#defeat maga white nationalists

[tomorrowusa]

« In a country defined by the ongoing existential battle over whether this will be a white nationalist society or a multiracial democracy, the majority of people reject the idea of making America white again. Most people in America prefer the Democrats’ vision of a multiracial America (however halfheartedly it may be expressed at times) to the raw, unapologetic white nationalism espoused in coded and not-so-coded ways by Republicans. With the sole exception of the 2004 presidential election, the Democratic nominee has won the popular vote in every single presidential election over the past 30 years.

Republicans understand this reality better than Democrats which is why they ferociously focus on suppressing the vote far more than Democrats emphasize expanding voting. »

— Steve Phillips at The Guardian.

Republicans will use every trick they know to suppress the non-MAGA vote. In addition to legal methods such as restricting voting hours and making absentee voting more difficult, they will work with their partners in Russia to spread disinformation to discourage moderate and liberal voters from casting ballots.

We need to do more grassroots work to get out the vote. There's no substitute for person to person contact to identify potential supporters and to make sure they vote. And the earlier we get started, the better.

At the very least, we need to be certain that like-minded people are properly registered. We should not be reticent about asking others whether they're registered.

Because voting is highly geographic, it's necessary to remind people that they need to register at their new address after they move. Even if you move across the street, you need to register at THAT address. After you've reminded the people who have moved, follow up two weeks later to make sure they've done so.

If friends think that voting is important to you, they are more likely to vote when the time comes.

I Will Vote

[qqueenofhades]

I love your essays; they are fascinating. Thank you for sharing your perspective! I have a follow up question, if you have the time or energy: in your last, you said, “It's a blueprint for a tiny group of extreme right-wing theocrats and fascists to get their way regardless of what the broader public says about it…”. Who ARE the tiny group of extreme right wing theocrats and fascists? Is it the politicians whom we see all over the news, like Vance and Boebert ands Haley and DeSantis? Or are they puppets whose strings are being pulled by donors behind the scenes, like…I don’t know, the Koch brothers and the Uleins (sp?)? I feel like whoever it is must have mind boggling amounts of money, to overcome the sheer number of people who don’t think like that, even people nominally republican who believe in traditional low taxes and small government, but are not completely bananapants. Or maybe that’s why they tagged trump, bc no one before him was willing to act like enough of an outright gangster to seriously move the needle…? How much more rich than disgustingly rich do they need to be?

Perhaps surprisingly, it's fairly easy to identify the Hall of Shame who are busily trying to end American democracy, not least because they have become increasingly open about it. Their motives are diverse but all terrible. The quick rundown is as follows:

First, the alt-right billionaires club such as Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Harlan Crow, and Leonard Leo (the last two are some of the chief funnelers of dark money to SCOTUS; Crow is Clarence Thomas's sugar daddy). They have reasons ranging from grandiose delusions about "remaking" the world in their preferred image (not at all terrifying) to attaching themselves to fascist politics in order to defeat workers' rights and labor unions, who they view as a threat to their mega-wealth. Thiel is the primary sponsor of JD Vance and the alt-right cryptobros clubs that draw the young right-wing white men who also primarily form the membership of neo-Nazi and white nationalist groups. They want to end democracy in order to punish women, minorities, LGBTQ+ people, and anyone else who Nazis always hate. Crow and Leo have lavishly funded the corrupt SCOTUS in order to influence their preferred right-wing rulings, and there are undoubtedly more who we don't even know about. This is just the tip of the iceberg and I have no doubt that it's far, far worse than anything that has been publicly reported.

Next are the extremist right-wing interest groups that have cohered around and advocated for Project 2025, which is basically just the conservative-extremist wet dream put in one place and written down. They include the Heritage Foundation (the primary Project 2025 author) the Federalist Society and the John Birch Society of right-wing judges and policymakers, and Opus Dei, the secretive Catholic right-wing influence group who are straight out of a Dan Brown novel but are in fact some of the most consequential and powerful players in MAGA World. Their name means "work of God" in Latin, which is very much what they see themselves as doing, and their reach in DC is vast, particularly in the far-right evangelical and fundamentalist Christian groups that have attached themselves to Trump as a vehicle to push through their regressive-reactionary social and cultural politics, especially on abortion, women's rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and other things that they view as "unholy." These are the diehard true believers who really, truly think that it's better for the US to be a fascist theocracy espousing "Right and Moral" religious views than a flawed, pluralist, and secular democracy. Hard Yikes.

Thirdly we have the useful idiots, such as Vance, Ron DeSantis, Boebert, Greene, basically pick-a-Republican-politician-here, who are pursuing fascist politics out of careerism, opportunism, some amount of genuine belief, and exploiting the age-old fissures of American racism, nativism, xenophobia, and other original sins that have dogged the country since its founding. Of course, Trump himself is chief among these useful idiots, because he's completely willing to end American democracy and install himself as Dictator-for-Life if it exempts him from having to face the consequences for all the crimes he did last time (and frankly, his entire life, which is now catching up with him). I don't think Trump has an actual consistent or coherent policy bone in his body; witness how quickly he was willing to flip-flop on the Florida abortion issue depending on what he thought was useful (and then after the backlash he received from his base). He's a malignant narcissistic sociopath who is incapable of complex reasoning and long-term planning. His only and overriding interest is himself, he will do absolutely whatever he has to in order to save himself, and as long as he has his death grip on the GOP, everyone who wants to succeed in the party or even have a future in it has to slavishly kiss Don Corleone Trump's ring. That is why many lifelong Republicans have been breaking ranks to say they will vote for Harris, because "being a Republican's" one and only qualification is now "being utterly loyal to Trump." That's it.

These are all actors based more or less in the US, but we also can't forget the fact that basically the entire Republican Party is in deep, deep hock to Vladimir Putin and other foreign autocrats (but most especially and dangerously Putin). We just had the DOJ indictment of MAGA influencers who were taking Russian black cash by the bucketload in order to spread damaging lies about Biden/Harris and pump for Trump, and this is consistent with Russia's pattern of extensive interference in American elections going back to at least 2016. It is hard to overstate how much Putin hankers to end American democracy for many reasons. He is a former KGB agent trained in the black-and-white us-and-them logic of the Cold War where the US was the USSR's archenemy, his constant mourning for the USSR's collapse has been well documented, and it would be the absolute defining and singular achievement of all of post-imperial Russian history for Putin to effectively end American democracy with a second Trump term.

This is for the simple reason that Trump is utterly in thrall to Putin and will do whatever he asks, whether it's cutting off aid to Ukraine and forcing them to accept annexation by Russia, pulling America out of NATO and letting Putin set his invasion sights on Poland and the Baltic states, and anything else. That is genuinely terrifying but very likely if Trump was re-elected, aside from the end of American democracy and the worldwide ramifications it would have to empower fascist authoritarians everywhere. Putin is trying to achieve this through a combination of good old-fashioned Soviet-style dezinformatsiya, paying off MAGA influencers, putting the entire resources of the Russian state into defaming Harris-Walz, and recruiting useful idiots like his asset Jill Stein, who has extensive Russian ties and only pops up every four years for idiot leftists to spoil their vote and ruin Democratic electoral prospects. So. Again. Hard yikes.

So that's the quick rundown of the people who are vested in Trump and Project 2025's success and why, and as you can see, while they're all different, they're all terrible. But yes: that really is a very, very small group of people, relatively speaking. And a vote for anyone except Kamala Harris and Tim Walz is a vote to empower them and also to ensure that you will never have the chance to vote again, due to living in an authoritarian fascist regime. Choose wisely.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Spencer Sunshine at The New Republic:

Presidents don’t just wield power directly; they set the mood for the country. It’s not uncommon for their grassroots base to flourish under their administration, as the far right did during Donald Trump’s first term in office. It is less common, however, for that base to remain strong after defeat. But, defying the odds, the MAGA movement continued to flourish under Joe Biden. Now, with Trump returning to the White House, the far right grassroots is barreling into 2025 with plenty of momentum, while their leader both helps set their agenda while sustaining it by crowd-sourcing their conspiracies and lies for his own use.

Issues and Themes

The far right is currently animated by several themes, many of them interrelated. For several years, demonizing “DEI” (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) frameworks—which focus on identities, racial and otherwise—was an obsession. But the far right has gradually replaced DEI with “woke,” a vaguer and broader idea which can refer to the vast majority of left-leaning positions and be applied to any number of hot button, culture war topics.

The backlash over gender, sexuality, and reproductive rights continues, with trans issues front-and-center. After Roe v Wade was struck down in 2022, attacks on abortion rights increased. And when Trump was reelected, the slogan “Your Body, My Choice” spread like wildfire after being embraced by far right leaders like Nick Fuentes. Anti-immigrant rhetoric has also increased, particularly as Trump has promised to deport tens of millions. His racist vilification of immigrants was epitomized by his embrace of unfounded rumors that Haitians in Springfield, Ohio—who were, for what it’s worth, legal residents—were stealing and eating pets. Finally, completely discredited “race science” theories have returned, often focusing on bogus IQ studies. Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has promoted them on his social media platform X, as has Trump, who has blamed violence by immigrants on “bad genes.”

Donald Trump

Donald Trump has different faces: the tax-cutting businessman, the international negotiator—and the authoritarian strongman. Sometimes he embraces different approaches at different times; mostly, though, he is everything at once: A demagogue and a xenophobe who is committing to cutting taxes for corporations and the wealthy and who pitches himself as the only man who can keep the country—and the world—safe. Campaign promises have included setting up deportation camps for undocumented immigrants—in what he said would be a “bloody story”—and arresting critics and opponents including Kamala Harris, Mark Zuckerberg, and members of the January 6 House committee. Trump also said he’d consider banning vaccines and claims to have the power to halt congressional budget allocations.

His appointments have also been gifts to his far right base. The start of Trump’s first term was largely characterized by a raft of relatively moderate, establishment favorite picks, like Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, and chief of staff Reince Priebus. Now, the situation is quite different. Stalwart MAGA congressman Matt Gaetz was initially tapped to be attorney general until accusations of sex with underage girls quickly sunk him. Tulsi Gabbard, a sympathizer to dictatorships in Syria and Russia, was picked as his Director of National Intelligence. Arguably the most infamous selection was the appointment of Musk to a proposed advisory commission, DOGE (a reference to a dated internet meme, it stands for the “Department of Government Efficiency”). Musk himself has repeatedly tweeted support for anti-immigrant conspiracy theories and most recently for the Alternative for Germany (AfD), a far right party many consider crypto-Nazis.

The far right has two wings. One is openly white supremacist, and is vocally opposed to groups like people of color, Jews, Muslims, and LGBTQ+ people. The other is more moderate in its beliefs; people of color—themselves an increasing part of Trump’s base—are welcome, as are Jews. Both wings overlap in their hatred of “communism” (also a catch-all term for anything to the left of them), embrace of conspiracy theories, contempt for democracy, and desire for traditional social hierarchies.

The white supremacists and their moderate cousins often see-saw in popularity, one rising as the other falls. In recent years, the moderates have swung high. Moms for Liberty, which has focused on banning school library books—especially those with LGBTQ+ content but also ones with pro-diversity or antiracist messages—started 2024 with almost 300 chapters. But their influence has waned as the year went on. The notoriously violent Proud Boys, who played an important role in storming the Capitol four years ago, have faced even tougher times. With their leader Enrique Tarrio serving a twenty-two year sentence for his role in the assault on the Capitol, their scattered chapters now lack cohesion and focus.

One exception is the armed militia movement, which is having a mild revival. Hurt by a massive Facebook deplatforming in 2020, Tess Owen recently observed these groups “have been quietly reorganizing, ramping up recruitment and rhetoric” in recent months. Some groups hope to help Trump’s deportation scheme. Conversely, open white supremacists are doing quite well. Active Clubs—white supremacist MMA training gyms—are in full flourish, and have even expanded overseas. While they’ve had limited public activism, observers worry they could soon transform into a fully-fledged fighting force.

A new wave of swastika-waving neo-Nazis has emerged, too. The media-friendly Blood Tribe, who use striking aesthetics and a confrontational approach, were early promoters of the pet-eating rumor. A Columbus, Ohio march by their splinter group Hate Club 1488 grabbed so much attention that even President Biden denounced it. Blood Tribe was only one of three groups that descended on Nashville this year for public events. They were joined by the antisemitic Goyim Defense League, who spent two weeks harassing local residents, as well as Patriot Front, one of the largest U.S. fascist groups. All three groups represent a new, flourishing neo-Nazi movement—one that will likely continue to grow during Trump’s second term.

The New Republic reports on how Donald Trump is building an army of foot soldiers for his far-right agenda.

[probablyasocialecologist]

Reagan’s Republican Party of 1981 was very different from Herbert Hoover’s of 1933: it had become the refuge of millions of formerly Democratic white conservative voters in the Solid South who resisted the civil rights reforms of the 1960s. Accordingly, behind his cheerful veneer Reagan made sure that he tapped into the fierce resentments of federal authority, dating back to the Civil War and Reconstruction, that fueled that resistance. Before they were done, the Reagan Republicans had absorbed into their coalition an array of aggrieved Americans, including quasi-theocratic white Christian nationalists, the gun-manufacturing lobby, antiabortion militants, and antigay crusaders. The antigovernment fervor that grips the nation today is the long-term product of the right wing that Reagan called to arms (literally, in the case of the National Rifle Association) forty-odd years ago. It was his attorney general Edwin Meese, in tandem with the newly formed Federalist Society, who started packing the federal judiciary with the conservative judges who have gutted federal protections for voting rights, abortion rights, and more, while inventing, with fake history presented as “originalism,” an individual’s Second Amendment right to own and carry military-grade armaments. It was the Reagan administration that eliminated the FCC’s fairness doctrine, which mandated that broadcasters provide balanced coverage of controversial public issues, paving the way for right-wing talk radio inciters like Rush Limbaugh and G. Gordon Liddy and, on cable TV, Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News to amplify antigovernment paranoia. The Reagan White House also harbored the former Nixon aide Pat Buchanan as its communications director. Buchanan’s politics were rooted in the 1930s America First isolationism of Charles A. Lindbergh and the diatribes of the right-wing “radio priest” Father Charles Coughlin, with their eccentric fixations on imaginary Jewish internationalist cabals. In the waning days of Reagan’s presidency, Buchanan remarked that “the greatest vacuum in American politics is to the right of Ronald Reagan.” He tried to fill that vacuum himself, nearly defeating President George H.W. Bush in the 1992 New Hampshire primary with his “pitchfork brigades.” His convention speech later that year laid out the culture wars to come. Then he followed up with another bid for the Republican nomination in 1996 and an independent campaign in 2000. All those efforts failed, but their stark themes of isolationism, lost national greatness, immigrant invasion, and racial fear provided a template for Donald Trump’s MAGA campaign a quarter-century later. “American carnage” was the favored far-right image at least two decades before Trump.

[sethshead]

Other committee members questioned how their colleagues could find words like “antisemitism” too vague, despite frequently lobbing it and other terms at their political opponents.

“I just don’t understand how people who routinely refer to others as leftists, liberals, communists, socialists and RINOs (‘Republicans in Name Only’) don’t have the discernment to define what a Nazi is,” committee member Morgan Cisneros Graham told the Tribune after the vote.

If the Texas GOP wants to guard against broad and vague definitions of antisemitism, the IHRA has a very clean working definition! Even better, many liberal institutions have rejected the IHRA wirking definition because they want to be able to call for the displacement of half the world’s Jews without being called out for hostility to said Jews. It would be a win-win for conservatives: clean house, and show up the left!

But that’s not the real reason for the resolution’s defeat. Its opponents know that MAGA will bring all the deplorables to the yard, and that the internet notoriety the MAGA base demands is a very precious resource. No true MAGA Republican can afford to turn away a white nationalist in a red made-in-China baseball cap.

Lastly, not to all lives matter my own people, but you know it’s not just Jews Nick Fuentes hates? Does the Texas GOP have it within its heart to even propose distancing itself from all of Fuentes’s other bigotries, including homo/transphobia and misogyny?

[yourreddancer]

In recent days, various Senate committees held hearings on some of Donald Trump’s most ludicrous nominees for key positions in his administration.

These dangerous, unqualified, and vindictive MAGA sycophants include:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

RFK Jr. is an anti-science conspiracist and anti-vaccine zealot who Trump wants to put in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Here are just some of the agencies and programs that are part of HHS: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Head Start, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

And — oh yeah — Medicare and Medicaid.

If confirmed as Secretary of Health and Human Services, RFK Jr. would be a direct threat to our nation’s public health infrastructure and to the well-being of every person in America and, indeed, the world.

Kash Patel

Patel is a MAGA fanatic and “deep state” conspiracist who Trump wants to put in charge of the entire Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

He has been brazen in announcing his intention to weaponize the FBI against government officials, journalists, nonprofit groups, and the American people.

Here’s one example of just how absurd Patel’s hearing was: He claimed not to be familiar with a far-right podcaster who promotes antisemitism and white supremacism even though he has been on the man’s podcast eight times.

Russell Vought

Vought is a Christian nationalist and one of the architects of Project 2025 — which, despite Trump’s see-through claims otherwise, is his regime’s playbook. Trump wants to put Vought in charge of the mundane-sounding but absolutely critical Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

In a nutshell, OMB oversees everything the entire executive branch of the federal government does.

Vought is fixated on a maximalist vision of presidential power that would let Trump ignore Congress and the Constitution. And he is committed to using government power to advance the view that America should officially be a Christian nation.

The illegal freeze on all federal grants and loans this past week is exactly the kind of thing the American people will be subjected to again and again if Vought is confirmed.

Look, we know that many MAGA senators will rubber stamp these nominees in groveling fealty to Trump. But we also know that some Republican senators have doubts about each of these men and that the Republican majority in the Senate is wafer thin. We have to try to get 51 senators to reject these preposterous nominees.

By the way, as we fight to block Trump’s dangerous and unqualified nominees for essential roles throughout the federal government, some people ask what happens if we defeat one person and Trump nominates someone else just as bad or even worse. The answer is simple: we fight that person too, and the one after that, and the one after that. What we don’t do — what we absolutely will not do — is throw up our hands and give in. Not gonna happen.

To the United States Senate:

You CAN stand up to Donald Trump. You did it with Matt Gaetz. You almost did it with Pete Hegseth (a one-vote shortfall you’ll come to regret because the man will endanger national security). Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Kash Patel, and Russell Vought are just as unqualified and just as much of a threat. Have some backbone. Honor your duty as a supposedly coequal branch of government. Put the American people before rank partisanship. Do not confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. Do not confirm Kash Patel for director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Do not confirm Russell Vought for director of the Office of Management and Budget.

Click to add your name now.

Thanks for taking action.

For democracy,

- Robert Weissman, Co-President of Public Citizen

[dixiedrudge]

Left Thinks An Independent Red America Would Be Incredibly Cringe - #NationalDivorce

Help Dixie Defeat Big-Tech Censorship! Spread the Word! Like, Share, Re-Post, and Subscribe! There’s a lot more to see at our main page, Dixie Drudge! (Highly Respected) – The people of Enid, Oklahoma, voted out an alleged “white nationalist” from its city council this week. The councilor in question is Judd Blevins. Blevins’s resume is perfect for a MAGA candidate. He’s a veteran, a…

[wilwheaton]

Whether or not he runs for president again, Donald Trump is now the Republican Party. His brand of neofascism, authoritarianism, greed, cruelty and Christian nationalist white supremacist grievance politics are no longer an outlier or aberration within the right-wing movement. Rather, they are its core values and operating system. Because it has embraced naked fascism and authoritarianism, the post-Trump Republican Party will rally around a narrative of "betrayal" and "revenge." His will be the new Lost Cause, one embracing red-hat MAGA true believers instead of Confederate soldiers, fighting to keep Black people as human property.

Trump's horror show isn't nearly over: The coup wasn't defeated, only slowed down

[randomnameless]

Here, have something stupid to think about that time when Adrestia was Great from the Nopes!Verse

Nopes!Willy had a shield with a lion’s face.

Because Rhea “borrowed” Seteth’s shield, so maybe Indech thought Lions looked rad, or he met some since he had his workshop in Faerghus, idk.

So here goes Great Emperor Wilhelm, with his Legendary armor, his lion faced shield and his dragon horns on his crown.

Guy looked like a chimera, but bar that?

In Modern Fodlan, Lions are associated to Faerghus, not to Adrestia (they prefer birds instead). So for nationalist Adrestia, who really really hates those loser from Faerghus who won their independance, it’d be pretty ironic that Faerghus “retook” the Lion symbol and imagery from Great Emperor Willy and used it instead.

It would fit with the Hresvelg’s loss of the mandate (and how ultimately, House Blaiddyd through Dimitri recovers it), and its slow but steady decline, Faerghus, through Loog, appropriates one of Willy’s symbols to mark his opposition to his current Adrestia, which was already nothing like the Adrestia that existed 700 years ago, Willy’n’Rhea’s Adrestia.

Now, why am I writing this?

I just thought about something :

The dagger Rhea uses to acupuncture Nemesis is, unlike other Indech-made weapons, rather plain.

There’s no distinctive crest or sign on it, it’s just a dagger.

And we know, through FE16 but also Nopes, that daggers have some sort of symbolism in Fodlan, especially in Faerghus - besically boy gifting a dagger to girl means he appreciates girl.

But what if, just like Lions, this “custom” was also imported from your old Adrestia?

Rhea’s dagger looking completely plain and random could be explained if it was a human weapon, maybe Willy’s random dagger he gave to “Seiros” thinking she could defend herself with this, before her big bro came up with the sword we all know.

I always found it interesting how the WoH kind of mirrored in some parts the central conflict in FE16 between Supreme Leader and Dimitri/the World - and while it might be completely coincidental, the close up on that dagger during this Tailtean Scene and the importance of Dimitri’s dagger in AM makes me draw parallels, maybe when they’re not supposed to be drawn lol

Seiros carved a new future for Fodlan using this dagger, just like Dimitri told Supreme Leader to do with the dagger he gave her.

Basically, Rhea had no idea saying “Wilhelm through this dagger helped me defeat Nemesis, he is the most wonderful Emperor of all times” would later be interpreted as “Emperor Wilhelm gifted a dagger to Seiros to seal their alliance”, which was later interpreted as “giving a dagger to the woman you love is just like replaying what happened between Emperor Wilhelm and Saint Seiros!” -

Ultimately ending up with Lambert giving a dagger to his first wife, and Dimitri (who compares himself to Willy during a certain scene in FE16!) doing the same to Supreme Leader.

Of course Adrestians choose to forget this part, and renamed the covenant of the white dagger and red blood in “covenant of the white sword and red blood” because penis size jokes irked them, also because only barbarians express their affection with weapons instead of sweet talk, poetry and songs (remember the very first Adrestian poet and her “ode to Saint Macuil”?) and after a few years they thought Church Sus.

Tl; Dr : Faerghus borrowed more Adrestian (Willy version) symbols than they thought, the very same symbols Adrestia (MAGA version) threw away while they were/are declining.

[96thdayofrage]

Going into the 2020 elections, Democrats had high hopes that Joe Biden would win the presidential contest by enough of a margin to ensure solid Democratic majorities in Congress. That was a pretty big deal: After all, in a period of interconnected public-health and economic crises, having one of our two highly polarized parties in a position to get legislation through Congress provided a much better prospect for effective governance than the bipartisanship everyone supports in principle but no one (least of all today’s Republicans) actually practices.

As it happens, Democrats did manage to pull off a trifecta (just as Republicans did in 2016), but by the narrowest possible margins. That outcome, alongside the existence of the Senate filibuster, has forced President Biden to pursue the cramped and complicated budget reconciliation process to enact his initial agenda, with all the perverse implications that come with it (e.g., exclusion of a $15 minimum wage by the Senate parliamentarian). And hanging over every decision Democrats make is the historical probability that they will lose one or both houses of Congress in the 2022 midterms.

If it feels like we’ve lived in this sort of gridlock for a good while, it’s because we have, as Lee Drutman observes at FiveThirtyEight:

[T]he period we find ourselves in now is unique in that the national partisan balance of power is extremely close (with control of national government up for grabs in almost every cycle), even as most states and most voters are either solidly Democratic or Republican. What’s more, the national outcome often hinges on just a few swing states and districts. This period is also unique in the extent to which America is divided. Hatred toward the other party drives our politics. This produces a deeply polarizing and highly destructive form of partisan trench warfare that threatens to erode the very legitimacy of American democracy.

There was a moment, after the 2008 elections, when prophecies abounded that America might support an enduring Democratic majority on the wings of a new “Obama coalition” that would just get larger as younger cadres of citizens began voting. The 2010 midterm disaster for Democrats dashed those hopes, which were briefly revived after 2018, at least so long as it appeared Biden was going to crush Trump in a landslide. No such luck.

As Cook Political Report’s Amy Walter reminds us, today’s volatility is relatively new:

Democrats controlled the House for 40 straight years from 1954 until 1994. Democratic control of the Senate lasted uninterrupted for 25 years—from 1955 to 1980. From 1952 until 1988, Republicans won 7 of 10 presidential elections. This is the era in which many of my peers (and those who mentored me) were raised …

Today, most of those who work in politics don’t know of a time when control of the House, Senate and/or White House wasn’t up for grabs.

Drutman compares the current era to another period of gridlock and polarization: the late 19th-century Gilded Age. From 1876 until 1896, “at least one institution [House, Senate or the White House] changed partisan hands in eight out of 10 elections.” As is happening now, voter turnout was very high with virtually every election having big consequences for partisans. And political contests were intense and even bitter, particularly in the few swing states (typically New York and Indiana) that determined election outcomes more often than not. That sounds familiar, too. Even one of the Gilded Age’s great anomalies — the nonsequential presidencies of Grover Cleveland — is back in the news lately, as defeated President Donald Trump is talking about a 2024 comeback, with even Republicans who don’t like the idea (such as Mitch McConnell and Brian Kemp) quickly saying they will support him if he is, as seems likely should he actually run, the party nominee.

But there is one aspect of today’s polarized gridlock that is unlike that of the Gilded Age, as Drutman notes: In the late 1800s, “the two parties didn’t actually stand for all that much — a stark contrast from today��s politics, where the major parties have distinct policies on a host of national issues.”

The Gilded Age began when sharp partisan differences over the consequences of the Civil War (e.g., whether to impose Black political and economic rights, not just freedom from slavery, on a former Confederacy where white terrorism challenged any sort of equality) had been resolved by the Compromise of 1877, in which Republicans abandoned Reconstruction in order to secure the presidency for Rutherford B. Hayes, who favored an end to Reconstruction in any event. After that fateful bipartisan deal, partisan differences mostly involved tariff policies and patronage until the era ended with the emergence of a Populist movement that realigned both parties and eventually led to a long period of Republican dominance.

Today’s polarized gridlock is arguably more like that of the 1850s, in which the fundamental differences over slavery policy and a hundred related issues created close elections but an overall atmosphere of great turbulence, eventually leading, of course, to an insurrection and a bloody military conflict.

The 1850s precedent illustrates one way out of the current quandary: no, not necessarily a civil war, but a realignment of the major parties that shakes up allegiances and perhaps creates a new and more stable majority (like the one that Republicans enjoyed for a while when secession and then Reconstruction took much of the white rebel South out of the picture).

Today’s Republicans are thought by some as likely to rupture decisively over the “conservative populist” white-nationalist producerism represented by Trump, though my guess is that the GOP Establishment will either surrender to a Trump-led purge of dissenters or co-opt the MAGA movement the way they co-opted the Tea Party movement earlier. Meanwhile, some Democratic “populists” think it’s long past time to conduct a purge of “Wall Street Democrats” of their own, aimed in part at a party realignment that might bring back white working-class voters to the Donkey banner.

More likely than a realignment is some crucial partisan victory on issues that directly affect the partisan balance, most notably voting rights, where very obviously the two parties (Republicans mostly operating at the state level and Democrats at the national level) are moving in opposite directions in ways that could significantly affect the size and shape of the electorate in the near future. And there is always the possibility that objective reality will bust up a gridlocked system, as the Great Depression brought the post–Gilded Age Republican majority to a crashing end when the GOP proved unable to manage the crisis.

If, despite all these possibilities, today’s political environment continues, then we can look forward to more high-stakes elections with disputed outcomes, less consistent governance, and the kind of fury that makes bipartisanship even less likely than big differences on major issues already does. America needs a good landslide or two, and if either party (or in theory, a new party) can produce that breakthrough, it could be in power for a good long time.

[blue-politics-reblogs]

"A New York Times examination of the 77 democracy-bending days between election and inauguration shows how, with conspiratorial belief rife in a country ravaged by pandemic, a lie that [t]rump had been grooming for years finally overwhelmed the Republican Party and, as brake after brake fell away, was propelled forward by new and more radical lawyers, political organizers, financiers and the surround-sound right-wing media."

- "As [t]rump’s official election campaign wound down, a new, highly organized campaign stepped into the breach to turn his demagogic fury into a movement of its own, reminding key lawmakers at key times of the cost of denying the will of the president and his followers. Called Women for America First, it had ties to [t]rump and former White House aides then seeking presidential pardons, among them Stephen K. Bannon and Michael T. Flynn.

"As it crossed the country spreading the new gospel of a stolen election in [t]rump-red buses, the group helped build an acutely [t]rumpian coalition that included sitting and incoming members of Congress, rank-and-file voters and the 'de-platformed' extremists and conspiracy theorists promoted on its home page — including the white nationalist Jared Taylor, prominent QAnon proponents and the Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio.

"With each passing day the lie grew, finally managing to do what the political process and the courts would not: upend the peaceful transfer of power that for 224 years had been the bedrock of American democracy.

- "For every lawyer on [t]rump’s team who quietly pulled back, there was one ready to push forward with propagandistic suits that skated the lines of legal ethics and reason. That included not only Mr. Giuliani and lawyers like Sidney Powell and Lin Wood, but also the vast majority of Republican attorneys general, whose dead-on-arrival Supreme Court lawsuit seeking to discount 20 million votes was secretly drafted by lawyers close to the White House, The Times found.

- McConnell attempted one of his sly long games, "under a false impression that [trump] was only blustering, the officials said. Mr. McConnell had had multiple conversations with the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and the senator’s top political adviser, Josh Holmes, had spoken with Mr. Kushner, [trump’s] son-in-law and senior adviser. Both West Wing officials had conveyed the same message: They would pursue all potential avenues but recognized that they might come up short. [t]rump would eventually bow to reality and accept defeat.

"The [then] majority leader rendered his verdict on Nov. 9, during remarks at the first postelection Senate session. Even as he celebrated Republican victories in the Senate and the House — which in party talking points somehow escaped the pervasive fraud that cast Mr. Biden’s victory in doubt — Mr. McConnell said, '[t]rump is 100 percent within his rights to look into allegations of irregularities and weigh his legal options.' He added, 'A few legal inquiries from the president do not exactly spell the end of the republic.'

- "Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, then the Judiciary Committee chairman, went on Sean Hannity’s program to share an affidavit from a postal worker in Erie, Pa., who said he had overheard supervisors discussing illegally backdating postmarks on ballots that had arrived too late to be counted. He had forwarded it to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

"'They can all go to hell as far as I’m concerned — I’ve had it with these people. Let’s fight back,' Mr. Graham said. 'We lose elections because they cheat us.'

"Earlier that day, however, the postal worker had recanted his statement in an interview with federal investigators — even though he continued to push his story online afterward. His affidavit, it turned out, had been written with the assistance of the conservative media group Project Veritas, known for its deceptive tactics and ambush videos.

- "[W]ith the White House counsel, Pat A. Cipollone, backing him, Mr. Barr told [trump] that he could not manufacture evidence and that his department would have no role in challenging states’ results, said a former senior official with knowledge about the meeting, a version of which was first reported by Axios. The allegations about manipulated voting machines were ridiculously false, he added; the lawyers propagating them, led by Mr. Giuliani, were 'clowns.'

- "The [Paxton] lawsuit was audacious in its scope. It claimed that, without their legislatures’ approval, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin had made unconstitutional last-minute election-law changes, helping create the conditions for widespread fraud. Citing a litany of convoluted and speculative allegations — including one involving Dominion voting machines — it asked the court to shift the selection of their Electoral College delegates to their legislatures, effectively nullifying 20 million votes.

"Condemnation, some of it from conservative legal experts, rained down.

..."One lawyer knowledgeable about the planning, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said: 'There was no plausible chance the court will take this up. It was really disgraceful to put this in front of justices of the Supreme Court.'

"Even the Republican attorney general of Georgia, Chris Carr, said it was 'constitutionally, legally and factually wrong.'

"That prompted a call from [trump], who warned Mr. Carr not to interfere, an aide to the attorney general confirmed. The pressure campaign was on.

- "The next day, Dec. 9, Representative Mike Johnson of Louisiana sent an email to his colleagues with the subject line, 'Time-sensitive request from [t]rump.' The congressman was putting together an amicus brief in support of the Texas suit; [t]rump, he wrote, 'specifically asked me to contact all Republican Members of the House and Senate today and request that all join.' [trump], he noted, was keeping score: 'He said he will be anxiously awaiting the final list to review.'

- "Some 126 Republican House members, including the caucus leader, Mr. McCarthy, signed on to the brief, which was followed by a separate brief from [trump] himself. 'This is the big one. Our Country needs a victory!' [t]rump tweeted. Privately, he asked Senator Ted Cruz of Texas to argue the case.

- "On Dec. 11, the court declined to hear the case, ruling that Texas had no right to challenge other states’ votes.

"If the highest court in the land couldn’t do it, there had to be some other way.

- "And so they came the next day, by the thousands, to a long-planned rally in Washington, filling Freedom Plaza with red MAGA caps and [t]rump and QAnon flags, vowing to carry on. [trump’s] legal campaign to subvert the election might have been unraveling, but their most trusted sources of information were glossing over the cascading losses, portraying as irrefutable the evidence of rampant fraud.

"'The justice system has a purpose in our country, but the courts do not decide who the next president of the United States of America will be,' the freshly pardoned former national security adviser, Mr. Flynn, told the crowd. 'We the people decide.'

"There was encouragement from figures like Marjorie Taylor Greene, the conspiracy theorist just elected to Congress from Georgia, and Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, beamed in on a giant video screen.

"'Hey there, all of you happy warrior freedom fighters,' Ms. Blackburn said. 'We’re glad you’re there standing up for the Constitution, for liberty, for justice.'

- "The rally had been planned by Women for America First, which was quietly becoming the closest thing [t]rump had to a political organizing force, gathering his aggrieved supporters behind the lie of a stolen election.

"The group’s founder, Amy Kremer, had been one of the original Tea Party organizers, building the movement through cross-country bus tours. She had been among the earliest [t]rump supporters, forming a group called Women Vote Trump along with Ann Stone, ex-wife of the longtime [t]rump adviser Roger Stone.

- "'What we do now is we take note of the people who betrayed [t]rump in Congress and we get them out of Congress...We’re going to make the Tea Party look tiny in comparison.'"

[blackroseraven]

I'm relieved, and happy.

The terrible thing is that an election shouldn't make someone "relieved" or "happy." It should be boring, just the gears of democracy grinding forward, a replacement of one figurehead for another. Maybe one that will guide the nation using different methods and ideals, sure, but the agenda should always be the same: the betterment of the nation. There shouldn't be celebrating and dancing in the street, and we shouldn't feel the relief so many of us clearly are. Any more than people should feel a sense of doom or defeat; we should be Americans, together, and democracy should be a monotonous ritual where we can all feel confident that at the end of the day, no matter how much we might disagree with the next person in charge, they're still going to do their best.

Trump wasn't that. Trump played golf and visited his own properties over 500 times. Trump never had a functioning cabinet, any more than he was ever a successful businessman. We know that Trump's taxes are... not good, even if it's hard, actually, to pin down why: tax and tax law are very complex, but the obvious patterning shows a laziness, almost an arrogance that would draw the attention of any accountant.

Trump had a nation put children in cages. I don't care "who built the cages" or "who was behind the original law" or anything like that: I don't care about talk, but about actions, and this is what ICE did. I care that over 500 children cannot be reunited with their parents after being separated from them at the border. Trump created tariffs that hurt America and his behavior has been antithetical to global peace and prosperity.

Was he a racist as well as an incompetant buffoon? Probably. But that doesn't matter: we know for a fact that white nationalist groups supported him, from the KKK to neonazi movements, and that he had his own personal cult, QAnon, even though he was never cunning enough to wield the power of Q himself, always just a figurehead of the conspiracy. What matters to Trump is Trump, and Trump alone: I don't think it matters how racist, how cruel, or how he feels about things. As Mary Trump attests in her book, he is like a toddler: he only cares about things that care about and benefit Trump.

But the worst part was his incompetence. The worst part, and the entire reason he failed as an autocrat: he is a bumbler, who can only gain the help of fellow bumblers, and who is easily manipulated by anyone who makes it into his orbit if they have the necessary selfishness and cunning. Look at Parscale, who is now writing a tell-all book, after having done pathetic little work to help Trump's sinking ship of a campaign.

And yet people will tell you he is Alpha, even though he's a fat man who eats nothing but McDonald's in spite of being in the highest office in the land, and had to pay to have sex with a porn star shortly after the birth of his youngest son. That he's a genius, in spite of the fact he has trouble stringing a coherent sentence together and repeats the same lie over and over again. That he is a Lion, even though he fires by tweet and has his underlings face the world for him, while he runs off to golf or hides like a coward. That he only speaks the Truth, even though no Covid vaccine has materialized despite his promises, we STILL don't have a healthcare plan but at most, vagaries, and of course his blameshifting with regards to the pandemic when he is President and should have been showing, oh, I don't know, leadership?

Could I even maintain my friendship with someone who supported Trump? I don't honestly know. I say that as someone who doesn't like to go to extremes, but Trump impacted me and people like me so much, and so many of his supporters took such joy in it, I would spend a long time musing on it. People go "oh well gosh you can't judge ME by what OTHER PEOPLE did," but these are often the same people who refer to the "liberal elite" as one monolithic structure. Because people love to generalize, but hate being generalized. And how much do you really care about "me" beyond what you perceive of me as, if I have these very real concerns about hardening of rules around immigrants and immigration, about the lawlessness and overzealousness of ICE, about how "my kind" are treated, and the response is always "well, but..." or "I'm sure you're exaggerating."

People have made Trump into this persona that doesn't exist. I'm sorry, but the Emperor is just a fat orange man, addled in all the ways that his sycophants have accused Biden of being... or have you not noticed how often the very people accusing various Trumpian enemies are themselves guilty of the exact crimes they're describing? We aren't in the era of gaslighting: this is the era of projection, where we avoid guilt by blaming other people for our sins.

Take the election, for example, and how PA legislature purposefully delayed ballot counting as part of a known plan, a “campaign strategy” by Trump to undermine the election. And I’m disgusted with the people complaining about “mail-in” ballots being used when Trump himself was doing nothing but discouraging them, essentially handicapping himself. Furthermore, how do you think military people overseas vote? By magic? Or do our soldiers no longer matter when they’re no longer useful to your cause and your ideology?

Don’t answer. We all know the truth. The screaming red hats showed us that, just as they showed us how people want to be ruled over, and the real people living in a bubble aren’t the “liberal coastal elite” but the now-minority that’s desperate to keep itself in power in a country that is trying to adapt, change, and evolve as the world does so.

Biden is far from perfect and not at all my ideal candidate, but at least he’s a decent human being, who stays off twitter. And I look forwards to having rational ideological disagreements rather than living in fear and disgust. I look forwards to being able to speak my mind again, even if it will be a long time before I feel again like I am actually welcome in this country, if I ever was at all; like I’m not an outsider to this nation, and that if many of these vile people had their way, I would be removed, no matter what good I’ve done, or how much of my blood and sweat has been spent working alongside them.

If Trump is your idea of a "strong man," then you need to reflect on where you are in your life, honestly, and how happy you are with it, and how you got there. And I pray you find your answers and your peace. And if this "offends you..." what was that popular MAGA motto?

Ah, yes.

Fuck your feelings, snowflake. Facts don't care about your feelings.

[fatpinocchio]

White nationalist Richard Spencer has said he will be backing Democratic candidate Joe Biden in November's election after previously distancing himself from Donald Trump.

Spencer, who was one of the key figureheads of the alt-right movement, tweeted how he is "on Team Joe" on Monday, adding in a self-made campaign slogan, "Liberals are clearly more competent"...

In another tweet, Spencer added: "I will never flip on my fundamental principles. (My principles were never voting for the supposed 'the lesser or two evils' or 'stopping big government.')

"Walking into certain defeat, even death, is not heroic. It's foolhardy. I have no sympathy for martyrs. I admire winners."

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Joan E Greve, David Smith, and Robert Tait at The Guardian:

The United States was launched on a fresh course of disruption and division on Monday as Donald Trump was sworn in as its 47th president, promising a blitz of executive orders, a radical shake-up of the global order and a “golden age of America”. In a ceremony staged indoors in the US Capitol because of sub-zero temperatures, the former president prepared to return to the White House in triumph after taking the oath of office from John Roberts, chief justice of the supreme court. Trump immediately struck a nationalistic tone in his inaugural address, vowing to “put America first”. “The golden age of America begins right now. From this day forward, our country will flourish and be respected again all over the world. We will be the envy of every nation, and we will not allow ourselves to be taken advantage of any longer during every single day of the Trump administration, I will, very simply, put America first,” he said. “America’s decline is over.”

Trump called his election “a mandate to completely and totally reverse a horrible betrayal and all of these many betrayals that have taken place, and to give the people back their faith, their wealth, their democracy, and indeed, their freedom. From this moment on America’s decline is over”.

He added: “The journey to reclaim our republic has not been an easy one, that I can tell you. Those who wish to stop our cause have tried to take my freedom and indeed to take my life. Just a few months ago, in a beautiful Pennsylvania field, an assassin’s bullet ripped through my ear, but I felt then and believe even more so now, that my life was saved for a reason. I was saved by God to make America great again.” Despite the alternately positive and threatening tone, Trump’s language still departed from the loftier rhetoric deployed at inaugurations by some of his predecessors, four of whom – Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and George W Bush – were present to hear his address. Confirming widespread expectations of a flurry of first-day activity, Trump announced a series of executive orders he would immediately sign, many of them focusing on immigration – including declaring a state of emergency at the southern US border to allow for the deployment of the armed forces, and attempting to end birthright citizenship. Trump said he would designate drug cartels as foreign terrorist organisations, revoke the electrical vehicle mandate, and set up an External Revenue Service to collect tariffs on imported goods, though he did not say what those rates would be. He also promised to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, and “take back” the Panama Canal. The inauguration ceremony has been moved inside to the rotunda at the US Capitol building because of bitterly cold weather. The high sandstone hall at the Capitol’s centre is the same spot where some of his supporters rioted on 6 January 2021 in an attempt to overturn his election defeat.

Few imagined then that Trump, twice impeached and now a convicted criminal, would set foot inside the White House again. But over the weekend the 78-year-old revelled in his improbable political comeback with supporters of his Maga (Make America great again) movement, including a Sunday rally at the Capitol One arena, where he promised : “We’re going to unlock the liquid gold that’s right under our feet ... We’re going to bring back law and order to our cities ... We’re going to get radical woke ideology the hell out of our military.”

Today, His Illegitimacy was inaugurated as the US’s 47th “President” and becomes the first felon to be occupying the White House.

His inauguration speech, just like in 2017, was the same old divisive liefest that felt devoid of empathy.

See Also:

HuffPost: Trump Makes History: First Convicted Felon To Take Oath As President

Daily Kos: 9 Trump inauguration promises that won't lower the price of your eggs

[evilelitest2]

Do you think ever since 2016 we're finally seeing a change in politics? Change in policies, change in candidates, change in how government is run? And 2020 is like mmkay let's try something that actually works

I think 2016 was a game changer in three major cultural respects.  

1) It basically gave the Republicans “Permission” to take the mask off entirely about how utterly vile they are, which I think was a wake up call to a lot of centrists about how the Republicans were not just “people who we reasonably disagree with” to “oh this is a White Nationalist authoritarian death cult”   So the Republicans have become utterly openly awful which I think was a wake up call for a lot of people.  Also Americans might start to take Far Right terrorism seriously.  

2) It finally got the left to actually take this seriously.  The left is super lazy and doesn’t really do much which is why the Right has been winning since 1980, the left doesn’t really have the Rights motivation.  The last four years seem to indicate that the left is finally realizing that they need to fight to the death in order to defeat the Republican party.  

3) The Right basically gave up on winning the culture war.  Like outside the 35% of the country who like Trump, MAGA are generally (correctly) imagined as a force of ignorance, bigotry, hypocrisy and evil so even as they control the goverment they have utterly lose control of the cultural zeitgeist.  

This combined with the fact that the US is going to be a minority majority country soon mean we could finally have a game breaking change in US politics...but that isn’t possible until Trump is out of office.   

[202109237ciac2223]

The Ongoing Controversy of Donald J Trump in Ex-Presidency, The Ever-Present Populist Mind of America

On January the 8th, after the chaotic scenes that unfolded at the Capitol Building, Trump exclaimed ‘to all of those who asked, I will not be going to the inauguration on January 20th’. This is the first time a former president has been so callous towards a successor. This was met by unfathomable praise by all MAGA supporters alike, and as the sun rose on inauguration day, air force one touched down in south beach Florida airport, sure enough Trump stuck to his word. Tradition was broken on this historic day, and the divide became ever clearer in the always evolving political landscape of America.

During his more than tumultuous time in the White House, Donald Trump caused several issues for the American government. These problems consist of the mishandling of COVID-19, the attempted defunding for Obama care, boosting religious education, denying medical treatment for LGBTQ+ citizens and the list goes on. These issues between 2017-2021 created an America that is still crippled from the resurgence of the far right. Donald Trump is easily the most infamous president ever to take the White House and the number of scandals, speeches, policies he set in motion have continued even outside of his presidency, which has not been an easy task for the current Biden administration to fix.

The numerous scandals surrounding the absurdity of Donald Trump’s post presidency, have been amongst the familiar mundanity of his days this mostly spent playing golf in Mar A Lago and taking to ‘TRUTH Social’ to proclaim wild things about ‘the left’ and preach about his loss to the democrats. On September 24th, during the election he proclaimed ‘we want to make sure the election is honest, and I am not sure that it can be. I don’t know that it can be with this whole situation of unsolicited ballots’. This unequivocally shows the character he is by refusing to accept defeat at any cost, and how his wave of populism has, in a sense, destroyed the very democracy he swore to uphold.

Trump is the first president in US history to be impeached twice. This marks a pivotal point in recent US history, as throughout 2022 much of what happened has been linked to his second impeachment. Trumps heavy denial of the election result and the Capitol riots has set the tone for his post presidency. As he was in office for one term, he is constitutionally eligible to run for another term in 2024 and Many republicans have welcomed a second presidential term, which could be further damaging to the next election. This is in the form of very close supporters, like the self-proclaimed ‘Christian nationalist’ Marjorie Taylor Greene, who proclaimed that if she were in charge the riot ‘would have been armed’ and also went on record to say ‘I organised the whole thing’. This contradictory narrative seems to make up a great part of the Trump support, seemingly to be recognised by trump himself and be recognised within the republican party. The damaged republican party, at the current moment shows what an influence he still has and how even post-presidency, he is a force to be reckoned with in American politics.

His support post presidency has been a major event, especially in the crowded streets of the red states, Arizona particularly has been outspoken about their endorsement of Trump 2024. This endorsement has been especially present in the results of the Midterms, which the republicans have called ‘unfair’. Kari Lake, being of the most notable GOP republicans to have been endorsed by Trump and is one of many to call the midterm elections ‘fake’ and went so far as to say the US has a ‘broken election system’. Unwavering support for Trump continues even after the elections were found to be fair.

The endorsement of extreme republican candidates by Trump has also been controversial in his post presidency as his continued support for GOP candidates that deny the midterm results have damaged the republican party’s reputations. This is all too clear with the recent results showing Georgia and Arizona becoming Blue States.

As the table above shows, the effects of Trump’s endorsement have particularly damaged, the red states, especially Arizona and Georgia that have high republican followings. The democrats have won because of Trump’s post presidency endorsement and the ‘false results’ the GOP candidates have claimed, and this has only hurt their campaigns. Their claims for the ‘unfair democratic system’ have been a much more extreme version of opposition. The extremist populism is on the rise and only time will tell what will come of it. For some there is hope and for many, they are still stuck in their Grand Old Party ways.

Another event that struck the hearts of many in Trump’s post presidency, is that earlier this year, the FBI, raided his Mar A Lago estate, the events unfolded in what could only be described as a plot in a crime drama. The raid was conducted on the grounds of potential violation of the Espionage Act (1917). This was an ongoing investigation since the insurrection on January 6th, 2021. The raid was successful, the FBI found 15 boxes with 11 otherwise classified documents, some were even ‘top secret’ and only to be viewed in special government facilities. This was part of a federal investigation by the NARA (National Archives and Records Administration), who were also looking into his alleged tax fraud with his real estate business. Trump however, described the attack as ‘dark times for our nation’ exclaiming that the raid on his home was a disservice to democracy. Trump further claimed the White House officials were behind it, but they knew nothing of the sort.

The investigation conducted by the NARA looked into Trump’s breach of the Espionage Act (1917) as well as the Presidential Records Act (1978) which states documents must not leave the White   House after a former president finishes their term, this came after Nixon’s infamous Watergate scandal in 1975. The act states that the president does have control over where files go while in office, but after which are not allowed to be moved from such places. Trump formally denies that he took the documents, and accused the FBI, on his own social media platform ‘TRUTH Social’ to say that the FBI had planted the documents, and then said he had declassified the documents before leaving office.

This however is a baseless claim as the court documents, providing the search warrants to search the home stated that they had reason to believe he took the documents from the White House, which could further prove his involvement in the horrid insurrection that took place 2 years ago.  This change in narrative highlights his controversial post presidency, as he will change the narrative to suit his supporters.

The Mar A Lago debacle is still the main event that has taken Trump’s post presidency by storm, and the amount of support Trump had from republicans like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Kari Lake after the raid was staunch, and they went so far as to say they would ‘defund the FBI’ if they were in charge, which again goes to show how much support Trump has gained since his time in office. There is reason to believe that the raid has also had bad consequences for the GOP, as it has cemented further opposition for a Trump 2024 campaign.

Trump however, after announcing his new campaign MAGAGA (make America great and glorious again), as hilarious as it sounds has been something that to no one’s surprise has been somewhat successful, this expansion for his campaign is important as it has continued to gain attention, most notably from republican platforms like Fox news. The way Trumps post presidency has caused this uproar in populism, is nothing short of fascinating, and this is a time for the history books.

Considering recent events, regardless of how questionable they have been, there is always two sides to every story, and with Donald Trump’s post presidency, his time out of office has seen many, many narratives. These narratives mostly come from networks like Breitbart that are large parts of why Donald Trump’s post presidency has been controversial to say the least.

An example of this ulterior viewpoint is that outlets like Breitbart (run by republican Andrew Breitbart)  is that many of the articles endorse trump, and this site seems to be a place where the Trump post presidency support has accumulated. Articles like ‘big media claim Biden’s mishandling of classified documents is ‘different’ to Trump’s’ claim that how Biden handled secret documents was not different to trump. The article does not defend Trump but instead tries to bring Biden down to the same level. But the difference is Trump failed to comply with authorities out of office whereas Biden handed the documents over.

While many consider Trump being out of office a good thing, as the recent midterms suggest, many on the far right argue this should have never been an option as they continually claim that the election was rigged time and time again. Those on the far right argue without reason, Trump has been good for the United States and should therefore still be the rightful president. This is because of how those on the far right agree with trump regardless of rational thought. Many are republican for the sake of being republican, other support comes in the form of some of the most bigoted people in the US such as hate groups like Q-anon and the KKK, and while trump has no proven affiliation with these groups the resurfacing prevalence of these groups has caused more than a few problems for the current administration.

This voice that trump keeps giving these groups has undeniably had a big impact on the way the world now views the United States, and Trump continues to hold power in the rest of the world. The far right has been on the rise in Europe due to Trump bringing back a resurgence in right wing populism. A few cases like in Italy with the recent election of Giorgia Meloni and Viktor Orban in Hungary have been a key part of Trump’s popularity especially in Europe.

Daryl Davis, an Black political activist and musician, famous for talking to the KKK and getting them to quit the organisation, had an interesting opinion on Trump and said that ‘while I did not support him at the last election, I truly believe he is the best thing for my country’ and further stated ‘he is breaking the bone of the country, not by any intelligent design.. and we must rely on each other to rebuild together.’ This opinion is one of the more nuanced but is still important, as it is a perspective that fits both narratives. In context, Davis believes that we cannot hide American history (see accidental courtesy). While trump is not mentioned in the documentary, it shows how deep rooted this bigotry he gives a platform to is. This opinion is true especially looking back on what has happened throughout both Trumps presidency and post presidency. Biden is currently during sorting a giant divide in the White House.

To this extent Daryl Davis opinion on trump remains interesting, and eerily accurate as he shows that Trump is a key part of the divide and why he is so influential in the split in American politics. His push for an even greater campaign out of office for 2024 shows how Trump continues to make up a great part of the current political landscape and how he has managed to remain so controversial. Davis also showed how Trump is good for America like he believes. This is because through this populism and bigotry, ‘everyone will be hurt’ and so can progress together, because of how big the problems of Christian nationalism and racism are in the States.

There is also a much more centred and neutral outlook towards Donald Trump’s post presidency. As a result of staying out of regular politics. In this view the way Trump continues to change politics has been a talking point, a kind of pop culture joke. This view also seems to be present in the perspective of the rest of the world who are much less divided on the topic.

In some ways the rise of populism due to the impact of Trump, and his popularity even out of office has been good because people like Trump explain some of the broken fundamentals of modern western politics. However, the ways in which this rise in populism has become a staple of far-right politics has not done well for the reputation of the US he has left behind.

As the sun has set on 2022, we are another year away from a 2024 election, and nervously awaiting the results of the midterms and the presidential nominees. As well as this, the January 6th committee has wrapped up their investigation into Donald Trump’s engagement in the Capitol riots, his classified documents, and his tax fraud. What will 2023 bring, more scandals, more lies? The tension is high but has been more than exiting, I doubt we are even halfway through this disturbingly and scary story.

In conclusion, Trump’s post presidency has been rife with scandals and damning events. Donald Trump has been consistently in the news and his influence lives on in politicians like Marjorie Taylor Greene and internationally with Giorgia Meloni. His populist views, and his foreign policy have continued to have an impact in American politics despite not being indirectly involved, and his post presidency is only continuing to build on his damning legacy. Donald trump will forever be a major chapter in the ever evolving history of the United States and many will undoubtably watch on in awe as the story continues to unfold.