A huge effort is going to have to be made in helping normies understand that rebuilding everything that was destroyed is going to take longer than the destruction took. Putting blame where it belongs will hopefully be helpful but that messaging needs to start yesterday.
Instead of anointing them as lords, he just gives them a powerful position in government.
After they destroy our govt and economy, they will attempt to blame Muskrat and Dumpster.
Despite all the right-wing babble about “lawfare,” I hope someone is cataloguing the crimes that will have to be investigated and prosecuted when law returns to America. This is a crime spree.
The biggest failure, in an otherwise successful Presidency, was not protecting our democracy and not putting voting rights as a top priority. Next was the hubris to think he could be a two team president; he should have been clear when elected that it was for one term and primed a VP race.
If Team Democract EVER makes it back to power, so help me God, if lawbreakers don't see consequences I will be very pissed. And I'm talking about people at the top, not the little fishes (though they need to see consdquences too).
I like your optimism. But we all know nothing will happen to these people. The US has a history of forgiving these asshats because “we need to heal” so we let them off. SMDH
That being said, I’m all for regulation of the tech industry and getting rid of tax shelters as well as taxing corporations and the 1% like they were taxed 50 years ago. No reason anyone should be able to horde wealth they’ll never be able to spend in their lifetime.
This is why we need a Project 2029. I wouldn’t call it that though. There are a lot of smart people -outside of congress- that know what needs to be fixed/addressed to prevent this shit show from ever happening again.
Lots of doomer responses, here. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results, and that works both ways. It’s not going to be easy to recover from this, and it won’t be easy to create something better. But it’s the responsibility of everyone alive right now. With effort, we will succeed.
Two pronged plan:
1. Investigate and prosecute those involved in criminal activity, regulatory violations, etc.
2. Re-instate the personal income tax code, with dozens of top marginal rate brackets - adjusted for inflation - from the late 1950s.
Pay down debt & reduce income inequality in one go.
Chuck Schumer: "Our victory in the 2042 election was a wonderful 111th birthday gift to me, and proof America wants to return to business as usual and a strong Republican Party!"
100% we are doing accountability this time. Any dem that does not understand this needs to go. No more “onward”, “forward” “going high”. We must reckon with and make people answer for what’s been done.
But let's say the Dems take at least the House in 2026 and the Presidency and the Senate in 2028. (All major ifs) Do they have the stomach to undo any of this by 2030?
I really despair that this is where we are now. Maybe some of it's clawed back, but not enough.
I have no doubt we’ll have elections, and the Democrats may even win big, but I have no faith they will do anything other than try to let bygones be bygones as they did the last time they were in charge.
This is such a lazy-ass response. Then pick up the phone and call your senator and tell them you want something done. You don’t even have to talk to a person, you can leave a message. “Democrats” aren’t just the leaders, they are the party. You want action, demand it.
If you want permission to give up after doing the bare minimum, the answer is no. People in literal dictatorships manage to claw their governments back and we have 100s of years of democracy behind us. Bad enough being defeatist about the US but ridiculous to think you can’t affect your own party.
Right now, I'd be happy to go back to taking at least 90% of everything they own. We can't afford to allow a bunch of psychos who believe they're god-kings try to kill millions of our citizens and run the country into the ground.
People just lose their minds when they get too much money.
When team democracy is back at it, they’ll hand everything back to the Republicans like they do every fucking time. They have control of everything because they’re nothing but a bunch of fucking pussies.
No you will allow it, and you will believe what you’re told to believe. People like you failed to do your most basic duty because you’re gullible for this crap.
The deeper issue is we have a two tiered "Justice" system. The even deeper issue is the imbalance of classes. Meanwhile, they have us calling fellow Americans "deplorable" and arguing who should be able to use a bathroom.
No it’s a house the termites have been actively destroying under the surface for decades, it’s only just become visible and started falling apart in the last decade or so. The destruction has been going on since at least the 70s or 80s.
I totally agree. As we have seen, things can change on a dime. The Republican Party and their billionaire patrons are destroying America as we knew it and they must pay.
Yes. That’s why Democrats must replace party leadership with warriors prepared to take bold action, such as the New Deal. They must also enact laws with teeth that defend democracy and The Constitution. Otherwise, it will just be wash, rinse, repeat with a new gang of felons.
I'd say what we're doing with Tesla right now is very effective. Wait until the quarterly sales are weaker than expected and weakening. We can do the same with any corporation. Without the consumer, these guys are nothing.
I might say that the way you will know Team Democracy is back in charge in WHEN they are held to account. If they are not being held to account, we aren’t back, no matter if a D is in the White House or whatever.
I think we all need to get comfortable with a level of authoritarianism that would have been uncomfortable very recently.
We can’t tax this away - there aren’t the votes, and too many shelters. Anything in the courts that kind of wealth can delay and appeal for longer than they’ll live.
We are likely going to be faced with a choice between following The Rules and letting them keep this kind of wealth and the power that comes with it (I’m not looking for retribution - my concern is forward looking) or breaking them to save the Republic.
Not sure I agree with a statement like "software is a natural monopoly." You can argue that software platforms with network effects tend towards monopoly. But often not because of actual barriers. Everyone uses Excel, even though free interoperable alternatives exist, because it's the best.
Windows and Office used to be considered a "natural monopoly" and Microsoft reaped billions from that back in the 90s. But within a few years, the value of having that standard diminished. You can see this in the way MS prices its products.
Deep breath.
I understand your thought that you can’t tax this away, but…do you have an alternative to taxes?
The tax policy is exactly what this is all about. We need to get real like the majority Normative Status Quo in Europe and not allow transnational tax dodges and regulate markets.
Yeah, in the case of people like Musk and Thiel who have used their wealth to, not mincing words, wage total war on their adopted homeland and its Republic, I in fact do have an alternative to taxes. I call it “yoink.”
It’s not a broad-based solution, but this isn’t a broad-based problem.
Taxes are a GREAT solution to preventing the rise of Musks and Thiels that cause this level of destabilization in the first place, but they can’t pull us back up the cliff we’ve driven off.
So once the Reconstruction has occurred tax policy is the way to address this, but that’s a ways away.
Nationalization of their companies and/or redistributing their personal corporate stock into mutual funds that every American gets a piece of, like a supercharged class action lawsuit payout.
I’m not even trying to get a piece of it, either in my pocket or in Uncle Sam’s. This isn’t about us.
I’d rather set it on fire than let Musk and Thiel keep it. It’s redistribution all right, but of power, not money, and since that’s zero sum, taking theirs away automatically increases ours.
I'm only looking for retribution in the sense of total disarmament and isolation. They can't be allowed to continue their illegal assault on democracy.
It all depends on how far they get with their destruction. We have a lot of very smart people in this country who be fair and just.
We have to change the rules, add more rules, actually enforce the ones we do have, norms need to become law, and make very public examples of the piece of shit that thought they could buy the government.
The last thing we want is swinging back and forth between left-oriented and right-oriented authoritarianism. The only purpose of exercising muscular power is to force pandora back in the box.
That we have to pick up these tools doesn’t mean we shouldn’t drop them ASAP, because they burn.
Perhaps we’re talking about the same thing but with different terms.
If by “authoritarian” you mean a stricter and more robust application of extant laws against those that have historically skirted them then I absolutely agree.
We need, inter alia, another Teddy Roosevelt, busting today’s trusts.
Basically all I’m saying is that restoring democracy is more important than making sure that people uncommitted to it are afforded every privilege of the thing they disdain, but this is only good as part of a Reconstruction, and should not be broad/long term.
Yeah, "hold them to account" is not "civil subpoenas for various securities frauds or FCA violations" or "three year antitrust investigations" or FEC consent orders.
I wish it was. If we hadn’t let it get this far, it might have been. The overriding goal of what I’m talking about should be getting us back to a place where that *is* what “holding them to account” means, & the Republic is not risked in the process.
What do you mean by "if we hadn't let it get this far?" There's no fault here. They had multiple courts and SCOTUS locked down, and a surveillance state apparatus and 100s of billions of dollars at their disposal, the media, I'm sure they bought politicians and business leaders. And that election?
I mean that when Obama took office on 1/20/2009, he should have made a point of looking backwards not forwards and prosecuted the people in the GWB admin who committed war crimes. Clinton should have gone after the Iran-Contra guys.
Too little accountability for far to long led us to this moment.
The GOP hatched this entire plot with the aid of our biggest military adversary who has one of the most substantial covert ops systems on the planet. I'm sure there are other countries that are complicit as well.
My point is there's not a whole lot of rash moves we could make right now that would
Remember the stubborn idiots who wouldn't mask up during COVID? Those ppl are going to wake up to this too. When his policies affect them, when the lies are too obvious and the good life they are promised doesn't materialize.
We have a very clear messg if we don't get bogged down fighting ourselves
Ah, ok. I think we’re miscommunicating, and you’re not the first, which means this is badly phrased.
I mean we’re going to have to get comfortable as liberals breaking laws and abrogating the constitutional rights of people like Elon Musk when we retake power if we want to save our Republic.
We will have them, one way or the other. Quit with the defeatism. It can be YOUR self defense mechanism if you need one, but don’t burden the rest of us with it. Shit ain’t normal but step one to fixing this is believing you can.
@joshtpm.bsky.social is this a demonstration of the optimism-is-a-mindset posture you've written about?
i feel you, but it's difficult to imagine a future in which team democracy could be back in charge. it's difficult to imagine a future for authentic democracy in america.
narrator: they won't do shit. just like the biden admin didnt do shit, put in wet noodle garland, and just like schumer is pining for a 'good republican party'.
The corporate Dems have to be purged via primaries. If a billionaire like Pritzker can call these people what they were, the Dems sucking the teet of tech bros and Wall St have to go.
At this rate, TD won‘t be in charge anytime soon. Took us almost two decades, a world war, millions of dead people, and a lot of outside help before things slowly changed for the better.
as many have said in the thread, I think this sets up a strategy: torches and pitchforks against the super-rich: "they are robbing you blind!" And not just marginal tax rates going up by a few % points. Go big. If trump proved anything, people want crazy promises regarding change.
Yep. And it's not only just a strategy it's totally true. Everything we've said to each other and to the Right is actually true. Blinders will drop for some of them when the pain hits their community. Heritage and Trump can't control for everything.
They think they won’t face someone that will nationalize spacex on day one, etc. Why the fight to ditch Schumerism is vital. There has to be a reckoning.
Not only did they bet on the wrong team, they went all in. That they think that probably the most individualistic country on Earth is just going to roll over to fascism and control is really bizarre.
We're only just figuring stuff out now because it was shocking but they're not getting the country
I'm guessing that the "freedom lovers" who thought it was just going to be a TV show about pain for the libs might change their entire outlook when they take in the scope of the plan and how fascism affects everyone.
That's a good term. Honestly I don't understand them. They're living in a completely different world and nothing really explains it well enough for my tastes.
I've lived in a lot of different places and I've never been tempted to become evil because someone told me someone else was a threat.
team democracy will not be back in charge for many years because "team democracy" is clueless about where we are. and even if somehow we'll be back in charge soon, nothing gonna happen. "looking forward" and "must unite the country".
at least in 2009 you could make some case for moving forward, Obama ran on unifying the country and he believed - still believe - in america that doesn't exist. but yea, that was a mistake, tho not as grave as biden and graland just glossing over trump's crimes.
Torture is a red line. You can draw a straight line from the decision not to create controversy over the moral depravity of torture to the place we find ourselves in right now. The time to excise the demons from the Republican Party was 2009.
I take the point you’re trying to make but I was convinced at the time that “looking forward” was a mistake and I think time has proven my position correct
Unifying the country would involve getting everyone to see that torture is morally depraved and had no place in a civilized society. We failed to unify anything and we got trump as our reward. If given the chance, we can not make the same mistake again.
The billionaires and their enablers ... cough ... Chuck Schumer (D-Wall Street) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-Crypto) ... cough. These two are doing their jobs alright. Just not for us.
I think it's also important for us to remember that 99.999% of us were complicit in the destruction of our country. we willingly hand over our freedom in exchange for convenience, ignorance, & pleasure. until we fundamentally change the way we live the cycle will only start over.
He was/is part of the Federalist Society, putting him in was beyond fucking idiotic because there are no decent people who are part of that Nazi organization.
What are you smoking? These people are ignoring the Constitution left and right. What makes you think Team Democracy will EVER get a chance outside of civil war?
So sick of this "when the Democrats get elected next time. " There is no next time.
Where are the videos of the DOGE breakin to USIP??? Is anyone ready to capture the same takeover today at Inst. for Library/Museum Science? How could Jan 6 be so well recorded/televised and why not the current assaults?
People are slowly awaking to how much we have fed the billionaires. Musk has been instrumental in this. They do need us to spend money to make money. Uncharted territory for sure.
The below is from a draft of the Pennsylvania Declaration of Rights, 1776, declaring curbs on massive fortunes as essential for liberty to flourish. It was cut from the final doc, but they knew already. Zinn cites it in his monumental History.
When and if non lunatics regain democracy, much of everything we took on faith must be codified with meaningful sanctions. I'm not sure how to even approach the pardon power of the president.
Trump is currently helping Senator John Thune...I guess it's a payback for giving him all his cabinet nominees....by designating billions to farmers in his state, hurt by tariffs.
This is what Trump is going to do. Give favors to friends only.
Dismantling federal agencies without fear of consequences is not carried out by a political party that is worried about the next election.
It is carried out by a fascist organization that is not leaving unless GOP senators and the Supreme Court put brakes on this.
Right now, they are helping him.🤷♀️
How is "Team Democracy" going to be "Back in charge"? Trump & Elon have managed to do severe damage in 2 months.
Do you REALLY think we will have fair/free elections going forward?
They are defying the courts & do not care about public opinion.
Think they don't have plans to derail midterms 2026?🤷♀️
It's a deliberate, intentional war on the American people at the behest of oligarchs who want to strip America for parts and malign foreign interests that want to eliminate U.S. superpower status. The sooner we call it what it really is the better.
The Democrats weren’t holding the oligarchs and the corporatocracy to account anytime in the last decade or more. Remember when we had a Justice Department that aggressively pursued antitrust cases? It’s been awhile.
There are good billionaires and bad billionaires, but the bad billionaires do FAR more bad than the good can do good, so it's time there were NO billionaires. Tax them out of existence.
There is no such thing as a good billionaire. The only way you can become a billionaire is because you exploited an enormous number of people whose labor created that wealth.
Please the first Dem to regain power, if they ever actually do, will pull the same crap they always do. We must look forward not backwards. We must let everyone who broke laws and norms off and welcome them back into the government to do it all again in a few years.
In order for there to be consequences and I mean - disbarment, The Hague we need a new bunch of house/senate Dems that aren’t squimish about defending Democracy
It’s important to remember that Executive Orders are not law and can simply be reversed with the stroke of a pen. He has signed no legislation so far beyond the CR and Laken Riley. Unfortunately, so much structural damage can be done before someone else gets their hand on that pen.
I agree but boy I don’t have much confidence that the party of “we must play by the norms while MAGA bangs our spouses in front of us” will have the stomach to throw down the hammer.
I love your positive attitude and hope your are correct, but I would use the word "If" Team Democracy is back in power not "When". I hope you are right and I am wrong.
I just don't see this happening anytime in the next 20 years. Maybe ever. The circumstances needed to exist to hold the rich accountable require too many things to happen.
Maximum wage policies and an estate tax should do it. Or just make them compete on a violent dystopian TV show: Who Wants to Be a Hundredaire? First challenge is manning the local DMV. You're hired!
This insane conceit that somebody somewhere will save us, and that We The People have no responsibility to advocate for stabile democratic government is what will doom us all. People utterly suckered by online chatter of all kinds failed to show up to vote, and they handed it all alway.
*If* team democracy regains power, what is critical is that we formalize actual guardrails into Fed law to prevent this from ever being able to go this far again. And the only way for that to happen is to develop a Project 2029 - and the planning must begin now.
Check out Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth by Ingrid Robeyns. It’s a book-length exploration of that topic. She likes $10 million as a limit on personal wealth.
I have very low expectations of "Team Democracy." We all saw how Merrick Garland responded to January 6 - would not want to appear political by taking meaningful action against the real perpetrators. We need an opposition party and I do not foresee Dems rising to the occasion.
Taking advantage of people when they are defenseless is how you become a billionaire. It would be nice to see liberal media personalities forcefully advocate for the working class.
Comments
After they destroy our govt and economy, they will attempt to blame Muskrat and Dumpster.
Last time Republicans and billionaires almost destroyed the country all we got was "what's done is done, it's time to move forward".
This time better be different.
It will be inspiring to watch their growth and learning process -so exciting!
(Actually it probably is over we'll just be doing pretend democracy from now on, just like Russia.)
1. Investigate and prosecute those involved in criminal activity, regulatory violations, etc.
2. Re-instate the personal income tax code, with dozens of top marginal rate brackets - adjusted for inflation - from the late 1950s.
Pay down debt & reduce income inequality in one go.
But let's say the Dems take at least the House in 2026 and the Presidency and the Senate in 2028. (All major ifs) Do they have the stomach to undo any of this by 2030?
I really despair that this is where we are now. Maybe some of it's clawed back, but not enough.
People just lose their minds when they get too much money.
Instead he appointed Merrick Garland and kept on a Trumper leading the FBI.
I just pointed out that last time they were, they deliberately aided and abetted MAGA.
It's going to be proportional to the pain they cause in a way that they're not anticipating.
They will literally have to keep 3/4 of the USA locked up. Soon enough ppl on the Right will figure out it affects them too
Gotta look forward, not backwards.
Been wanting to see your favorite NC Republicans (see attachment).
The Durham County Dems are holding a Tillis protest:
https://www.mobilize.us/durhamcountydemocrats
Also later on a Friday there is the open seat town hall for Tillis.
https://www.mobilize.us/bullcityindivisiblenc/event/761464/
We can’t tax this away - there aren’t the votes, and too many shelters. Anything in the courts that kind of wealth can delay and appeal for longer than they’ll live.
We’d better start discussing this now.
What about “yoink?”
Perhaps we can put their names on the prisons we put them in.
Software is a natural monopoly. The EU gets this, they are aggressively requiring interoperability because of it.
Regulate tech like an electric utility!
I understand your thought that you can’t tax this away, but…do you have an alternative to taxes?
The tax policy is exactly what this is all about. We need to get real like the majority Normative Status Quo in Europe and not allow transnational tax dodges and regulate markets.
It’s not a broad-based solution, but this isn’t a broad-based problem.
So once the Reconstruction has occurred tax policy is the way to address this, but that’s a ways away.
I’d rather set it on fire than let Musk and Thiel keep it. It’s redistribution all right, but of power, not money, and since that’s zero sum, taking theirs away automatically increases ours.
It all depends on how far they get with their destruction. We have a lot of very smart people in this country who be fair and just.
Comfortable as in accepting, normalizing, and consenting? Never.
The last thing we want is swinging back and forth between left-oriented and right-oriented authoritarianism. The only purpose of exercising muscular power is to force pandora back in the box.
That we have to pick up these tools doesn’t mean we shouldn’t drop them ASAP, because they burn.
If by “authoritarian” you mean a stricter and more robust application of extant laws against those that have historically skirted them then I absolutely agree.
We need, inter alia, another Teddy Roosevelt, busting today’s trusts.
Basically all I’m saying is that restoring democracy is more important than making sure that people uncommitted to it are afforded every privilege of the thing they disdain, but this is only good as part of a Reconstruction, and should not be broad/long term.
But there’s a long road between here and there.
Too little accountability for far to long led us to this moment.
My point is there's not a whole lot of rash moves we could make right now that would
We have a very clear messg if we don't get bogged down fighting ourselves
I mean we’re going to have to get comfortable as liberals breaking laws and abrogating the constitutional rights of people like Elon Musk when we retake power if we want to save our Republic.
That’s when we know the Democratic Party has been restored and can move forward.
i feel you, but it's difficult to imagine a future in which team democracy could be back in charge. it's difficult to imagine a future for authentic democracy in america.
however hard i try.
it's going to re-order our society & what we consider elite
They think they won’t face someone that will nationalize spacex on day one, etc. Why the fight to ditch Schumerism is vital. There has to be a reckoning.
We're only just figuring stuff out now because it was shocking but they're not getting the country
I've lived in a lot of different places and I've never been tempted to become evil because someone told me someone else was a threat.
Looking forward moves public opinion to think that there is broad agreement about what just happened. There isn’t.
Torture is a red line. You can draw a straight line from the decision not to create controversy over the moral depravity of torture to the place we find ourselves in right now. The time to excise the demons from the Republican Party was 2009.
https://fedsoc.org/contributors/merrick-garland
What are you smoking? These people are ignoring the Constitution left and right. What makes you think Team Democracy will EVER get a chance outside of civil war?
So sick of this "when the Democrats get elected next time. " There is no next time.
The below is from a draft of the Pennsylvania Declaration of Rights, 1776, declaring curbs on massive fortunes as essential for liberty to flourish. It was cut from the final doc, but they knew already. Zinn cites it in his monumental History.
I’m not convinced there’s going to be another election.
This is what Trump is going to do. Give favors to friends only.
It is carried out by a fascist organization that is not leaving unless GOP senators and the Supreme Court put brakes on this.
Right now, they are helping him.🤷♀️
Do you REALLY think we will have fair/free elections going forward?
They are defying the courts & do not care about public opinion.
Think they don't have plans to derail midterms 2026?🤷♀️
It won't be the Democrats. Hopefully an entirely new group of parties will emerge.
TD also had a chance to impeach him…twice. What makes you think they’ll get it right the next time?
It’s like TD is the old Chicago Cubs: “Just wait till next year.”