Yup. The corporations and oligarchs have been getting their hooks in deeper and deeper since 2010. And now, in the second Gilded Age, we have the best democracy and the best justice system that money can buy. I wonder what the price tag for the presidency will be in 2028, given that that election will be a charade engineered to produce whatever result the biggest asshole with the most money wants.
Agreed that the tipping point was in 1980 with the election of Reagan and that Gingrich led the Cut-Your-Throat brigade. John Roberts and Citizens United in 2010 marked the elimination of any remaining pretense and the overt flinging open the doors for the oligarchs to brazenly parade through unimpeded by messy details such as laws and the concepts of truth and honesty.
Dirty politics a la Gingrich is nothing compared to the insidious evil we are now seeing with Musk and the rest of the “billionaire “ creeps sniveling trump is sleeping with. They apparently just can’t get enough of anything. Unfortunately the dumbing down of Americans with social media has left us with people who will believe anything and clearly have.
Zero punishment for the bankers after the recession helped fuel this too, and the rampant mis and disinformation that began with the pandemic and only continued to morph into other areas of the social media sphere.
My guess is that there will be one, in form only, just as there are "elections" in Russia and Hungary and Venezuela. As I say, a charade. We just showed that nearly 50% of the electorate will be unwilling or unable to see through the most obvious lies and scams, and a large percentage of eligible voters won't even bother to vote.
I fervently hope the paragraph above proves to be laughably wrong because we, the resistance, were able to bolster the few remaining guard rails and create so much friction that the christo-fascists could not complete the takeover.
Yes! And we can thank (Not) John Roberts for that. We all claim Clarence Thomas and Alito are the criminals but they give cover to Roberts…the real snake.
I feel like it's related to that football win at the last second field goal. Close game, then, 3 second mark the team you didn't want to win makes the goal. "How could this happen?" , "We were keeping up!" "If only we hadn't dropped that ball", "If only we would have tackled that guy". Whatever. If the team had started from the start of Quarter 1, and led the charge, they would have never been in that position. We are in that position now. It isn't just one person's fault. It's a series of people who were apathetic, ignorant, wealthy and could not relate to those that weren't, and flat out laziness. That's how we all screwed democracy.
Isn't that election interference? Between MSM and their complicit reporting of "fact" insanewashing Donald and the hypocricy on the reporting of Harris and Biden, the bomb threats on election day, the Russian collusion and the oligarchical purchase of a president; I would say thie election was completely fraudulents!
Free speech does NOT give license to knowingly decieve and misrepresent! How dare they defame RBG!
My hope is that some of the fools that voted for Trump will now realize how you got played like a fiddle. He is possibly the greatest con man of all time and makes Bernie Madoff look like Snow White.
I certainly hope they finally see through him and the rest of the Repuglicans. I will never understand how shortsighted and deluded people are in voting against themselves.
They will never admit they are fools and got played. It is too painful to admit the truth so the more brainwashed the more lost they are. I hope we can get to the low information voters before they too get brainwashed.
I have very little optimism about the future direction of the country in specific and humanity in general.
It’s always about the money, and those that have it typically use it in the worst ways imaginable.
I often ask myself: why don’t wealthiest among us use (at least SOME of) their money for the greater good? And then I remember: their primary interest is to accumulate more. It is a sickness.
"Make America Great Again", aside from being codespeak for "Make America White Again", is often said to represent nostalgia for the 1950s. Please could someone remind me what the marginal tax rates were in the 1950s?
The top marginal tax rate for 1944 thru 1951 was 91%. In 1952 and 1953 the top rate was 92%. In 1954 to 1963 the top marginal rate went back to 91%. The working folks may feel nostalgic for the days when one working member of the family could make enough to support a family, buy a house and a car and still save enough to put kids through a state-supported college.
Unfortunately, our American oligarchs have no such fond memories of the high marginal tax rates and are working VERY hard indeed to make sure those high marginal tax rates never support a happy healthy middle class ever again.
And what they really don't like us to remember is that the rich STILL got richer, even with those tax rates. Just not SO much SO fast. And the rest of us got to have a decent life. Unfortunately, they don't think anyone else should have anything.
"It is a sickness." Genuinely this. There is something about having so much money you can literally buy anything in the world that warps people's brains. It disconnects you from humanity.
There is literally no such thing as an 'ethical' billionaire.
No. Not a whale. They will all be extinct in a few years due to pollution and global warming. It's going to have to be a rat, cockroach, coyote..or perhaps Keith Richards.
There is a group of wealthy millionaires who are using their money for the greater good.
This group banded together to advocate for a much fairer tax code. The group is called Patriotic Millionaires. Find them on BlueSky at @patrioticmillionaires.org. They just published a book called "Pay the People!: Why Fair Pay is Good for Business and Great for America".
That’s wonderful, but I don’t know how much difference they can make when they’re going up against the Sociopathic Billionaires group, whose handbook could be entitled “Why Fairpay is for Suckers”
I wondered the same thing. Bezos Buffett Gates et al could have put a rounding error of their net worths into counteroffensives to the "flood the zone with shit" and made a difference...maybe. we'll never know.
Much too late. 45 days until the inauguration. You can't schedule depositions, let alone a Grand Jury in that time. And of course, even if you could, he could drag it out for years. Except of course, he wouldn't even have to. On the proverbial Day One, The Convict would snap his fingers and make it go away.
I am convinced that misinformation and dirty tricks swung the balance in this election. This changed the perception of certain people towards Harris as “weak” or “non dependable”, not the fact that she was these things. I am furious!
Thank you. While I was aware of the huge amount of money muskrat was pouring into the election, I was unaware of the specifics. I never in my 75 years, ever thought that a person could literally buy a US presidency! That is scary by itself. But knowing that there are no legal ways to thwart it, is depressing as hell. Apparently, as long as Scotus is “packed”, this will remain the order of the day regarding everything in our democracy (former?) 😭
Oh, Jay. This post is distressing. On so many levels. I'm struggling not to go down the rabbit hole of despair, but each day that task gets harder. I just do not understand how people--Republicans--can lie, lie, lie and get away with it. Unless we figure out how to curb the lies--and the money that makes them possible and prolific--I don't know how we will be able to rebuild our democracy, assuming it survives the next four years of trump.
The lies need to be exposed and be repeated for a long time. While I'm here I would love to see Biden PARDON all the people on trump's hit list. That would leave him fuming and deflated. Just a thought!
Please don't call him that, it's extremely insulting to us trans people. He despises us and wants us to LITERALLY die, we don't want him to be associated with us in any way!
There are those that believe that Musk’s harvesting of voter data utilizing his “lottery’ scheme resulted in the use of that data for more nefarious purposes, including the creation and injection of Trump ‘bullet ballots’ in PA and other jurisdictions to alter election results. This is not entirely unreasonable nor impossible, yet no mention is found in your missive. Why not?
Without salient proof, folks are reluctant to tread into election denialism. That being said, if cyber experts can bring receipts......that will also be a very dangerous gambit
Citizen’s United. That’s what’s screwed democracy.
Came here to say just that. Also the cratering of the Voting Rights Act.
🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬
The SCOTUS has been the republican's best investment, but Democracy has been boned in many other ways, not just citizens united.
Yup. The corporations and oligarchs have been getting their hooks in deeper and deeper since 2010. And now, in the second Gilded Age, we have the best democracy and the best justice system that money can buy. I wonder what the price tag for the presidency will be in 2028, given that that election will be a charade engineered to produce whatever result the biggest asshole with the most money wants.
IMHO, that trend actually began quietly in the early 1980s. Newt Gingrich was the ringleader.
Agreed that the tipping point was in 1980 with the election of Reagan and that Gingrich led the Cut-Your-Throat brigade. John Roberts and Citizens United in 2010 marked the elimination of any remaining pretense and the overt flinging open the doors for the oligarchs to brazenly parade through unimpeded by messy details such as laws and the concepts of truth and honesty.
Dirty politics a la Gingrich is nothing compared to the insidious evil we are now seeing with Musk and the rest of the “billionaire “ creeps sniveling trump is sleeping with. They apparently just can’t get enough of anything. Unfortunately the dumbing down of Americans with social media has left us with people who will believe anything and clearly have.
But newt's and ronnie's actions were what laid the groundwork for everything happening now, 40 years later. I won't them off so easily.
Zero punishment for the bankers after the recession helped fuel this too, and the rampant mis and disinformation that began with the pandemic and only continued to morph into other areas of the social media sphere.
If there is an election...
My guess is that there will be one, in form only, just as there are "elections" in Russia and Hungary and Venezuela. As I say, a charade. We just showed that nearly 50% of the electorate will be unwilling or unable to see through the most obvious lies and scams, and a large percentage of eligible voters won't even bother to vote.
I fervently hope the paragraph above proves to be laughably wrong because we, the resistance, were able to bolster the few remaining guard rails and create so much friction that the christo-fascists could not complete the takeover.
I hope the resistance is able to do as you say, the alternative is frightening to think of.
Since Reagan…
Yes! And we can thank (Not) John Roberts for that. We all claim Clarence Thomas and Alito are the criminals but they give cover to Roberts…the real snake.
I feel like it's related to that football win at the last second field goal. Close game, then, 3 second mark the team you didn't want to win makes the goal. "How could this happen?" , "We were keeping up!" "If only we hadn't dropped that ball", "If only we would have tackled that guy". Whatever. If the team had started from the start of Quarter 1, and led the charge, they would have never been in that position. We are in that position now. It isn't just one person's fault. It's a series of people who were apathetic, ignorant, wealthy and could not relate to those that weren't, and flat out laziness. That's how we all screwed democracy.
Agree…but, along with all those things, SCOTUS deemed corporations “people”. Money talks and loudly.
I'll just block you.
Among other things, but this is definitely in the top 3.
...and "Corporations are people, my friends...."
Also came here to say that.
We have teflon ron to thank for that, as well as for the death of the Fairness Doctrine.
The Musk RAT and MAGAts are destroying our democracy. Public servants like me will resist DOGE fascism from inside the government. We must make DC a state and vote them all out: https://democracydefender2025.substack.com/p/washington-dc-deserves-statehood
Isn't that election interference? Between MSM and their complicit reporting of "fact" insanewashing Donald and the hypocricy on the reporting of Harris and Biden, the bomb threats on election day, the Russian collusion and the oligarchical purchase of a president; I would say thie election was completely fraudulents!
Free speech does NOT give license to knowingly decieve and misrepresent! How dare they defame RBG!
Please, oh please.
That's an insta-block for me.
Yes 🤮🤮🤮
My hope is that some of the fools that voted for Trump will now realize how you got played like a fiddle. He is possibly the greatest con man of all time and makes Bernie Madoff look like Snow White.
I certainly hope they finally see through him and the rest of the Repuglicans. I will never understand how shortsighted and deluded people are in voting against themselves.
They will never admit they are fools and got played. It is too painful to admit the truth so the more brainwashed the more lost they are. I hope we can get to the low information voters before they too get brainwashed.
They will blame Democrats. No matter what. Mark my damn words.
🤞🤞🤞
I have very little optimism about the future direction of the country in specific and humanity in general.
It’s always about the money, and those that have it typically use it in the worst ways imaginable.
I often ask myself: why don’t wealthiest among us use (at least SOME of) their money for the greater good? And then I remember: their primary interest is to accumulate more. It is a sickness.
We’ve been here in a way before in the Gilded Age. It took a collapse of the old system to usher in an era of progressivism
This is like the Gilded Age meets Mad MAGAzine
"Make America Great Again", aside from being codespeak for "Make America White Again", is often said to represent nostalgia for the 1950s. Please could someone remind me what the marginal tax rates were in the 1950s?
The top marginal tax rate for 1944 thru 1951 was 91%. In 1952 and 1953 the top rate was 92%. In 1954 to 1963 the top marginal rate went back to 91%. The working folks may feel nostalgic for the days when one working member of the family could make enough to support a family, buy a house and a car and still save enough to put kids through a state-supported college.
Unfortunately, our American oligarchs have no such fond memories of the high marginal tax rates and are working VERY hard indeed to make sure those high marginal tax rates never support a happy healthy middle class ever again.
And what they really don't like us to remember is that the rich STILL got richer, even with those tax rates. Just not SO much SO fast. And the rest of us got to have a decent life. Unfortunately, they don't think anyone else should have anything.
👍🏼👍🏼
more like 1850's
"It is a sickness." Genuinely this. There is something about having so much money you can literally buy anything in the world that warps people's brains. It disconnects you from humanity.
There is literally no such thing as an 'ethical' billionaire.
Taylor Swift.
So it appears. But if they exist, they are Sasquatch-like creatures - rare and camera shy
If you do, Eleanor, be sure you keep your head if you run into RFK Jr
😅
agreed! in my next life I am not going to be a human being... not sure what I will return as, perhaps a whale.
No. Not a whale. They will all be extinct in a few years due to pollution and global warming. It's going to have to be a rat, cockroach, coyote..or perhaps Keith Richards.
Hahahahaha good one!
There is a group of wealthy millionaires who are using their money for the greater good.
This group banded together to advocate for a much fairer tax code. The group is called Patriotic Millionaires. Find them on BlueSky at @patrioticmillionaires.org. They just published a book called "Pay the People!: Why Fair Pay is Good for Business and Great for America".
That’s wonderful, but I don’t know how much difference they can make when they’re going up against the Sociopathic Billionaires group, whose handbook could be entitled “Why Fairpay is for Suckers”
I wondered the same thing. Bezos Buffett Gates et al could have put a rounding error of their net worths into counteroffensives to the "flood the zone with shit" and made a difference...maybe. we'll never know.
There are some are very good and very wealthy folks who do support the common good like patriotic millionaires for one. I just wish there were more
"Finally, according to two reports, after buying Twitter, Musk put his finger on the scale for Trump."
Bingo.
Uh.. no shit. Duh! He's a full-blown fascist megalomaniac and he's spending a ton of cash that he won't even miss to get even more power.
And his other finger was for the rest of us.
I assume you are referring to his middle finger?
You betcha! 😂
Finally. Someone is talking comprehensively about the Musk Scheme. I would be investigating him bigly if I ran the FBI. Including his technology
Much too late. 45 days until the inauguration. You can't schedule depositions, let alone a Grand Jury in that time. And of course, even if you could, he could drag it out for years. Except of course, he wouldn't even have to. On the proverbial Day One, The Convict would snap his fingers and make it go away.
Muskrat is now co-president because he bought and paid for it. My stomach can’t take much more of this shit being forced on Americans.
Yah, I thought it was bad trump's first term...I don't know how I will hold it together for the next four years.
Ditto. I feel sick.
I am convinced that misinformation and dirty tricks swung the balance in this election. This changed the perception of certain people towards Harris as “weak” or “non dependable”, not the fact that she was these things. I am furious!
Thank you. While I was aware of the huge amount of money muskrat was pouring into the election, I was unaware of the specifics. I never in my 75 years, ever thought that a person could literally buy a US presidency! That is scary by itself. But knowing that there are no legal ways to thwart it, is depressing as hell. Apparently, as long as Scotus is “packed”, this will remain the order of the day regarding everything in our democracy (former?) 😭
Congress can correct the Citizen's United disaster but they have neither the motivation nor the balls.
🤬😢🤬😢🤬😢🤬
Oh, Jay. This post is distressing. On so many levels. I'm struggling not to go down the rabbit hole of despair, but each day that task gets harder. I just do not understand how people--Republicans--can lie, lie, lie and get away with it. Unless we figure out how to curb the lies--and the money that makes them possible and prolific--I don't know how we will be able to rebuild our democracy, assuming it survives the next four years of trump.
The lies need to be exposed and be repeated for a long time. While I'm here I would love to see Biden PARDON all the people on trump's hit list. That would leave him fuming and deflated. Just a thought!
Why is this OK? 🤬
It's not even close to being okay.
But here we are… and I see NOBODY challenging it
Nothing ever happens to these criminal grifters!!!!!
Again, and here we are. You’d think after this election Democrats would learn to fight against the fascism
They need to fight dirty like the repubs. I really think you can't win unless you're playing the same game as the opposition.
Yes, WTF democrats????
Thanks for the clarification that the picture was AI and not Elon's real head. (Bwhahaha.). Thanks for a laugh, Jay. Always need that right now.
Wasn't his real body either. Pic shows big biceps, the only big things on him are his man boobs and his pasty white belly
So the cabinet picks are just a side show that won't matter much. Even Trump is a side show. Where will this end if it ever does?
Elonia Muskrat is a clear and present danger to our democracy. Who’s going to stop him?
Please don't call him that, it's extremely insulting to us trans people. He despises us and wants us to LITERALLY die, we don't want him to be associated with us in any way!
How about "Alonio"? Who wants to be around him?? Bleeegaaacchh...
There are those that believe that Musk’s harvesting of voter data utilizing his “lottery’ scheme resulted in the use of that data for more nefarious purposes, including the creation and injection of Trump ‘bullet ballots’ in PA and other jurisdictions to alter election results. This is not entirely unreasonable nor impossible, yet no mention is found in your missive. Why not?
Without salient proof, folks are reluctant to tread into election denialism. That being said, if cyber experts can bring receipts......that will also be a very dangerous gambit
Jay doesn't deal in this sort of conjecture or conspiracy theories. No evidence? No discussion.
How does Trump payback Musk for his donations? Track the nominees that can make Musk richer!
https://thedemlabs.org/2024/12/05/trump-payback-musk-for-donations-with-nominees-to-make-him-richer/