Tom Rinaldo
Tom Rinaldo's JournalI believe this is what sets Bernie and AOC apart from most who now hold national positions with Democratic support
In a nut shell it's their explicit condemnation of rampant greed in America, and how that greed coupled with concentrated power is rapidly destroying the chance for most Americans to live decent lives. Note, I didn't say that they stand out from all elected Democrats in that regard, just from most. Further, I fully acknowledge that virtually all elected Democrats share a strong concern for the economic well being of both working and middle class Americans, and that their votes typically reflect those concerns.
What stands out for me about Bernie and AOC in particular, though, is their focus on the long term big picture, and their utter lack of moral ambiguity in regards to economic inequality. They are unafraid to call it blatant wholesale thievery by the top 1% of Americans at the expense of the bottom 90%, who increasingly must struggle to get by.
I'm going to use a photography metaphor here, and reference needing to choose which details constitute the foreground, and which the background, in the composition of a picture. Our side of the aisle, broadly speaking, pretty much agree on what the picture of America today encompasses, It's in the focus that differences emerge. Exposing and opposing greed is in the foreground of Bernie and AOC's messaging, it's not relegated to some corner in the background. In the finest tradition of the American Labor movement. they don't hesitate to loudly call out, "Whose side are you on?" They aren't cowered by the fear that they'll be called out for being "anti-business", because they stress the abject immorality inherent in allowing three hyper rich Americans to control more wealth than the bottom half of all our citizens combined. They do not shy away from emphasizing the obscene aspect of "obscene wealth."
Far too often I've heard leading Democrats go out of their way to assure the public at large that Democrats have no quarrel with anyone accumulating unlimited wealth, so long as they pay "their fair share" of taxes - defined for the most part as a fixed percentage of earned income, a percentage that has shrunken considerably since Reagan's "Revolution." Wanting to avoid being seen as "embracing class warfare" too easily results in unilateral rhetorical disarmament.
Most Americans are getting a very raw deal under this oligarchy, and virtually all of them know it. They aren't always as clear though on who is to blame. But Bernie and AOC leave little doubt on that. They paint our common enemies in bold colors and painstaking detail. They keep it front and center. And it isn't just Donald Trump and Elon Musk and whatever Republicans happen to be in office at the moment. The Gilded Age of a century past never ended in the dreams and aspirations of the amoral heirs of that prior oligarchy. Their continued greed increasingly bleeds vitality from the lives of hundreds of millions of Americans today.
Frankly, I'm mot surprised that Bernie and AOC's "Fight Oligarchy' campaign is resonating so strongly in parts of our nation no one would confuse with being solidly blue, that instead were purple or even red in the 2024 election. They are not mincing words. They are naming names and assigning blame. Bernie and AOC's straight forward indictment of greed at the expense of human needs, is breaking through.
If a Government shutdown actually would help Trump's ultimate agenda, Trump would have arranged it.
When the dust of conflicting arguments finally settles, that's the truth that stands. It would have been so easy for Republicans to make sure that their so called Continuing Resolution failed to clear the House. Johnson whipped the Republican caucus HARD to get it to pass. He could easily have let a few Freedom Caucus fanatics go astray, which would have killed it cold. If Trump's authoritarian power grab is made easier by a government shutdown, he simply could have guaranteed that it happen. If that was what he wanted he could have made it so, and not have risked having Democrats help keep the government open b allowing the "continuing Resolution" pass the Senate..
If for NO OTHER REASON, Dems must defeat the Repubs Continuing Resolution...
...because the House has language in it that blocks the ability of Congress to scale back or eliminate Trump's trade war tariffs. Americans already disapprove of those tariffs, and soon they will absolutely loathe them as their cost of living surges.
No longer will complaints mostly focus on the cost of eggs alone. Energy costs will rise. The cost of virtually any product made using metals will surge, food from Mexico and overseas will spike. Meanwhile the economy of every state that exports agricultural products will go into a tailspin.
Democrats can and should force votes on ending the trade wars. But they give up that right if the Continuing Resolution passes. Talk about unilateral disarmament!
Republicans don't grasp what's about to hit them
...if Trump doesn't pull the plug on his world wide trade war really soon. Increasingly, it's looking like he won't, probably because he knows he won't get away with spinning it as a win if he does. Earlier, he might have pulled that off, at least in the eyes of his base. Behind the scenes he could have worked out some face saving gestures that Mexico, Canada, and Europe might have allowed him, some minuscule concessions on their parts, that Trump could have inflated beyond all rational bounds to claim "victory." Now however he's poured so much gasoline on the fire that other nations increasingly are defiant. None trust Trump at his word, it is worth nothing. Why make concessions for good will when no good will will be given in return? More likely, sensing weakness, Trump would just stab them in the back,
Trump has boxed himself in with these trade wars, the only thing he is wired to do is escalate. He is psychologically incapable of a full scale retreat. Increasingly I believe America's recent strong allies will comprehend that the best way to neuter Trump is to turn the American public strongly against him. To make that happen, Americans need to suffer real economic pain, that can be pinned directly on Trump. The trade wars that Trump launched will do just that. Of course the people of our until recent allies will suffer also, but Trump has stoked Anti-American feelings inside all of those nations. They won't blink first, it has become almost a real war and they know that Trump must first be humbled, and then destroyed. They will blame Trump as well, not their own governments.
The plummeting stock market has broken through and captured the American public's attention, but that is just the opening act. Trade war sticker shock has yet to take hold. Prices are about to rise sharply for goods and services across the board. When they do, those who brought it on, Trump, Musk, and their sycophants in Congress, will face widespread public rage, and all their ravings against transgenders in women's sports will fail to deflect it.
A Modest Proposal: One Billion Dollar Political Campaign
Broadcast TV ads, Cable TV ads, Radio, social media, billboards, signs, mailers, bumper stickers, podcasts, phone banks, door knocking,, all of it. Everything that Democrats employ/deploy to wage a presidential election campaign; not just for a day, not just for a week, but sustained for several months. Starting now, we can't wait for. 2028.
Marshall McLuhan once famously said: ""The medium is the message" Of course the message conveyed by a major political campaign matters. But what will matter more is the fact that one occurs. One bearing witness to an existential crisis in America, not timed to a predictable regular political cycle. We have exited bushiness as usual, though not everyone has fully grasped that yet, not its deepest implications.
These are not normal political times. On some level everyone knows it, but it needs to dominate our national perception. Like the danger to the Union was made incontrovertible by the outbreak of the Civil War. Like the violent disintegration of the entire world order was brought home to Americans by the attack on Pearl Harbor. We are entering times like those, and we can't react as if the stakes were merely how can Democrats best position themselves to retake the House in 2026.
Better political minds than mine can craft the most effective talking points, visual imagery, dramatic theme music, slogans, settings, and the like. But the cost to average Americans, the price they will pay if the Trump regime and it's billionaire backers get their way, must be driven home forcefully, and an occasional snippet of an outraged and/or alarmed public figure broadcast on the evening news (or its modern equivalent) just doesn't cut it. This is the break glass moment, and people need to hear it shattering.
The scale of a campaign IS the wake up call for America, more so than the literal content of it. People MOBILIZE in the face of extreme threats, they don't rehash commentary on it. The scale of the reaction to Trump's unconstitutional seizure of power has to be commensurate with the gravity of the moment. It would be unprecedented for pro-democracy forces in America to commit to and launch a political messaging campaign equivalent to the blitzkrieg of a heated presidential campaign in the fall preceding a presidential election. The medium is the message. That's what an effective wake up call looks like.
For those who might say that the money is not there to pull that off now, what makes you think we will be in a better position to pull it off in 2028? We have all witnessed the corrosive influence of "obedience in advance." Trump is consolidating power daily, the more he accumulates the more likely others are to fall silent in the face of it. What good is it to keep your powder dry only to have it later confiscated by the enemy and added to his arsenal?
Everything depends on Trump's relative popularity, which depends on how people see his impact on their lives.
The Courts can't save us from a popular Demagogue, though they can buy us time to build the resistance. Ultimately in our political system there are no checks or balances that can/will constrain a want to be tyrant who remains popular with a sufficiently large segment of the population. Power ultimately emanates either from the people or the gun. Laws can be rewritten, willfully misinterpreted, or ignored, if those who do so have the support of enough people, or of those willing to use enough force to achieve their ends.
Tradition is, as many old school true conservatives like to remind us, in many ways more powerful than laws. The United States has strong democratic traditions, dating back to the ethos of the American revolution that birthed our nation. But our constitution is riddled with provisions that reflect other, darker traditions as well. Starting of course with the legal status of slavery, and of male supremacy. America's darker traditions are undemocratic, and they have a strong effect on how law is used. Competing traditions have always animated our nation's political life.
The Constitution ultimately extols the Rule of Law, over compliance with the whims of a monarch, but it does not enshrine an egalitarian society. Laws are neither democratic nor authoritarian by intrinsic neither, they can further either end. Republicans in general, and Trump specifically, have perfected exploiting the distinction between democratic means and legal means. When possible they use legal means to undermine democratic ends. If doing so doesn't trigger a big enough backlash against them, they then push further and increasingly cross over into blatantly unconstitutional acts.
We do not have majority rule in America. It is riddled with exceptions, most of which are defined as perfectly legal. Trump's malevolent genius was to abandon any pretense of seeking majority support, and instead to consolidate power using a fervent subset of voters as his shock troops. And he ginned up that fervor by consistently painting other American's as their sworn enemies.
We essentially have minority rule in America today, but our democratic traditions remain vibrant enough that a sizable enough majority of Americans, using legal means, can still take down a demagogue like Trump if we are united in that goal. However we are not. Not yet anyway.
Ultimately the courts can't save us from ourselves. They are made up of individuals chosen by political means. The fact that federal judges have lifetime appointments insulates the judicial branch of government somewhat from manipulated wild swings in public opinion, or the dictates of gerrymandered false legislative majorities. We have not seen the Courts fold as quickly as the Republican led U.S. Senate has to Trump's authoritarian agenda, but in time they will, if for no other reason than Trump's ability to fill judicial vacancies: As has already been evidenced in the make up of the current Supreme Court and the decisions it has handed down.
The next and coming stage of autocracy comes with sharper teeth and the willingness to use them, making future resistance geometrically more difficult and costly to remaining freedoms.
To resist Trump and MAGA forces we either have to begin sweeping more elections, or decisively win over the hearts and minds of the American people, hopefully both.To do either, Trump's agenda must become wildly unpopular with a strong majority of the public. Mere qualms and reservations won't cut it. Unease and "concerns" are insufficient.
We invested much energy in making Trump, the man, unpopular. Ultimately it did not pay off. In a sense that only made him more of a modern anti-hero to far too many, a giant fuck you finger to wave at so called "elite" America. As long as Trump retains the loyalty of over 40% of Americans he is positioned to ultimately win. Attacks on Trump don't change that threshold. A focus on the damage he is doing to Democracy doesn't either. They may have brought us close, but not close enough.
Those lines of attack against MAGA still have a place, at the margins. But for the scale of opposition to the Trump regime that is needed to succeed, a clear majority of Americans need to believe that what he and the billionaire class are doing to America directly threatens their own lives and aspirations. Once the will of the people significantly aligns against a would be tyrant, then the checks and balances built into America's political system can kick in to hobble and ultimately defeat him. Until then danger grows.
When Trump says the U.S. wasn't "respected" under other Presidents
He actually means "feared." It is pure Mafia talk. He isn't talking about our traditional adversaries, he is talking about our traditional allies. Adversaries have always "respected" our military and economic might. It's our geopolitical friends, like Canada, Mexico and Denmark, who haven't evidenced being sufficiently intimidated by and deferential to U.S. power, to Trump's imperialistic satisfaction.
It's a case in point of Trump's Orwellian doublespeak. Nations are either feared or taken advantage of. "Nice guys" may be admired, but "nice guys" finish last, in Trump's world view. In his mind "Soft Power"
is just about as potent as a soft penis. It's a waste of time for a nation to win respect from the world community, not if it can bully others into submission instead.
"America First" is simply a more refined way of saying "No more Mr. Nice Guy.", and Trump can brandish the brass knuckles to prove it.
When will an anti-obscene wealth/greed message break through, and how?
That's what it will take to restore our democracy. The oligarchy has rapidly consolidated power here, and with every advance it makes avenues of resistance to it are closed off.
It is an entrenched creed in establishment America that it is a God given right for an individual to accumulate as much wealth as he or she is capable of accumulating, regardless of how much severe deprivation and suffering spreads and deepens all around them..
Gluttony was once considered a cardinal sin. It was instinctive for decent people to be repelled by it, but our culture celebrates those who amass mind boggling fortunes by virtually any means necessary, while belittling those in need. Americans now worship the Golden Calf.
We theoretically still have a free press, for those who can afford to own it. And those who do have intrinsic biases and interests they use that "free press" to further. The rest of us are "free" to share our thoughts, but billionaires like Musk and Zuckerberg control the algorithms that determine who will read them.
Most Americans can run for an elected office, but very few can accumulate the resources needed to do so viably. And even those few with the extraordinary talent needed to inspire massive grass roots fundraising from hundreds of thousands of small donors, can be cancelled out by one billionaire writing a check equivalent to 1/10,000th of their discretionary wealth.
Until obscene wealth is once again recognized as obscene by most Americans, real democracy has little chance. Until the Elon Musk's of this world are recognized as the true robber barons that they are, rather than being feted as visionary leaders, we will not successfully oppose them.
In a democracy no one has a god given right to oppress anyone, but that is exactly what the very existence of obscene wealth enables.
I've pulled back from politics and I don't feel guilty about it. Not yet.
I'm turning away from ugly truths much more often than not. Little if anything that I'm involved in lately has any larger meaning, beyond the people who i interact with daily.. After years of avoiding Netflix I'm now binging on "The Crown", after burning through "The Extraordinary Attorney Woo" and "The Queen's Gambit" in rapid succession.
I'm not trying to figure out where the Democratic Party "went wrong." I'm not following the contest for the next DNC Chair. I'm not preparing for any upcoming fights. If i was a drinker I would probably be drinking a little bit more than usual. If I had money to burn i would be looking into tropical islands for a getaway.
Reality is as depressing as I've ever experienced it. Worse things have happened to me and my loved ones than Donald Trump winning the presidency, but those events count as personal tragedies and hardships. This is more like everything I believe in being strangled and core ideals being slaughtered. I don't like the America I wake up in every day. I know much worse is coming, and I'm not lifting a finger to stop it. Not Yet anyway. Because I'm depleted.
There is a time to fight, and a time for licking your wounds. The latter is a part of the cycle, and needed for restoring strength. We are in this for a very long haul. I guess I'm still trying to catch my breath.. I know there is work ahead.
We have to become masters at exploiting pain
Of course I mean pain that we wished did not exist, pain that we tried our best to prevent, and pain that we will do all that we can to end. Trump's presidency will cause massive pain. That is certain. Since we could not prevent it the best that we can do is make sure that all the suffering is not completely in vain. We must be prepared to turn it to our political advantage where and whenever possible. That's what I mean by exploitation in this context.
We have to make sure that Trump and the Republicans receive all of the blame for all of the pain that they will cause. We all know the rhetorical question, if a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? Well, if suffering occurs in a neighborhood and no one is there to document it, is anyone hurt? Obviously yes, for those who suffered, but outside of that neighborhood the suffering can still be invisible. The suffering can not be invisible. It must be captured, and broadcast, and shared in emails endlessly.
Horrible suffering existed for generations in the Jim Crow south. Part of the genus of civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. was to highlight and shove that suffering into the faces of "ordinary Americans" (whites) so that they could no longer could hide from their complicity in perpetuating it.
Americans were no less racist in 1964 and 1965 when the Civil Rights and Voting Acts were passed than they are now. And fundamentally they were no less racist in 1964 and 1965 than they were in 1960 and 1961. The difference was that they watched Bull Connor sic police attack dogs on peaceful Black protestors on their TVs. The difference was that they saw broadcasts of mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers mourning the deaths of young black school girls at funerals for the children killed in a church bombing in Birmingham.
When legitimate refugees get murdered in Guatemala after Trump forcibly deports them, Americans should see the bloody details on TV. When an elder dies in an unheated apartment because she couldn't afford her bills Americans need to learn her name. Yes there sometimes is coverage of this sort on American media now. A little bit here, a little bit there, for the most part easily avoidable for most people, who go on as if nothing is happening. We must be experts at amplifying that news. It can't remain avoidable.
The people who are already on our side already understand. The people who hate people who are different from themselves will continue to celebrate their suffering. But their are others who can be touched. Social change, political change, happens when they are.
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