The Tyranny of Easy Answers: Trump’s comic-book destruction of America

The significant problems we face today cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them. Albert Einstein There is always an easy solution to every problem — neat, plausible, and wrong, H.L. Mencken The world is not about Batman and Robin fighting the Joker. Things are more complicated than that. And nothing is scarier than the people who … Continue reading The Tyranny of Easy Answers: Trump’s comic-book destruction of America

A Different Project for 2025: Finding an Off-Ramp from Trumpism

You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete. Buckminster Fuller You have to see it to be it. Billie Jean King Today is Martin Luther King Jr Day, and by a cruel twist of fate, Inauguration Day for Donald Trump. As we lurch into this new year and new era, partisans … Continue reading A Different Project for 2025: Finding an Off-Ramp from Trumpism

Where Do Dems Go From Here? The Chimera of Appealing to the Working Class

For every problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong. H.L. Mencken In (what feels like) the thousand years since the election, the postmortems have been coming fast and furious, including one on this very blog. The theories for the Democratic debacle are many, from the perseverance of systemic racism and sexism, to the global turn to strongman leaders in times of … Continue reading Where Do Dems Go From Here? The Chimera of Appealing to the Working Class

Convergence & Cataclysm: The Tectonic Plates of Trumpism

Clinging to politics is one way of avoiding the confrontation with the devouring logic of civilization. John Zerzan The only paradise is paradise lost. Proust In the big picture, the pandemic was probably the best thing that could have happened to Donald Trump. Had there been no Covid, he would have cruised to reelection, mainly due to the favorable conditions inherited from the Obama years. … Continue reading Convergence & Cataclysm: The Tectonic Plates of Trumpism

Election 2024: The Aftermath

Every important social movement reconfigures the world in the imagination. What was obscure comes forward, lies are revealed, memory shaken, new delineations drawn over the old maps: it is from this new way of seeing the present that hope emerges for the future…Let us begin to imagine the worlds we would like to inhabit, the long lives we will share, and the many futures in … Continue reading Election 2024: The Aftermath

Doom, Joy, and Reality: On the Moods of the 2024 Election

This fight is no longer between Democrats and Republicans. This is a fight between communism and freedom. It’s very serious fight. Donald Trump, August 27th An America where we care for one another, look out for one another, and recognize that we have so much more in common than what separates us. That none of us has to fail for all of us to succeed. … Continue reading Doom, Joy, and Reality: On the Moods of the 2024 Election

Bridge to Nowhere: Democrats After the Debate Debacle

Look, I view myself as a bridge, not as anything else. Joe Biden, March 2020 Bridge is nowhere; over the bridge, you feel an emptiness inside you. Bridge is nowhere. Mehmet Murat ildan Disclaimers: First, I am not a registered Democrat. I used to be, but in 2020 I changed over to the Green Party, and I’ve been voting those candidates ever since. Living in … Continue reading Bridge to Nowhere: Democrats After the Debate Debacle

Reaping the Whirlwind: The Conservative Dilemma

For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind. Hosea 8:7 With the 2024 election looming like an autumn iceberg in the mist, many people, liberals and conservatives, are wondering: “How did we get here?” How is it that, with the world collapsing around us on multiple fronts, we’re again stuck with two doddering octogenarians, who no one really wanted, vying for … Continue reading Reaping the Whirlwind: The Conservative Dilemma