legitimate to ask who exactly is running things in the federal government? Congress certainly isn’t, the White House can no longer keep track of its lies, and the Supreme Court seems to be in stasis as they are constantly asked to resolve virtually everything.

The scale of this government’s failure is breathtaking. Literally nothing is happening in the nation’s Capitol. The signs of entropy, the universal tendency of things to fall to pieces, are everywhere. A half built ballroom no one wants, the Reflecting Pool, the centerpiece of America’s great government architecture, is empty and lined with peeling pool paint. An American aircraft carrier, symbolic of the world’s biggest military power, lists in the Middle East, out of food, plumbing broken, and sailors so dispirited that some have tried to jump overboard.

This, we are told, is how empires end. They fade away into dusty ruin and unfinished dreams. It’s a dark reality but it is not my reality or the reality of most people living here. The ruin is still a DC thing but it is leaking into our daily lives. Masked thugs armed with electric shock gloves, detention centers (concentration camps), data centers that suck power and water, create no jobs, and contribute nothing to our well being are jammed down the throats of small towns with no voice to fight back.

A dark vision, right? It’s hard not to come to that conclusion if you are paying attention, which many are not. I can’t blame them. But many are paying attention and something very interesting is happening.

Voters are turning out in droves to vote in primary elections that typically draw ridiculously low turnouts. I have to qualify that. The Democratic primaries are showing us an electorate that is paying attention. In many cases turnout has been ten times the recent averages in midterm election years. This is huge and should scare the Republicans to death.

And it is not money bringing us to the polls. Traditionally in modern years spending was a major factor in these races but not this time around. The right has oodles more money than the left, fueled by huge donations from billionaires and big business. In the Democrat primary for a Senate seat in Michigan, the pro Israel AIPAC spent over $30 million on one candidate and she lost. $30 million in a state primary?

The Democrats are winning, even the more progressive Democrats, and all the rules no longer seem to apply. It should be a dream for the Republican Party, offering up opponents who can be outed as socialists, Trojan Horse infiltrators with Muslim names, and far left wackadoodles. A slam dunk, right?

But there is a fundamental problem with the right. Literally the only meaningful legislation they have passed during this administration is an enormous tax break for the ultra wealthy and big business, a tax break that is breaking the economy and exploding our already massive federal budget. That is the only thing they have done.

Even with all the money in the world, how can you run on nothing? They have fallen back on the fear card (the commies are coming for your children, the Muslims…!) but we are not buying it, in fact it sounds silly when we are dealing with finding the money to eat, get to work, and pay our bills.

When things get really bad, one tactic is to simply hide your heads in the sand and that appears to be what Republicans in Congress are doing. If faced with actual votes to pass actual bills, they go on recess. House Speaker Johnson has used that avoidance strategy over and over again. Avoidance. In other words, checking out.

A recent report was very critical of the strategic election experts in both parties. It speculates that these pundits have become so immersed in DC culture and the ocean of money that they no longer have any connection to reality, our reality as voters. These are the people advising the Parties and making decisions based on a reality only they live in.

It’s a swampy mess. But voters, particularly Democrat and Independent voters, are paying attention. Why? Because we are pissed off royally. Take a look at one hot button Republican issue, the fear of trans people being in our society. If you listen to the right you’d think kids were turning trans by the millions. But that simply is not reality, not even close.

How many trans people do you know? Seriously?

If that is the kind of issue the right thinks scares Americans, we’re in good shape for November. It’s a non issue. But you know what scares us, all of us? Gas prices. Oil companies are making a killing right now selling off their reserves and reaping huge short term profits. It’s so blatant even President Trump berated them for profiteering.

Well, he did it once but his heart wasn’t in it. After all he is the one who handed them those profits on a gold plated tray by disrupting everything in the Middle East with an unnecessary and ill-conceived war just before a midterm election. A stupid move by a stupid man. No other way to put it.

Everyone knows you have to pay the piper one way or another. Everyone who doesn’t live in the White House. We didn’t pay the piper and now he is coming for the future of our children. That’s pretty existential and it is literally true. Ask that Gen Z kid who cannot see any path to the American Dream. It was never easy but right now it is impossible.

In my Western NY city studio apartments cost $1500/month and up. That’s $18,000 a year in after tax income. To live in one room.

By the way, Republican kids don’t get a break on rent, it hits everybody. And that is the underlying problem connecting all of this. None of it is exclusive to Democrats or liberals. It’s a problem for all of us.

When you spend ten years dividing average Americans from each other, eventually they are going to find common ground in things like rent, housing costs, debt, and all the other things we have to deal with regardless of Party or any other conflicts.. For better or worse we are all in this together and that is turning out to be big problem for the right and those dedicated to the status quo in DC, right or left.

And that is why voters are not so scared of what used to be extreme positions. At least those extremists are advocating for doing something, anything. The equation has changed and that entropy in DC is confused. Why are voters doing stuff?

They don’t get it, but they will.

Finally, fun fact of the day: There are 57 people in the Trump administration with a net worth of $100 million or more. Biden and Obama each had 3-5. Ever wonder who is pulling the strings in DC?

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Times are tight and your support helps me justify continuing my observations of this historically consequential time for our nation. If you are capable please consider upgrading to a paid subscription or smaller donations via the Buy Me A Coffee site. It’s beyond the money, which is welcomed, it’s a show of support that means a great deal to me.

Thanks for the real,

Martin

Wondering if we can elect a gay man and a Latino woman and why not?

Pure speculation ahead. As some readers might note, I have been watching Pete Buttigieg’s very interesting travel schedule this year. He is on the road, mainly in the Midwest and western states, doing town halls and pitching for down ticket local elections, meaning the people you vote for to run things at home. And not just in blue zones, Mayor Pete is talking to everyone.

And he is talking to the media, particularly the supposedly unfriendly media, notably Fox News where he has become a favorite of sorts, not because is pliant, because he knows the issues we face right now are not partisan. Everyone wants lower gas prices and no wants this idiotic quagmire of a war in the Middle East. No one.

I’ve also been watching Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, AOC, and wondering if anyone calls her Alexandria. Alex, maybe? Here she will be, as elsewhere, known as AOC because typing out her full name is tedious for this hunt and pecker. AOC is no longer denying her aspirations for 2028, leaving the door open for a run and moving ever so slightly towards the center.

Her recent non-controversy about saving her eggs, which initially sparked a weird right wing controversy until they realized belatedly that this was something they probably should be defending in the name of life, etc., once again showed her to be a sensible person. A woman’s eggs, in this male’s opinion, should be her business.

But that sensible person thing creates a problem for the Republican mudslingers. She has proven to be pretty Teflon and a fighter and they are mostly wimps when it comes down to it, like most bullies. You know, a good punch to the face is always a viable response.

There is something likeable about AOC. There is also a lot likeable about Pete Buttigieg, and likeable may turn out to be a huge political asset after years of dealing with incompetent assholes (sorry, no other good word for it) in the White House. I can’t speak for you but I would like to be cheering on our leaders for a change. Even MAGA isn’t bestowing praise on the President anymore, excepting a few loons who can’t undrink the Koolaid.

When we think of Washington we get a sour taste in our mouths and that is not a partisan view. They generally suck and my observation is that we simply don’t trust most of them. Watching Senators voice outrage and then still confirm unqualified people is sickening. Especially because it is pretty obvious that big money is pulling the strings.

Neither Buttigieg or AOC have big money. She is still paying off her student loans and he really doesn’t have a job. In other times that might be a negative but these days worshipping financial success, however achieved, is not a thing. We are sick of those guys, the Bezos and Musks of the world.

That is a windshift and a lot of DC doesn’t get it.

So, back to my somewhat provocative headline, Mayor Pete and AOC in 2028. Why not? Ok, why not? He is gay, she is a woman and a Latino. Yikes. I have a question for naysayers, those who say no way will we elect that. When you think of Buttigieg or AOC are those things the first things you think of? My guess is no because they do not define their personalities, which are pretty well defined.

Leave off the Latino/woman/gay thing (please) and we get a pretty good combination. A military veteran (intelligence officer) from the Midwest and a street savvy New Yorker. Both tough as nails and scary smart. And pretty fearless which will be needed in the ugly years to some before that election. And they will be very ugly as the Trump administration does everything it can to hang onto power.

But there is good news, really. Those guys are scared shitless of what will happen when the penumbra of Trump protection no longer shelters them. And they are unbelievably incompetent at everything and that is compounded by extreme arrogance. They drank that Koolaid a long time ago and now think they still live in reality.

Nevertheless, the downfall is going to be ugly and nasty. It already is. Which gets me back to my point. Buttigieg and AOC may have their negatives but it is safe to say they are honest, articulate, and smart and somehow very normal. Which may look like shelter from the storm to come. I would not underestimate that these days.

It seems a little early for AOC to try a run for the top. She needs a little more time and we need to watch how the DSA thing goes. But Pete has the chops to make a run. Mayor of a midsized Midwestern city, veteran, obviously smart but also obviously pragmatic and unfazed by the Trumpian cloud surrounding right wing media. Somehow, with all his qualifications and that gay thing, he comes across as a regular guy.

So, about that gay thing. My buddy Moe, another amateur pundit, thinks there is no way we elect a gay guy, even if he is the best and most obvious choice. Moe is the co-owner of a couple of bar/restaurants in my neighborhood, which is pretty liberal, and I do not believe there is a drop of prejudice in his blood. But his point is legit. But I wonder.

Is there anyone in this country who does not know or work with a gay person? If there is, I think they are wearing blinders. Gay is as normal, though less common, as straight. So the optimistic and liberal in me would like to think it is not the unassailable hurdle it used to be. So, sue me.

It’s not too early to speculate about this kind of thing. And we have two years of unrelenting negativity ahead as things unravel further in the White House. Things once inconceivable may become sensible and logical and those traits may look even more like an island of sanity in the storm. Buttigieg is pushing two big ideas right now: Talking across Party lines and building a better future out of the wreckage.

AOC knows that great miasma that is NYC and the boroughs, the literal melting pot on steroids. I was at the huge No Kings protest in midtown Manhattan last spring and two things struck me. One was the joviality and enthusiasm and the other was the diversity of the crowd, which surpassed 100,000. Yes, I used the D word. That crowd were AOC people. And Mayor Pete people.

I could go on about that but I’ll leave it now as speculation. But don’t forget that we elected a firebrand, but reasonable, black man (with a Muslim coded name) and his old white male running mate, twice, not so long ago.

We can do the right thing again.

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And, will the White House Press Corps show some outrage?

Last night, watching the network tv news I saw a truly horrifying video of the new ICE shock gloves that enable ICE agents to give debilitating electric shocks to anyone by simply touching them. There was image after image of burly law enforcement types going down after merely a moment’s contact with the gloves.

ICE is spending $20 million on these gloves and will undoubtedly spend more. The image of agents, faces covered, with no visible ID, who can now shock anyone into submission is terrifying, yet in perusing this morning’s DC news I saw no mention of the story. We are told all ICE agents will have cameras by the end of the month but there was no mention of any mandate to turn them on or share the footage with the press.

Big surprise there.

The story of Trump’s being smuggled out of Air Force One in a catering truck, based on ‘credible’ threats in Turkey last month, also seems to have slipped through the cracks, other than as a joke, but it too had a shocking reality to it. The majority of Trump’s staff, including cabinet members, and all the press members on the plane were unknowingly left vulnerable to that credible threat.

Will these mostly spineless reporters grow a backbone after Trump and the Secret Service carelessly threw them under the bus? I’m not counting on it.

So, utter disdain for the press, and his own people, and an army of shock troops now equipped with electric shocks? Why not just give them cattle prods? I hope you see what is openly going on here. Trump is building an army designed to terrorize ordinary citizens while ignoring a complacent press corps who might have called this out for what it is, blatant authoritarianism.

I guess my question is how will they use these shock troops with an election just around the corner, that the Republicans are going to lose? Visions of Americans trying to vote and being shocked into submission outside the polls no longer seem farfetched. But I suspect that would backfire big time.

It would certainly make the headlines on every newscast in the world; a cadre of Gestapo style thugs with terrifying modern weapons not seen before unleashing them on us.

Sounds like comic book stuff, but those images of cops going down the minute they get touched were truly frightening.

The primary season is neatly over and it has not gone well with the Republicans. Almost the entire focus has been on the battle between moderates and progressives, some socialists, on the Democratic side. The related story there was the losing candidates in nearly every case immediately declaring unity with their opponent and support for a unifying Democratic cause.

Because Democrats are notoriously known for shooting themselves in the foot at opportune times, any sign of unity is a big problem for the right going into November. These are not the hyper partisan elections we have experienced for the last ten years with infighting among Democrats hurting their overall results. Why are they different?

At the risk of repeating myself ad nauseum, it is because the issue of affordability is universal, not partisan. And, as an issue, affordability hits a lot of territory from gas prices and food to farming, hospitality, healthcare, and other issues where employers can’t find anyone to do jobs average Americans don’t want. That drives up prices in those sectors across the board. Somebody needs to do the dirty work and it is going to cost all of us.

This is why the Republicans are incapable of touching that subject. They can barely mention it because anytime they do, it simply refocuses attention on them as the source of the problem. The billionaires and huge corporations who fund them simply don’t care about affordability, and why should they? They are booming with oil companies collecting huge profits on increased fuel prices.

That kind of thing used to be derided as ‘war profiteering’ but now anything with the word ‘profit’ in it gets a pass. I have nothing against reasonable profits, that’s capitalism, but simply reaping a windfall because of an idiotic war is not right. Naïveté? Damn straight, they count on it.

As a writer, writing about this stuff has become surrealistic. Electric shock gloves? It is becoming apparent that the Trump divide and conquer strategy has evolved away from the simplistic MAGA nuts versus reality. Now it is clearly the rising oligarch class versus all the rest of us. They have the money, we have the votes, which means this next election scares the crap out of them.

Their strategy is twofold. Use the shock troops to scare the shit out of people and use the money to buy off Congress to prevent them from actually doing their jobs.

I’m not sure those things will work. We already know the shock troops will simply anger more of us and the primaries are revealing that being a do nothing rubber stamp Congress member is angering the mob. ‘Throw the bums out’ is a recurring and growing theme across the country.

Again, at the risk of repeating myself, I am questioning just how effective throwing mountains of money at campaigns actually is. AIPAC, the pro Israel Political Action Committee, spent over thirty million to defeat Abdul El Sayed in Michigan, to no avail. I bet that caused some ogida on the right. $30 million on a primary and they still lost? What if money is not a guarantee of success?

That would be a huge shift in American politics. And we are watching it unfold as a possible massive change this fall. Families struggling to buy groceries and fill their tanks, are unlikely to be swayed by a barrage of attack ads funded by billionaires and supporting a bunch of do nothing candidates making excuses for those same billionaires.

So, what do they do? Unleash hordes of masked thugs armed with electric shock gloves? Well, here you go…

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Thanks for the real,

Martin

Something different, no politics (well, a bit)

The Japanese seem to have a celebration for virtually everything. They have a zillion seasons, some only a few days long like Peak Heat, around now, over there. According to my favorite Substack writer Kana Chan, today is Mountain Day, when I guess you spend a few minutes appreciating mountains. There are no mountains around here but there are hills so I’ll give them my attention.

Kana writes a Substack called Tending Gardens, about relocating from Vancouver BC to a small village in rural Japan where she and her partner ferment tea and grow rice. This young woman can write! She manages to convey the everyday holiness of just living, something this political writer needs more of.

I grew up a few hundred feet from the shores of Lake Ontario, a Great Lake, but more accurately described as an inland sea. It is 65 miles across the lake to Canada from the beach I spent my childhood and youth on. When I was in college I had friends from downstate who assumed you could see across the lake because it was called a lake!

Btw, you can’t. It can take days to sail across it and there is no guarantee you won’t hit some crazy weather and high seas.

Some people are mountain people and need regular fixes of the peaks. I’m a water person, preferably open water like the lake I sailed and swam in. I love being in mountains but the real pull is big water.

I realize this piece is different from my usual political rants, but I feel lately like I need a counterbalance to the mayhem in the world. I’m sure we all do. I’m working on a new newsletter that will focus on the counterbalance. You’ll hear about it soon.

When I contemplate the everyday nature around me and then delve back into politics, I realize that Trump and the people around him are incapable of simply appreciating the small things in life. Trump never speaks of beauty except in the context of him owning it. I can’t imagine Stephen Miller simply enjoying a day without paranoid thoughts of scary immigrants breaking into his pitiful life.

That is not a life, to live consumed by hatred and anger. Or the delusion that political power has any redeeming virtue, but virtue is not a word I’d associate with any of them. A sad thing to write about anyone.

Every morning, after coffee and a review of the news and my fellow pundits, I go and take a short walk around the neighborhood, ending with sitting in the gardens of the hotel next door just watching the world go by. It’s great time to let my subconscious sort out the craziness I inhale every morning. Since it’s in my subconscious, I don’t have to think about it yet!

It will bubble up and I will write.

Lately, I’ve been spending more time uploading calming things into that repository, meditating, walking, working out, and reading about people’s experiences. Basically putting some calming gas in the tank for future travels (and future writing). In the face of elections that are by far the most important in my reasonably long life, finding balance is not just a nice thing, it is advanced training for the coming season of chaos.

I should say, the next coming season of chaos, since every day brings more and more disturbing things to think and write about. The local noon news is on as I write this and with the sound muted a glance shows more stories about car crashes, shootings, and a few positive notes thrown in for, once again, balance.

And of course shots of Trump’s mug, contorted into something while delivering a message about vaccines with the even uglier mug of RFK Jr behind him. The fact that these new anti-vaxx orders could result in the sufferings and even death of many humans doesn’t bother these guys.

It’s just a photo op.

The thing he signed will be ignored, he knows it, and he is going through motions to satisfy the other lunatic behind him. Donald Trump couldn’t care less about vaccines, saving lives, or for what it’s worth, windmills. It all transactions to him, and what is in it for me?

There’s been a huge quake in Columbia where Trump’s anointed new dictator took office just the day before. After we removed Maduro from Venezuela but left a compliant fascist leader in his wake, they had two monster quakes that killed thousands.

One might spend a second thinking…nah. Just enjoy Mountain Day, or water day if you’re like me. ME

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Thanks for the real,

Martin

The Democratic Socialists are not a problem, unless we make them one

To put it bluntly, every time a Democrats bemoans the rise of the DSA we help the Republicans. The Party has always had this split between moderates and more progressive elements. That’s the normal state and a healthy one, except for our idiotic tendency to start squabbling amongst ourselves just when we need to show unity.

Will someone tell Chuck Schumer and idiot influencers like Hasan Piker to shut their goddamn mouths? The very last thing we need when the democracy hangs on the brink is a stupid argument splitting hairs over minor policies. Or giving the right ammunition by doing exactly that. It’s infuriating and, as an observer of US politics I can’t help but see it happening every time.

Instead of unifying behind the big picture, we have Party insiders and the new outsiders fighting over donors and money at a time when an unruly mob is outside with torches and pitchforks throwing rocks at the windows.

This is insider baseball and it is Washington’s favorite sport but the vast majority of voters do not live in DC, nor are we concerned about how much cash on hand the DNCC has or doesn’t have. We have real stuff that hits us daily at every turn. You know, affordability, a politically cursed word that is actually a real issue.

I don’t care about how many tens of millions are being deployed for or against a particular candidate. That is a billionaire’s game and they want it to look like it really means something these days, because in their world everything is measured in those vast but mostly meaningless numbers.

We know that the more millions being wasted on campaign attack ads the more we are going to be battered by those ads constantly for the next three months. It’s turned into a criminal waste of money, essentially turning it into worthless junk messaging that adds nothing to the economy, excepting ad agencies, printers, and TV and radio stations. You might as well pile that money in Times Square and set it on fire.

And now it’s ethnic names that become the pitiful weapons of the right. They’re drooling over the nomination of a man named Abdul El Sayed for a Senate seat in Michigan.

I want to remind people that we elected a man named Barack Hussein Obama, not once but twice. And it happened as the right portrayed every person on the planet with an Arabic or Middle Eastern sounding name as our enemy, regardless of anything.

They’re doing it again. And in addition to the underlying racist implications they are outraged, outraged, about the terrifying rise of something called socialism, which is actually practiced by some of the most stable, free, and successful nations on the planet. Look north to Scandinavia. Best healthcare, childcare, education, infrastructure, and general happiness quotient on the planet.

I know Americans probably would never put up with the level of government involvement that requires, but we could have some of those good things. But if we have to surrender to the dreaded socialism (commie scum), then we will have sold our souls.

Wake up people, this is exactly what the right wants us focused on. Not the actual state of things in real life; instead some imagined looming menace on the horizon. And only those millions of American oligarch money can save us.

What the Republicans seem not to acknowledge is that the rise of something like the Democratic Socialists of America is only made possible by how bad things are and how that bad is being experienced by everyone, not just Democrats. The issues we care about are universal, not partisan. That reality is something those donor billionaires do not want us to consider,

It must be us vs them.

I’ve been considering a metric it might be interesting to track when the midterms are over. How many endorsements by party old school politicians had an effect? Nancy Pelosi, for example, has been actively campaigning for her choices in the primary to fill her seat in the House, but her endorsement may be backfiring as there is resentment about the anointing of an heir apparent by the geezers they are replacing.

It seems groups of younger Dems don’t really like these kinds of endorsements. They want choice and they want to make their choices, not have candidates delivered to them on Election Day as a fait accompli, a done deal. This pushback is showing up around the country and is just another indicator of a sea change in Democratic politics.

Not so much with the Republicans, who are clinging to Donald Trump’s coattails even as a mini rebellion tries to surface on their side. Is it the anti-MAGA MAGA? MTG and cadre of former MAGA stalwarts, including Tucker Carlson, seem to be forming something. Not a party, not a third party, not…I don’t know what it is but I like it. MAGA has been ripping itself to pieces lately with infighting, a disease that has spread across the Party as desperation sets in.

One thing I am noticing is that Democrats in general are determined to vote and vote to win, not for one cause or another. We’re willing, it seems, to swallow our preferences to beat the other guys and send a message to the White House that they have failed and failed badly.

The White House insiders seem to have a message around that and it mirrors Trump’s statements that he no longer cares about the outcome of the election. So why should the lackeys in the Executive branch care about their futures, their boss obviously doesn’t?

This is an interesting strategy, to basically give up and then do whatever you want, legal or not. It feels like these idiots know they will not have careers in politics after participating in this disastrous administration, so grab whatever you can and start scouting for lucrative jobs in the private sector (and lining up defense attorneys).

If this is actually the case, it basically means no one will be steering the ship in DC for the next two years, which might be a good thing. It’s been on the rocks for awhile now. It’s when these guys try to govern that the real incompetency shows its ugly face. They suck at it.

Look what they are leaving the next Congress. A forever war doing a number on the global economy and our international reputation. A near Recession here in the states. A severe labor shortage in jobs established Americans can’t or won’t do (the hard, dirty work), a cost of living that is higher than wage growth, a failing healthcare system, and a population with a significant number of people not even trying to get jobs.

A huge mess in other words. Whomever takes control in November is going to have two years to somehow turn this thing around. After the 2028 Presidential election we are going to have to turn our heads towards the future. We have no choice, we can’t slip further backwards.

I just hope that voters this fall know that this vote, often for obscure federal positions, like all midterms, is critically important. Given the turnout by Dems and Independents in primary elections, (10x Republican turnout so far) it looks like we are paying attention and getting involved.

This is not time to sit on the fence. Vote. You know what scares all politicians the most? Losing.

So let’s put the fear of God into them. Vote.

Note: A quick note on AI and my writing. There isn’t any and never will be. AI cannot yet sound personal, or express opinions convincingly. If they figure that out, we’re screwed. But right now the reality is that for original work it sucks.

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Times are tight and your support helps me justify continuing my observations of this historically consequential time for our nation. If you are capable please consider upgrading to a paid subscription or smaller donations via the Buy Me A Coffee site. It’s beyond the money, which is welcomed, it’s a show of support that means a great deal to me.

Thanks for the real,

Martin

Except if you are looking for a job

We’re in the dog days of summer here, hot, muggy, and subject to unexpected downpours even when the skies are blue. Plumes of brown smoke drifting down from the province of Ontario. Damn Canadians! The nerve of them. We had one bad smoke day so far, better than last year. Smoke days have become another weather factor. How high in the atmosphere is it?

There are thirteen weeks until the election and I’m encouraged so far but here in Western New York we are far from the fray. While this may be the Trumpiest part of the state, you have to get into the boonies to find it. My upstate city, Rochester, is more representative of the state as a whole.. A metro area of about 1.1 million, the central city is about equally divided between whites and people of color with a big black population and a large Latino population, mostly Puerto Rican.

We had the fiftieth Puerto Rican Festival this past weekend and the city was filled with cars sporting multiple PR flags driving around honking. It’s a big event for the community and generally peaceful, though there were a few late night crowds with the random shootings that we somehow expect these days across the country.

I avoid public crowds, sad to say. But those negative events were exceptions. Our city elections rarely even have Republican candidates and if they chance it you would not know they were Republican from their campaign messaging. It’s that blue around here.

So, the primaries here are strictly for wonks like me who watch this American sport closely from a distance. I can’t judge the feeling of the national electorate because I live in a very liberal neighborhood in a liberal city and when out we don’t generally talk politics. It is, after all, summer.

Democrat primary voter turnout around the country has been running about ten times that of Republicans, a scary indicator for the right as it indicates voters checking out of the process on their side. Over here on the left, things are different. But, given my location, my vote will have little effect on November. I’ll vote to let them know we are all motivated to kick butt.

Legal commentator and former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance points out that we are at the 89 day point to the midterms. This is important because active voters cannot be purged from the rolls after we reach the 90 day threshold. So, one more safeguard clicks in.

I haven’t been commenting on the Iran war lately because it is impossible to sort out the truth given the incredible amount of BS Trump cranks out. But this morning (Friday) Iran wants a ban on Israeli and U.S. ships entirely and a fee of 5-7% on all other cargo. Doesn’t sound like a peace proposal to me.

That fine would further worsen the already bad economic news.

The big news domestically about that is the missile shortage and whose fault it is. War Monger in Chief Hegseth apparently used up our reserves leaving us vulnerable if a real war breaks out (think Taiwan, or Russia/ Eastern Europe), leading to accusations of fault in the White House, insults, and the blame game. I’m thrilled to see the rats fighting amongst themselves.

But this is a real issue. Testosterone Pete has used up his toys and they will take a long time to replace. And when we do, they may be obsolete in the face of the new warfare with aerial, surface, and stealth drones that cost a fraction of what a Tomahawk or Patriot costs. I was alarmed to hear from a Pentagon official that building these costly missiles is essentially done by hand, meaning mass production is not an option.

This is not WWII where we were cranking out bombers at the rate of one an hour. This is military procurement at its most dysfunctional, which is pretty dysfunctional. Every missile is a one-off?

But I digress. The relevant message here is that the right is so busy squabbling amongst themselves, they are not focused on the midterms, another sign that the White House has essentially given up. Governing and campaigning is hard and these guys don’t do hard.

And that is the central problem in DC these days. They want the quick sound bite, not the tough slog problem-solving requires. It’s laziness plain and simple, on both sides but mostly on the right. Their other big problem is they don’t like each other much. And I’m talking about within the parties. Crossing the aisle? Forgedda about it.

To this point, the Dems seem to be realizing this, sorta. The close Michigan primary win (by about 1%) saw El Sayed, the winner, immediately coming out with a unity message. A start. Trump of course went bananas and immediately went to the anti-Muslim rant. To be expected.

In another blow to the administration’s claims that the economy is going along swimmingly, this morning we got the job creation numbers for July. They were worse than bad. Economists had projected growth of 80,000 jobs, a respectable number these days. But the actual number was 27,000 jobs lost.

And May June totals were revised down to 100,000.

Joe Biden averaged a gain of 300,000 jobs monthly in 2024. This is what spending on rebuilding America looks like compared to giving no bid contracts and tax breaks to billionaires and big business. This is what trickle down really looks like. As Jon Stewart points out, trickle down means they are pissing on us.

But really, everything is rosy:

“National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett put a positive spin on the news, casting it as a blip in an otherwise strong economy. The administration remains “very bullish,” Hassett said.”

• Politico Playbook 8/7/26

Uh-huh.

Hassert is the cheery Mouth of Sauron these days. Never mind that economy behind the curtain…(yes, I know, two unrelated cultural references)

Only a few years ago any of the stories I’ve mentioned here would have been front page news, with calls for heads to roll. We don’t have front pages anymore (alas), but we get the bad news a lot faster and from multiple viewpoints. Hard to spin job losses as anything but an F on this administration’s report card.

Welcome to the weekend. Get outside and listen to the cicadas sing. It’s high summer!

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Thanks for the real,

Martin

And going after Fauci?

I spent a good chunk of my working life in marketing, starting as an ad writer back in the day (frankly I hated it but it paid the bills) and finding the message that hits home was the challenge. In fact, if you were having a bad time finding that line that resonated it was a red flag, i.e, this product/service has no selling point. And that was a huge problem.

Clients didn’t want to hear that their pitch was empty of any actual substance. And if they were good businesspeople they would try to fix that. Otherwise they had nothing.

As I recently wrote, I am doubting whether the massive influx of money into politics is even effective anymore, especially when it is used to carpet the airwaves with messages that are no good to begin with. El Sayed’s win this week in the Democrat Michigan Senate primary is a prime example.

His opponent, Hallie Stevens, was a strong candidate and she had the backing of a big Political Action Committee, AIPAC, to the astounding tune of 30 million dollars (note that political money is no longer measured in millions but tens and hundreds of millions, another story). Yet she lost to an opponent with a Muslim name and a fairly radical agenda in a purple state, Michigan, that Trump carried both times.

Which gets me to my subject, throwing money at crap no longer works, and the Republican Party has crap. No accomplishments, no legitimate criticism, and no ideas other than enriching the already rich. So they have resorted to playground insults that are, frankly, silly.

Democrats are not commies. James Talarico, Dem Senate candidate in Texas is not a vegan trans commie, far from it. Yet this is the mud they fling at him and others. Frankly it must be humiliating to get paid to create those ads, especially when his opponent is an openly corrupt misogynist, a truly rotten man. Yet they still pretend outrage as a message.

Guys, we are not stupid. And that is the gist of it. The Republican Party thinks voters, including their own voters, are stupid. That worked really well for Donald Trump for years, to assume that you can constantly tell voters lies and they will cheer you on. Two things about that. Trump has a weird charisma that somehow mesmerizes weak minds. And, for a long time he was telling people what they really wanted to hear, even if it was wishful thinking.

That seems to be over and Trump knows it, but his Party has not got the message. Trump’s way of dealing with it is to simply try to wash his hands of any responsibility and move on, taking what he can in the process. His Party does not have that option. They need to soldier on, trying to win races up and down the ticket in towns, cities, states, and eventually the Presidency.

No sympathy here.

I am amused when a Republican lamely attempts to insert the dreaded word, ‘affordability’ into their message. Inevitably they mention it then move on to whatever buzzphrase their geniuses have decided will get them attention and elected. Today that phrase is communism, communist, commie. Right.

I should note that Trump’s earliest mentor was the notorious lawyer Roy Cohn who represented Joe McCarthy as he created the Red Scare in the 1950s that ruined many lives before McCarthy was called out for what he really was. He died a drunken ruin. Karma. But Cohn would not fade away and he taught our President the ropes that got him elected, despite being a convicted felon.

Cohn didn’t live to see that but his venom lives on, albeit weakly. There are historical lessons in this but I am not the esteemed historian Heather Cox Richardson, who covers that territory so ably and with an authority I do not possess or claim.

It’s called throwing dirt, this whole business. But we voters have real stuff we are dealing with daily and it is not political. And that may be the real problem with the messaging on the right. They still believe these meat and potato issues are political. Feeding your kids and keeping your car running are not political; they affect everyone who is not wealthy.

Do I really care if they say some guy in DC is a vegan? Not when

I can pay my bills. And here is the thing. These politicians know this. They are hearing it loud and clear when they dare show their faces in public, an increasingly rare thing.

It’s hard to have your public screaming at you to your face about things they are really angry and frustrated about. It’s a lot easier to hide behind a wall of money and the advice of strategists with no ideas or willingness to try them. It’s called the prevailing opinion, and it represents the weak will of the Republican Party right now.

Except the prevailing wisdom they espouse is neither wise nor prevailing, it is a fantasy that says the guy or girl with the most money will prevail. Wisdom? I think not.

Finally, a note on the witch-hunt against Dr Fauci, the man who became the voice of Covid five years ago when politicians, notably Donald Trump, were demonstrating how incompetent they were when faced with a real, scary, and deadly disease outbreak. Their main fear? Not the deaths of their constituents, their prospects in the next election.

In the face of that Fauci became the point man and somehow shepherded us through that, making hard decisions, not always right but that somehow got us through while our ‘leaders’ failed,

Now, years later the right has decided it is time for him to be punished, another sign of how little they have to go on. Frankly, it looks like there are two responses to this witch-hunt. Sympathy for Fauci, and disgust with spending any time on this crap when we have real problems right now.

How can they not get that?

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Times are tight and your support helps me justify continuing my observations of this historically consequential time for our nation. If you are capable please consider upgrading to a paid subscription or smaller donations via the Buy Me A Coffee site. It’s beyond the money, which is welcomed, it’s a show of support that means a great deal to me.

Thanks for real,

Martin