Mad King Watch (Take XVIII): A Republic, If We Can Restore It (Reclaiming Our Mojo On America's 250th Birthday)

 

<"Consequences Coming:
Course Correction, Take I"/The Reckoner>

<i.>

The revolution will not be televised, but on Tuesday, landed where it counts the most – at the ballot box. In Colorado, Democratic primary voters rebuked the party establishment's choice – Congresswoman Diana DeGette, who'd been in place since 1996. Melat Kiros, 29, a self-described democratic socialist, won by double-digit margins. Kiros garnered 58,337 votes (49.3%), followed by DeGette, with 51,459 (43.5%), and businesswoman Wanda James (8,505 votes, or 7.2%).

Though it attracted the most attention, DeGette's upset wasn't the only one on Tuesday's menu, as two other Democratic progressives also made waves. In the Eighth Congressional District, Manny Rutinel advanced to the November election over incumbent Shannon Bird, 40,339-22,792.

In the Governor's race, Attorney General Phil Weiser beat centrist Senator Michael Bennet by a 365,254-297.579 margin (55.1-44.9%). Both were vying to succeed the term-limited incumbent, Jared Polis, who earned himself widespread infamy in pardoning election denying clerk, Tina Peters (having served barely a quarter of her nine-year sentence). Democratic Senator John Hickenlooper did successfully fend off a challenge from his progressive challenger, Julie Gonzales (469,564-418,066), in one of the night's lone bright spots for centrist politicians.

The news followed an equally stunning showing last month in New York City, in which Mayor Zohran Mamdani saw all three of his endorsed candidates win their races. Two incumbents – including the Democratic Hispanic Caucus's chair – were among the losers. These results follow last spring's series of upsets, including Graham Platner's victory in Maine.

Prominent centrists – who really should be called Corporate Moderates, for reasons we'll revisit shortly – reacted as they usually do, with a mixture of bravado and denial. WelcomePAC co-founder Liam Kerr's comments in Politico typify this muddled thinking: “We love the statistic that [progressives have] never flipped any seats. We love to say, ‘look at the polling. But we haven’t been scared enough. We’ve been high on our own supply of data while they’ve been organizing.”

The unintentional irony of Kerr's last comment highlights the denial at the heart of Democratic normie thinking – which implies that their critics will just fade away, if they hear, "We're trying," or, "We're working on it," often enough. As DeGette discovered on Tuesday, it's a defense that's wearing increasingly thin with voters struggling to afford necessities like food, gas, and rent.

It's a moment that screams out for the punchline from Bob Dylan's '60s classic, “Ballad of a Thin Man”: “But there's something happening here, and you don't know what it is, do you – Mr. Jones?”

<"Happy 250th, Sucker...
You're In Too Deep"/The Reckoner>

<ii.>

For progressives – indeed, for any voter who still harbors some measure of the hopes and dreams that our Founding Fathers entertained, once they'd defeated their British colonizers – felt like a sorely-needed balm of relief, as the reactionary-stacked Supreme Court – or, the Extreme Court, or the Supremacy Cour, as we prefer to call it – continued dismantling major pieces of the republic that Ben Franklin audibly hoped to keep.

Still, it's worth noting that the six reactionaries – led by Chief Justice John Roberts – took a somewhat more strategic approach, compared to the infamous 2024 presidential immunity ruling that evoked so much public outrage. Mindful, perhaps, of avoiding a similar outcome, the reactionary bloc threw out some bones.

In the biggest surprise, the court upheld, 5-4, a five-day grace period for mail-in ballots in Mississippi, for instance. The notion of birthright citizenship also survived, 6-3. Yet the margin against the Trump executive order banning birthright citizenship isn't as lopsided as it appears; Justice Brett Kavanaugh partially dissented, though he joined the majority – agreeing that the order flouted federal law, which Congress could correct, if it wished. Whatever interests Kavanaugh claims to serve, the people's don't rank among them.

Otherwise, the court remained its predictably nasty, brutish self. As we've noted in previous postings, the reactionary bloc handed 6-3 wins to Trump on two immigration cases – and, by a similar margin, upheld Democratic FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter's firing, despite a lack of any direct cause. In doing so, the court flushed a 90-year precedent against the practice – freeing the Trump regime to fire whomever it wants, however it wants, whenever it wants.

The court's actions lay waste to the separation of powers, because it's hard to imagine that our new nation yearned to repeat the monarchist abuses of power, once it shook them off. The 5-4 ruling that allowed Federal Reserve Board Commissioner Lisa Cook to remain there simply reflects the Robed Rogues's calculating streak. Allowing her firing to stand would have aroused the markets, who would have not tolerated it. Messing with the Fed might arouse Wall Street's animosity -- and, by extension, that of the billionaires who spent so heavily to elevate Roberts and his clique.

Clearly, this court respects privilege and money, far more than individual rights – a depressing conclusion to draw, indeed, as we reach our 250^th birthday. But it's hard to imagine how many, who have struggled for so long, without anyone coming to their rescue, would actually feel that way.

Never has the American Dream felt so gutted, so hollowed out, and so unattainable -- and never has the need for changing this unholy status quo felt so urgent, as it does now, if our democracy is to survive. It's as simple, and existential, as that.

<Tired of hearing the same old broken record...

"A Tale Of Two Expectations, 2026 Style..."/The Reckoner>

<iii.>

DeGette's upset produced a raft of predictable headlines, such as the question that Colorado Public Radio posted: “What just happened to Diana DeGette?” A better one might sound like this, in light of our Dylan quote: why didn't Mr. Jones -- or Ms. Jones, in this case -- read the room more adeptly?

There were ample warning signs that DeGette failed to heed, starting with the Denver County party assembly, where Kiros soundly defeated her by a 67-33% margin in a preliminary delegate preference poll. The situation created a major embarrassment for DeGette before her primary campaign even started, since candidates needed at least 30% to grace the ballot.

As telling as that figure seemed, it failed to register with the legacy media. Yes, the Colorado Sun opined, DeGette's lukewarm showing belied her veteran status – but  meant nothing, since “the assembly process is not representative of the broader electorate.” Westword waxed no less optimistic, noting that many candidates who failed to woo the delegates had went on to win their primaries.

The bitterest irony of DeGette's loss is that, for decades, she was widely seen as her delegation's most progressive member, based on her support of ideas like Medicare For All. And how could her district even part with someone who'd served as one of the House managers of Donald Trump's second impeachment trial?

Yet DeGette struggled to explain her willingness to accept money from Super PACs – including the $1.3 million that poured in, to shore up her campaign – and inability to break from decades of supporting Israel, whose brutal occupation of the Gaza Strip has created such a major fissure within the party.

DeGette's estimated $2.84 million net worth – much of it coming from investments in stocks and mutual funds, per the OpenSecrets site, which tracks such things – also cut a starkly unfavorable contrast to Kiros, who'd been working as a barista. That job became a necessity, after Kiros's law fired her, simply for defending student protests against the occupation on her Substack page.

But DeGette's pleas to stick with a woman whose daughters had “never known a time when their mom was not in elected office," as she noted -- in a telling aside from her concession statement -- fell on deaf ears. “Continuity” isn't a word that voters care to hear, especially when they're seeing their own lives get worse, while the status quo remains stubbornly intact, as Kiros observed:

“You solve homelessness by giving people housing, you solve hunger by giving people food, you solve healthcare by going to a single-payer system. We know these things already, and yet nothing changes, ever — and it’s because, despite the fact the vast majority of Americans agree on the solutions for all of these issues, there’s too much money in our politics.”

Kiros's comments for Colorado Newsline (see link below) mirrored those of disillusioned volunteers like Iranian-American Roddy Salimi, 25, whose own remarks simmer with a moral clarity that establishment Democrats no longer seem able to muster: "Last year, my home country of Iran was attacked by the very nation that funded that (2020) campaign, using weapons the representative I interned for voted to send. I felt betrayed.”

<Michigan Democratic Senate Primary Flyer:

Abdul El-Sayed makes the case 

against the establishment>

<iv.>

With recent trends turning against them, the Corporate Moderates – and their Washington, D.C. allies, as well as the legacy media – are resurrecting a familiar  argument: any use of the s-word (“socialism”) is too risky, because it might alienate those ever-elusive swing voters, and Republican soccer moms, or something along those lines. The activist left can't be trusted, because its denizens are starry-eyed space cadets, incapable of governing effectively, or – to coin their chosen phrase – “solve problems.”

This line of attack is the keynote theme of the Politico piece -- which reads, in part, like a Corporate Moderate press release -- as we see in these comments from Phil Gardner, of Blue Dog Action:

“The reason they do that is because it works,” Gardner said of GOP efforts to tie moderates to progressives. “Candidates running in these competitive seats should not rely on just anti-Trump sentiment or the Democratic brand, because you’re basically putting your destiny in the hands of forces far outside your control.”

It's an odd argument, when we consider what the Republican Party has become – an anti-democratic, authoritarian personality cult, driven by the whims of one man (Donald Trump) who's bullied companies into “partnering” with his regime – and egged on his underlings to aggressively pursue his real or imagined enemies. Sounds like quintessential Stalinism, doesn't it? If not, what does?

Some centrist faces, like Gavin Newsom, are running for cover– as he's shown, in backing off California's wealth tax proposal. Never mind that it's designed as a one-time fix that would raise $40 to $100 billion, depending on the estimate. San Francisco Mayor Dan Lurie pulled a similar stunt, in leading the charge against a corporate tax on the CEOs who've hollowed out his city, as Robert Reich noted, in a Facebook post last month. The measure lost narrowly.

“This has to change,” Reich urges. “Unless Democrats stand up to the oligarchs now running this nation, there won’t be any alternative to Trump Republicanism in the future, or any reason for a Democratic Party.”

That circle gets even tougher to square, when you consider a few relevant statistics that Heather Cox Richardson cites in a Facebook post of her own.

According to CBS News, the wealthiest 1 percent own 31.7% of all US wealth, the highest share they've enjoyed since 1989, when the Fed first began tracking household wealth, in 1989. “That means the wealthiest 1% held roughly as much in assets as the bottom 90% of Americans combined: about $55 trillion,” she reported.

A Brennan Center survey released last month showed that 92% of Americans worry about government corruption, a figure that cuts across all party lines; 79% support a constitutional amendment to restore spending limits for elections; 66% think the government should ensure that all Americans have a right to healthcare, versus 33% who oppose the idea.

“People are really unhappy,” sighs former Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), who's running to regain the seat that J.D. Vance vacated to become Vice president. “They believe the system's rigged. They see corporations making more and more money,…corporate executives taking more and more of those dollars for themselves, stock buybacks, bonuses, compensation of all kinds. They know they're working harder than ever…and they know that…more money's going out than coming in.”

<National Republican Senate Committee attack ad:
Will Corporate Moderates and their allies follow suit?
El-Sayed campaign email>

<v.>

So what do we make of all these events? For the short run, at least, the Corporate Moderates show no signs of “getting the memo” – as we see in Michigan's Democratic Senate primary, where millions are flooding in, to squelch progressive Dr. Abdul el-Sayed, who's holding a narrow lead over its preferred candidate, Haley Stevens. (The field also includes State Senator Mallory McMorrow, whose support remains mired in single digits.)

What makes Stevens so unappealing, besides her robotic speaking style, and allergy to public events? Essentially, all the corporate PAC loot that she's hoovered up for her campaign, including $5.5 million from the widely-hated Israeli lobbying arm, AIPAC.

Her donor list reads like a Who's Who of Fortune 500 power brokers, whether it's the defense (General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, Northrup Grumman, Raytheon), finance and healthcare (Blue Cross Blue Shield, JPMorgan Chase, Quickens Loans), or tech sectors (Facebook, Google, Microsoft), take your pick. 

It's the kind of list that begs the question, “Why are all these players involved, and what do they expect from their investment?” – one that Stevens naturally ducked, when it surfaced during the candidates' only joint appearance, at their recent public debate on Mackinac Island. Time will tell if more follow, though we doubt that Stevens will want to repeat the experience.

Centrists would do well to heed the likes of Bennet, whose comments in Colorado Newsline show him as much more astute than his peers: “People my kids’ age hate the parties,” Bennet said during a June 4 debate. “They don’t believe that they’re standing for them.”

And anyone who's felt the squeeze of jacked-up rents after the private equity vultures discovered them, would agree with these remarks, coming at a housing forum, where Bennet and Weiser appeared: 

“The reality is that people of my generation, and Phil’s generation, have benefited from a ridiculous increase in our asset prices, and we have rolled up the carpet on everybody else,” Bennet said. “You see the massive intervention … to inflate the stock market, to inflate the assets of people living in the wealthiest neighborhoods, in the largest houses in Colorado — very clearly to the detriment of the people who work in our restaurants, who work in our schools, who serve in our police department and our firefighters.”

Those who prefer a slightly more direct summary will appreciate these words from Chanae Jackson, spotted on Facebook: "The same Democratic Party that swore up and down they were the last line of defense against fascism... drew their actual line in the sand at SOCIALISM?

"Not authoritarianism. Not concentration camps. Not the gutting of the Voting Rights Act. Not children in cages. Not Jan.6. Not Project 2025 being implemented in real time. Not actual Genocide."

Jackson's comments followed the Mamdani sweep in New York's primary, where he cuts to the heart of the matter. "There was never enough money for YOU," he writes. "That's not a fiscal position. That's a choice. And certain Democrats have been making that choice right alongside Republicans while calling themselves your allies.

"They don't fear fascism threatening democracy. They fear socialism threatening their access to the bag. Your tax dollars have been their personal piggy bank of these greedy bastards for decades and Mamdani is blowing the whole operation wide open."

<"Consequences Coming:

Course Correction, Take II"/The Reckoner>

<Coda>

This is the elephant in the room that refuses to go away, because it's true. For decades, establishment Democrats have kept voters captive to their donors' whims. The nature of the pitch depends on whatever political dilemma confronts Corporate Moderates at any given moment, whether it's basic bribery ("Vote for Blowhard, and we'll make sure you get your tax credit"), cynical resignation ("You  go along to get along"), or calculation dressed up as empathy ("These things take time; we share your disappointment").

Small wonder, then, that Reich wonders if the Democrats are up to their old tricks, rather than the hell that must be raised: "Instead of being class warriors, many Democratic politicians are class worriers. They openly worry that inequalities of income, wealth, and opportunity are out of control — but they won’t fight for what must be done."

Obviously, much depends on how well we survive the Trump regime's blatant attempts to rig the midterms. But even if we do, the Democratic Party must offer an affirmative, transformative vision of the future -- because its voters are yearning so fervently for it, and also, because it cannot continue simply as the anti-Trump party.

Opposing the Orange Man as an end in itself will only go so far, particularly when he departs from the political scene. The clearest place to start is this fall, when Democrats -- whatever majorities they win, or lose -- should revisit who's best equipped to lead them. If Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and his House counterpart, Hakeem Jeffries, are still viable leaders, let them prove it once more to their respective conferences. 

If not, then Democrats should also revisit mid-level positions. It's puzzling, and downright scandalous, to see the rock star likes of AOC leapfrogged for committee chairmanships -- as we saw in the notorious case of the late Gerry Connolly, who clawed his way to Ranking Member of the House Oversight Committee, only to resign four months later, citing a recurrence of the throat cancer that eventually claimed his life. (Indeed, he died in May 2025, only a month after announcing that he was retiring.)

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi worked the phones on Connolly's behalf from her hospital bed -- ironically, due to suffering a broken hip after a fall (see link below). If that's not a clear metaphor for generational change, what is?

But these are only intermediate steps, and no matter how they go, the Democratic Party must refocus on the art of the tangible. The "pick and shovel" politicking that President Biden pursued so ardently, via his signature infrastructure bills, did not yield the returns that he anticipated. 

When you can't afford the food on your plate, it's difficult to cheer the completion of a new bridge in your town.  If Democrats really want to reclaim their mojo, this is the place to start. If nothing else, expanding a progressive presence in Congress will force Democrats to reclaim their moral clarity -- an especially pressing priority, given the Trump regime's wrecking ball approach to governance, and the Corporate Moderates' singular failure to meaningfully confront it. 

Doing so will require a return to the notion that some red lines should never be crossed. The notion of Congressmen and Senators trading stocks like baseball cards is either a good idea, or it's not. The same observation can be offered on any number of issues, whether it's the infrastructure-gobbling potential of data centers, or the need for expanding the Extreme Court.

None of these things will come easily; they are neither cheap, nor expedient, but they are painfully necessary.  But they must be the first order of business, as we close the books on our 250th anniversary, amid a fog of social and class resentments not seen since the depths of the Great Depression.

"We have in it our power to begin the world over again," as Thomas Paine observed in his famous 1776 pamphlet, Common Sense. "A situation, similar to the present, hath not happened since the days of Noah until now. The birthday of a new world is at hand, and a race of men, perhaps as numerous as all Europe contains, are to receive their portion of freedom from the events of a few months."

Or, perhaps, we might go with the blunter update, as Jackson voices it: "Stay mad. Stay clear. And stop letting people who benefit from your suffering tell you what kind of help you're allowed to ask for." 

Or, once again, to coin a phrase from that '79 Secret Affair song: "This is the time, time for action -- time -- to -- be -- seen!"

However we take this medicine is up to us. But if we want to save our democracy from the slippery slope -- and hope to carve a path out of our present darkness, and are truly serious about reclaiming the ideals that our Founders envisioned, so long ago -- nothing less will do. --The Reckoner

Links To Go (Hurry, Hurry, Before The Autocrats
Shove Their Thumbs On The Scale):

Colorado Newsline: How Democratic Socialist
Melat Kiros Stunned Colorado Politics...:
https://coloradonewsline.com/2026/07/02/how-melat-kiros-stunned-colorado-politics/

Denverite: DeGette Concedes, 
There's Little Room For Politicians Like Her:
https://denverite.com/2026/07/01/diana-degette-concedes-melat-kiros/

Jezebel With Splinter:
75-Year-Old Democrat Who Beat AOC For Key Role Resigns...:
https://www.jezebel.com/75-year-old-democrat-who-beat-aoc-for-key-role-resigns-after-4-months

Politico: Centrist Democrats Are Freaking Out...:
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/06/25/progressive-moderate-democratic-party-battlegrounds-00975000

The Hill:
Demcoratic Socialists Are On The Rise:
Are The Pitchforks Finally Coming Out?:
https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/5943153-democratic-socialism-rise-popularity/

Mad King Watch (Take VIII): A Republic -- If You Can Still Recognize It

<i.>

As any reader knows, our annual Fourth Of July message is something of a signature tradition here. However, America's official birthday party has grown more complicated and challenging to celebrate, in light of current events. That's the major takeaway for me, as I comb through five years of these messages, searching for a suitable headline. 

We start with the A-bomb impact of COVID-19 in 2020 ("Is This A Wake, Or What?"), and 2021 ("The Long Arc Bends Towards Justice? Suuure..."), followed by the horrors of the Dobbs decision in 2022 ("The Roe Bombshell Drops") and 2023 ("O Beautiful For Spacious Skies [Say What?]"), and the train wreck called 2024, when the Extreme Court wove immunity rights out of thin air, for the benefit of Donald Trump, who'd appointed three of them ("A Republic, If You Can Keep It...But For How Long?").

But, just when you thought things couldn't get worse -- they do. Now that Congress has dutifully done what the Republican Party's Dear Leader demanded of them, the so-called Big Beautiful Bill's passage reminds me of a joke from an aborted Monty Python script intended to follow up the troupe's final film, The Meaning Of Life.

I'm working from memory here, but this moment is documented, and I have read about it. Apparently, one of the Pythons wrote a skit about 19th century explorers trussed up together in a cooking pot. However, in true stiff upper lip tradition, the commanding officer refuses to allow any expression of emotion, even as the heat simmers to a slow boil, and they begin writing around in agony. 

Finally, one of the group's members dares to venture a suggestion to his leader: 

"Sir! I really believe it would lift the men's spirits, if only they were given permission to panic!"

Alas, the Pythons abandoned the sketch, which would likely have redeemed Meaning Of Life a notch or two. Or jump-started a better film, perhaps. But if you need to vent your alarm -- by all means, feel free. Certainly, the frequent lack of alarm to Trump's latest whimsy has proven one of his defining characteristics, ever since he stepped down that escalator a decade ago, and set about throttling our democracy, and our discourse.

<A laser stare that fooled 

absolutely no one -- but herself, perhaps...

https://charliesykes.substack.com/>

<ii.>

In the end, the horses never left the barn. The House Freedom Caucus indulged its usual performative antics, as Trump's Big Beautiful Bill -- or Big Ugly Mess, as we call it here -- inched towards final passage. Texan Chip Roy, who continually blistered the Senate version of his cohorts' handiwork, fell into line without a peep. Outgoing Nebraskan centrist Don Bacon -- who announced his retirement by saying, "I don't want to be the guy who follows the flute player off the cliff" -- cast his vote to do, well, exactly that. 

Derrick Van Orden let the mask fall with a clang and a thud, as he thundered at a reporter who dared to question him: “The President of the United States didn’t give us an assignment. We’re not a bunch of little bitches around here, okay? I'm a member of Congress. I represent almost 800,000 Wisconsites."

How Van Orden's constituents judge his vote -- which will decimate his state's rural hospital system, to the tune of an estimated $607 million -- remains to be seen, since pain and suffering doesn't respond to command and control orders. No matter, though, as even so-called moderates representing districts with significant Medicaid populations -- like those of Californian David Valadao, where 67 percent of his residents depend on the program -- also went quietly into that good night, and went along with the charade, too.

Others took a more circuitous route, like Missourian Josh Hawley, who'd argued in May that implementing historic levels of Medicaid cuts would be "morally wrong and politically suicidal." He even wrote a New York Times op-ed along those same lines. But bit by bit, he came around, embracing the need for work requirements, and promises of a $50 billion fund, to prop up the rural hospitals he claimed to be so angst-stricken about.

But when historians revisit this infamous episode, they will undoubtedly cast Alaska's Lisa Murkowski as the most abject collaborator of the bunch. The woman who played such a major role in spiking her party's 2017 attempted Affordable Care Act repeal sold out her state's most vulnerable residents for a handful of "polar payoffs," such as special concessions for whaling captains. In the end, the Senate's cheapest date went along, all for the mere cost of deducting a harpoon (which costs $10,000, so I've read).

Murkowski's fumbled responses also unmask her as every bit as narcissistic as her counterparts. Her self-defense is all about herself, whether it's her own dropped mask moment ("We're all afraid"), to feigned frustration ("Do I like this bill? No"), and performative concern ("I struggled mightily with the impact on the most vulnerable in this country"). But she will learn, the hard way, what happens to collaborators. History is not kind to them. Just ask Lord Haw-Haw, or Benedict Arnold.

<Republican Empathy 101...>

<iii.>

The Big Ugly Mess contains enough triggering mechanisms to stoke panic at off-the-charts levels. Start with the financials, which permanently enshrine the last round of budget-busting tax cuts for billionaires that Republicans jammed through in 2017. The world's least mobile and least equal society will not get any kinder, any time soon.

Conditions are now also firmly in place for a full-on police state, with the roundly reviled Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency due for $175 billion. The biggest chunks will go toward Trump's border wall obsession ($47 billion), along with a massive network of new detention centers ($45 billion), and a tripling of ICE's enforcement budget ($30 billion). Thanks to all this splurging, ICE will become the nation's largest federal police agency, which doesn't bode well for anyone who isn't white, basically.

This expanded punishment apparatus is made possible by shredding the social safety net, starting with $186 billion in food assistance cuts -- which will affect an estimated 2.9 million Americans, and cut at least 140,000 jobs in food processing facilities, farms, grocery stores, and school cafeterias. Of course, don't forget nearly $1 trillion in Affordable Care Act and Medicaid cuts -- the largest in our nation's history -- that will cause 16 million to lose health coverage. (For a full tally of the resulting social wreckage, see our last post, "Mad King Watch (Take VII).")

Contrast those impressions with the fruits of ICE's poisoned harvest. The US already holds 56,000 people in immigrant detention, which would explode to 116,000, assuming that whole $45 billion gets spent. That figure, by the way, equals the number of Japanese Americans interned against their will during World War II. Could someone have plucked it out of the phone book?

That's hard to believe, especially when you consider how much weight this regime places on quotas and statistics. The coincidences are simply too close to ignore. It's equally hard to imagine wayward migrants alone, real or imagined, occupying those 116,000 beds. As a commenter I saw on Facebook noted, "He's not asking for $45 billion for nothing."

Needless to say, the inner bully in Trump -- and, indeed, the sycophantic thugs who surround him -- is giddy about these developments, as illustrated by his recent visit to the concentration camp he plans on building in the Florida Everglades ("Well, I think would like to see them in many states. Really, many states. And, you know, at some point, they might morph into a system"). 

Variously dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz," "Alligator Auschwitz," or "Disneyland Dachau," the unfortunates deposited there will end up having to endure sweltering temperatures in tents, crammed shoulder to shoulder. They may even be "asked" to work the land for free, Trump has mused, to earn their way back into society. It's a concept designed to exact maximum suffering, in an ironic echo of the "FEMA concentration camp" conspiracy theories that Republicans routinely aired during the Obama era.

Of course, if Republicans had a sense of irony, they'd hardly be doing the batshit stuff they're doing -- though, as usual, Vice President JD Vance said the quiet part, loudly and proudly, on X: “Everything else—the CBO score, the proper baseline, the minutiae of the Medicaid policy—is immaterial compared to the ICE money and immigration enforcement provisions.”

Critics have rightfully denounced the tone of Vance's comment, even as they miss the subtler point he's making -- that cranking up the national GDP matters less than the mechanics of raw power and revenge. Much, much less. The world's most hyper-militarized society, one that already locks up more of its inhabitants than any other nation, is adding another yet layer to its sprawling prison industrial complex. 

Or, to put it another way, in just over a decade, we've fallen from gauzy, made-for-TV images of "hope and change," to a retaliatory state driven by the impulses of an aggrieved minority and its unhinged, self-dealing cult leader. Is this how our long-running democratic experiment ends, after nearly 250 years? Never has the dream felt so gaudy and cheap, so hollow and empty, so broken and betrayed. 

<iv.>

Amidst all this onslaught of gloom and doom, it's fair to ask, "Heard any good news lately?" Or, as someone on Facebook asked me, during a lengthy discussion of our current malaise, "What do you personally feel we can do to restore our freedom?" With that challenge laid out, I'll offer some relevant suggestions. as I did there.

Start with the simple math of the 2024 election -- in which "Mr. 47 Percent," as I nicknamed Trump in 2016, modestly improved his overall standing to become "Mr. 49 Percent." Like it or not, he remains a plurality winner, whose constant trampling of democratic norms points to great weakness, not strength. Without them, would he even be in the game? 

Pick a poll, any poll, and you'll find more and more Americans remembering just why they disliked Trump so much in the first place. This development hardly seems fated to improve once the Big Ugly Mess begins to bite, and people start losing the services they took for granted.

What's more, Trump does not enjoy the same level of popular support as the strongmen he so fervently admires -- that rocketed Nayeb Bukele to power in El Salvador, and has enabled Recep Tayyip Erdogan to freeze-dry Turkish politics since the early 2000s. If the Trumpian endgame is a police state, it's hard to imagine half the country sitting idly, and just allowing it to happen, unchecked and undisturbed.

Another glimmer of hope lies in Zohran Mamdani's surprise win last month in New York City's mayoral primary. Well, it may have surprised the neoliberals, but not anyone truly paying attention. The self-dtyle "democratic socialist" won by a roughly eight-point margin, despite a $25 million negative ad barrage from the eventual loser, former Governor Mario Cuomo -- whose campaign seemed simply another means of continuing a lackluster career dogged by persistent allegations of sexual predation, among other failings.

While it remains to be seen how widely the Mamdani model translates, there's no question that his organizing skills -- coupled with smart campaigning, and a simple, unadorned speaking style -- carried the day. People are tired of the political classes reminding them of what they can't have, and why they can't deliver it. But it's not just the consulting classes nor the overdogs who are losing their minds.

That Trump and his goons are already dropping the D-words -- as in, denaturalization, and deportation -- speaks volumes of the threats they feel. What if other cities elect similar leaders who stand and fight, instead of just meekly leaving the building, as so many Republicans have done, since Trump's ill-gotten ascent? That question keeps them awake at night, I'm sure.

Mamdani's win -- yet again -- also exposed the glaring generational gap within the Democratic Party. That situation can only be remedied by its current leaders handing over the baton, instead of clinging indefinitely to power, like the President they claim to despise. There are any number of younger faces meeting the moment, who shouldn't be left sitting on the bench any longer.

It's downright surreal when someone like AOC can't get a leadership position, while six of 12 Democratic incumbents have died in office -- including Gerry Connolly, a mere five months after he leapfrogged her to become the House Oversight Committee's ranking member. Or consider the narcissistic refrain ("Nobody but me," "Who else but me?") that prompted the likes of Joe Biden and Ruth Bader Ginsberg to stay, long past their presumptive sell-by dates. Who defends their decisions now, in light of current events?

<Trumpy before his time?
Joh Bjelke-Petersen, 

Official Portrait, 1980:
Queensland State Government>

<v.>

Beyond these basic reforms -- which require another post, for another day -- It's also worth remembering that all autocracies eat themselves, sooner or later. For simplicity's sake, I'll focus on the experience of Queensland, Australia's second-largest province -- which the notorious Johannes "Joh" Bjelke-Petersen ruled for nearly 20 years, from 1969 to 1987.

Why cite him? In many ways, Joh represents one of the closest analogues to Trump, with whom he shares striking parallels. Like Trump, Bjelke-Petersen started in business -- by quitting school at 14, to join his family's peanut farming enterprise. He entered politics as a local councilman, before moving on to the Queensland Assembly in 1947, where he remained for 40 years.

From there, Bjelke-Petersen enjoyed a steady climb through the ranks of his Country Party -- first, as minister for works and housing in 1963, and acting minister of various departments (including the police). He became Premier in 1968, kicking off a prolonged misrule whose hallmarks should feel eerily similar to chroniclers of our current malaise.

Like Trump, Joh spent much of his time pursuing all manner of real and imagined enemies -- from Communists and socialists, to trade unions, and university students, whom he scorned as "Nancy boys." Like Trump, Joh treated the police force as his personal enforcer in severely restricting civil liberties, such as requiring permits for any type of public gathering of three or more people. In other cases, protests were simply broken up with brute force, or the use of staged disturbances.

Like Trump, Joh aggressively sought to remake Queensland in his own image -- one built around an official identity of prudery and rectitude, allowing him to camouflage its gross abuses of power and rampant cronyism. Like Trump, Joh manipulated the system to gain outsized advantages politically. In Joh's case, his preferred tool lay in the "Bjelkemander," which benefited rural voters at the expense of their (presumably) godless city peers.

Like Trump, Joh spoke in a rambling, winding syntax that allowed him to avoid direct answers, or deflect them elsewhere. He often came across as thin-skinned and defensive, and could not abide any kind of criticism. Like Trump, Joh tried to intimidate the press, whom he often carpet bombed with defamation suits. As he told the Australian Financial Review, in 1986: "The greatest thing that could happen to the state and the nation is when we get rid of the media. Then we would live in peace and tranquility, and no one would know anything."

Like Trump, Joh appeared unbeatable and untouchable. The peak of his power came in 1983, when Joh and his renamed National Party reduced their Liberal Party governing partners to a mere eight legislative seats. Joh apparently felt sufficiently encouraged to launch a brief bid for Prime Minister in 1985, a venture largely backed by the propertied interests with whom he'd become so cozily intertwined.

But in 1987, Joh's misrule finally came crashing down, due to a Royal Commission inquiry into police corruption. The Fitzgerald Inquiry, as it became known, had been sparked by an explosive investigative report, "The Moonlight State" (which you can find on YouTube). The resulting tsunami of allegations simply proved too damaging to contain, and forced Joh to retire, however reluctantly, in December 1987.

The resulting toll claimed other associates, notably Bjelke-Petersen's partner in crime, Police Commissioner Terry Lewis. He ended up serving 10 years of a 14-year sentence, a sentence unheard of in Australia at the time, for such a high profile public figure. Two other ministers were convicted of falsifying expense records and stealing public funds, while a third player, senior minister Russ Hinze, died of cancer before going to trial on eight counts of corruption, involving his improper acceptance of $520,000.

The resulting outcry also led to the National Party's decimation in December 1989, in which the Australian Labor Party (ALP) gained 24 seats, by over 50 percent of the vote. Long locked out of power by Bjelke-Petersen's machinations, the ALP regained control of Queensland for the first time since 1957 -- marking the final coffin nail in for the now-infamous "Hillbilly Dictator" and his personality cult.

Bjelke-Petersen caught one final break in 1991, when a jury deadlocked 11-1 for conviction on perjury charges -- despite revelations that the foreman had been an ardent Joh supporter, and active in a local National Party group. A year later, the state declined to retry Bjelke-Petersen, on the grounds that, at 81, he was too old. (For further information, see the Australian TV movies, Police State '89, and Joh's Jury, which concentrates on the feckless foreman's antics.)

Even so, the outcome didn't stop him from cheekily suing the Queensland government in 2003, alleging "lost business opportunities" due to his fall from power! Not to be outdone, Lewis also sued his legal team for inadequate counsel. Neither suit went anywhere, underscored by the admonishment that Bjelke-Petersen had been lucky to avoid a second corruption trial.

So where does this example leave us, as our 249th birthday winds down? First and foremost, the knowledge that, at a certain point, the system can only absorb so much overreach, before the course of events -- like the Fitzgerald Inquiry -- forces a drastic change.

Second, that turning back the clock only pays off for so long. The Fitzgerald Inquiry led to a major redrawing of political boundaries -- and the creation of the Criminal Justice commission, to investigate claims of police misconduct.  The Queensland Special Branch implicated, in so many of Bjelke-Petersen's excesses, was disbanded in 1989.

Third, that there are collateral consequences for those who "go along with the program." Prison terms and public disgrace are two of the more obvious occupational hazards, while the reconstituted Liberal National Party -- as it's called nowadays -- hasn't polled above 10 percent in an Australian federal election since 1997.

Last, and not least -- that personality cults don't outlive their founders. No one claimed Joh's mantle following his enforced exit from the national stage, a prospect that seems totally unlikely today, given his party's prolonged decline as a political force. What's more no one associated with Joh's excesses will ever escape the stain of their association with them.

Like too many bad actors, Joh lived to an indecently long age, dying at 94, in April 2005. However, as the march of time continues, he remains largely unmissed and mourned, disgraced and discredited by the power that he pursued so ardently and feverishly -- along with the key members of his clique. 

In the end, they denied themselves a real legacy, forever doomed to serve as poster children for absolute power corrupting absolutely -- with their names and faces slowly fading from memory. This is what keeps Trump and his own clique awake at night -- that the jig is well and truly up, having been unmasked as the imposters that they are, while their names and faces begin fading from memory.

Time will tell if they suffer that fate, or some measure of it, which will determine how much triage may be needed to rebuild the system that they have so severely damaged. Hopefully, it won't last for 20 years, as it did in Joh's self-styled Kingdom of Queensland. 

But at some point, all the excess will sputter to an end, which should encourage to work -- all the harder, as the sands of this Independence Day run out -- to bring on that outcome sooner, rather than later. -- The Reckoner

Links To Go (I Feel Like A Queenslander...):
Alternet: "Mad King": Analyst Says Trump

Is Racking Up Excesses That Caused A Rebellion:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/mad-king-analyst-says-trump-is-racking-up-offenses-that-caused-a-rebellion/ar-AA1HUT9s?ocid=msedgntp&pc=LCTS&cvid=98cc6af559b0425bbea42fff75fb87df&ei=33

MSNBC: Lisa Murkowski's Megabill Vote Is Everything...:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/opinion-lisa-murkowski-megabill-vote-123714309.html

Salon: Ice's $175 Billion Windfall:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/ice-175-billion-windfall-trump-103059036.html

To The Contrary: The Conscience Of Lisa Murkowski:
https://charliesykes.substack.com/p/the-conscience-of-lisa-murkowski

The Atlantic Monthly: They Didn't Have To Do This:
https://archive.ph/cGgTR

"And I must be an acrobat, 

to talk like this, and act like that...">

Fourth Of July, 2024: A Republic, If You Can Keep It....But For How Long?

<Happy Fourth -- From The Extreme Supremes:
Down With Tyranny (https://www.downwithtyranny.com/)>

But our land is still troubled by men who have to hate
They twist away our freedom & they twist away our fate
Fear is their weapon and treason is their cry
We can stop them if we try

Phil Ochs, "Power And The Glory"
All The News That's Fit To Sing (1964)
[Unreleased fourth verse, not included
on original recording]

<i.>

If you've read or followed this blog any length of time, you'll know that, in recent years, it's become something of a tradition to write a Fourth of July message. In 2020, we questioned where the COVID pandemic was taking us ("Merry Fourth Of July: Is This A Wake, Or What?"). In 2021, we took empty suits to task for intoning, "Nobody wants to work," even as ever-spiraling inequality continued to harden our nation's arteries ("Fourth Of July Notes (The Long Arc Bends Toward Justice? Suuure...").

In 2022, we called on readers to rally against the fallout of a post-Roe world ("The Roe Bombshell Drops: So What Happens From Here?"). And, in 2023, we attempted to inject a note of cautious optimism, on how we could carve out a better future for ourselves ("O Beautiful, For Spacious Skies (Say What?): Reclaiming Our Democratic Heritage").

Given all the cluster bombs of darkness that dropped left and right last week, it might be fair to ask whether if we've gotten a little ahead of our skis. But let me start with a basic proposition, to frame this year's message, and put that darkness into perspective.

As I write today, Britons are headed for a historic election, one that promises considerable electoral pain for the Conservative Party that pursued the disastrous Brexit referendum of 2016, and whose austerity politics have turned public opinion against it. Current projections show Keir Starmer will become the next Prime Minister, with his Labour Party expected to win 431 seats, to 102 for the Tories, and 72 for the Liberal Democrats.

Those numbers give Labour 212 seats, well above the margin needed to pass legislation in the House of Commons (326 out of 650). For Starmer, today's results represent a triumph that will greatly exceed the record majorities enjoyed by his predecessor, Tony Blair (179 votes, in 1997), and Britain's "Iron Lady," Margaret Thatcher (144 and 102 votes in 1983 and 1987, respectively).

In contrast, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's Conservatives are expected to lose 263 seats from the 2019 election, with the Liberal Democrats picking up a mere seven for themselves. Nigel Farage -- the man who did so much to engineer Brexit -- and his newly-minted Reform UK faction, will also gain a tiny foothold, with three seats. Adding to his humiliation, Sunak could become the first incumbent Prime Minister to lose his own seat (though his own race remains too close to call, apparently).

Various explanations have been advanced for the Conservatives' coming electoral bloodbath. The simplest center on the fallout of Brexit, with a majority of Britons now disowning it as a bad idea -- 57% or so, depending on which poll you read. After losing the European Union's collective bargaining power, and seeing none of the promised economic benefits of Brexit, most Britons have simply had enough.

And here in the US? As we observe our nation's 248th birthday, we stand on the verge of re-electing a convicted felon, an unhinged narcissist whose major goals focus on avoiding any legal accountability, dismantling America's democratic experiment, and pursuing all manner of real or imagined enemies. Polls have consistently shown a tight race, buoyed by Trump's rock-solid MAGA Bunny fanbase, who show little inclination of leaving the alternate universe that he's so adeptly created for them.

In other words, the fear that so many pundits have so confidently rebutted -- "Can't happen here, so move on, folks" -- is literally at our doorstep, with the promise of a full-on hellscape for anyone who isn't white, Christian nativist, and perpetually which tends to place a damper on the national birthday proceedings. 

Never has the occasion rang so hollow, nor so glib; never has it felt so grubby, and so cheap. It's the sort of darkness that begs the question -- How, in the name of whatever gods you care to invoke, do we still find ourselves poised on the edge of turning back the clock, public opinion be damned?

            <Some things never change, right?
            It Must’ve Been Something They Hate Dept.

            The MAD Primer of Bigots, Extremists

        and Other Loose Ends: Chapter One - The Super Patriot

Written by: Frank Jacobs and Stan Hart
Artist: Jack Davis
MAD #129, Sept. 1969>

<ii.>

Two years ago, the landscape looked so different, when the threatened Republican "red wave" in the fall '22 midterms evaporated to a red ripple. Democratic candidates outpaced expectations, whether in special elections, or the abortion rights referendums that passed overwhelmingly -- starting with Kansas, a state that's hardly a liberal hotbed.

The restoration of Donald Trump also looked a long way off, as the former President grappled with a string of legal cases that promised to keep him eternally preoccupied -- from civil suits for fraud and sexual assault (NY), to a major racketeering case involving fake electors (GA), and the threat of trials for keeping classified materials (FL), and attempting to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power (Washington, DC).

Surely, conventional wisdom suggested, the courts would make mincemeat of the man variously dubbed The Mango McBeth, The Orange Menace, or The One-Man Crime Wave, take your pick -- that, if President Biden didn't land the first hammer blow. That assumption looks misplaced, following Biden's lackluster showing in last week's so-called "debate" against Trump -- who's also gloating at the massive victories that his hand-picked Supreme Court "Justices" have handed him, in terms of expanding the kingly immunity that his .

The less said about the debate, the better, though in fairness to Biden, a more nuanced scorecard might read like this: his first 10 minutes were undoubtedly the worst, followed by a wobbly, stiff first half, and a somewhat stronger, more resolute-sounding second half. However, the most relevant point -- as you'll see, from David Frum's simple, but eloquent summary (see link below) -- is why anyone would platform a failed coup leader in the first place.

Still, it's hard to fathom why Biden stepped into this particular box canyon, once CNN announced that it wouldn't provide a live fact checker to counter Trump's verbal barrage -- allowing him, yet again, an ideal platform to lie unchecked at the speed of light That left the candidates to police themselves, with the usual dire results, while the so-called moderators twiddled their thumbs. Eight years after the debacle of 2016, the mainstream media still resembles the Bourbon kings of France -- having forgotten nothing, and learned nothing, at the same time.

The notion of a failed coup leader running to regain mastery of the system that he tried so hard to overthrow seems like the stuff of  70-era s black comedy -- until we begin to ponder where that leaves us. Instead of asking, "Is this who we are," maybe we need to wonder, "Is this what we've become? Have we really fallen so far?" The answers, as we'll see, are not pleasant to contemplate.

<Found On Facebook (...I Think):

We'll take it down, if anyone complains (thanks)!>

<iii.>

All right, then. Let's try to game out the unthinkable. What would a Trump dictatorship actually look like? For simplicity's sake, we'll assume that Biden survives his post-debate debacle, and stays on the ticket, but loses anyway in November. An equally important consideration is whether his party goes down with him, or rallies to retake the House, and retain the Senate.

In that case, a Democratic-controlled Congress could offer a significant roadblock to Trump's dictatorial ambitions. It's equally possible that the current muddle continues, with the Democrats clinging to their razor-thin Senate majority, and the Republicans doing likewise in the House. That situation muddies the waters, but would pose at least a short-term obstacle for any Trump restoration to navigate.

So let's assume the worst. What if Republicans retook Congress, along with the Presidency, as they did under Trump, in 2016? On paper, then, the road to autocracy looks far less imposing, depending on whether Trump could implement the infamous Schedule F executive order -- as he did, during his final weeks in office, until Biden canceled it, and, as Project 2025 threatens -- to install a sufficient army of lackeys to do his bidding.

Such measures would certainly stoke a barrage of legal challenges, though it would be wise not to imagine the so-called Supreme Court's right-wing majority giving them any great weight. Trump's appointees -- Neil Gorsuch (2017), Brett Kavanaugh (2018), and Amy Coney Barrett (2024) have broken with their patron, from time to time, but not in any meaningful way.

Certainly, last week's bombshell immunity ruling by the Extreme Supremes, as I call them, is enough to mitigate any disappointments that Trump might have felt toward them in the past. In any case, as impatient as he is, Trump would hardly wait for any legal fallout. Even without Schedule F, he's promised to unleash the full weight of his deportation machine on Day One -- as well as invoking the Insurrection Act -- to mow down the pesky hordes of protesters that would greet his restoration.

He would likely incite his Congressional allies to further bolster his power by passing a series of measures, under the guise of "restoring public order," or invoking some imagined public health emergency or other, to build "tent cities" for the homeless -- as he's already threatened aloud. Those same cities would soon accommodate a growing list of Trump bogeymen and women -- gay and trans people, advocacy group and on-governmental employers -- with specialized gulags saved for higher-profile targets, perhaps, like the January 6th Congressional investigating committee members.

On the legislative side, a different nightmare will unfold, with Republicans unlocking the magic wand of reconciliation -- which allows bills to pass with simple majorities, as part of the budget process. They could then pursue other cherished white whales, such as privatizing Social Security, or converting Medicare to a block grant program, for example, leaving millions to an uncertain fate of permanent impoverishment. 

Change would probably come for Trump's judicial enablers, as well. At 73 and 75, respectively, Sam Alito and his evil twin, Clarence Thomas, would face enormous pressure to retire, and make way for younger versions of themselves, leaving them free to enjoy the mountain of largesse they've accepted so happily, for so much of their over-privileged lives.

Or maybe not. It's easy to imagine a newly-dictatorial Trump simply disbanding the court, once he longer needs its patronage. That outcome would parallel the fates of other autocratic lapdogs, like Adolf Hitler's Foreign Minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, whose influence waned drastically after 1939 -- once World War II broke out, leaving him precious little policy to conduct.

This nightmare scenario wouldn't happen overnight, as is true of so many countries that backslide into dictatorship. It's worth remembering that Nazi Germany's most fearsome death camp, Auschwitz, began with the conversion of an abandoned army barracks in the spring of 1940, to absorb masses of Polish dissenters that local prisons could no longer accommodate. It remained very much an afterthought in the camp system, until the first mass exterminations began, at the start of 1942. As this example shows, the greatest of evils often take time to make themselves felt, which explains why resistance often doesn't materialize -- after they've gained a foothold.

<Down With Tyranny (https://www.downwithtyranny.com/)>

<iv.>

Trump's improvisational talents will undoubtedly prove a major asset in taking America down the dictatorial highway. This brings us back to last week's ruling, which gives him absolute immunity for acts that fall under his core constitutional powers; presumptive immunity, for acts within the "outer perimeter" of his duties; and no immunity for private, or unofficial, acts.

However, there's a catch. The Extreme Supremes also forbade  prosecutors from using evidence of official acts to build cases for crimes that a President may commit outside of their role. It means that a jury might never hear about Trump's conversations with Mike Pence, whom he pressured to avoid certifying Joe Biden's election in 2020, which preceded the storming of the Capitol building. 

Similarly, cases for bribery or obstruction of justice -- in which motive typically plays a central part -- would also be off-limits. The 6-3 decision that unleashed this travesty of reasoning gives little or no guidance for lower courts, while preserving the ability "to second guess whatever they do," as Greg Germain, a law professor at Syracuse University, told Newsweek.

If you want a better way of laying down the groundwork for a future dictatorship -- we'd like to see it.

Imagine, if you dare, the horrific picture of Trump-directed US troops mowing down protesters by the hundreds, or thousands, during a march on our nation's capital. Call it Kent State on steroids, or Charlottesville X 100. But Trump could get away with it, presumably, as long as he puts on his presidential hat, by wrapping himself in the cloak of the Insurrection Act -- whose language would allow him to "take such measures as he considers necessary" to suppress "any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy." No wonder that it's among the only laws for which he expresses any admiration, or respect.

The irony of giving such a free pass to the same man who has yet to face any accountability for the torrent of violence that he unleashed on January 6, 2021, against those who dared to oppose him, needs no additional elaboration.

<The Shape Of Things To Come? Hopefully Not!

"Invasion Of The Body Snatchers" Parody (MAD Magazine, 9/78

Art: Mort Drucker/RIP: Donald Sutherland>

<v.>

However, now is not the time to wallow in despair, when we have neither the time, nor the luxury. As Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett stated, during an interview with MSNBC: "It is so wild to me, and it's been quite annoying, if I'm going to be perfectly honest, that Democrats get into a frenzy. I mean, it is almost like we are scared of our shadow, sometimes. And I think it is because we understand the stakes."

The first two sentences of Crockett's response are exemplary, though the last one is debatable. If anything, Biden's faltering debate performance showed him trying to do far too many things at once -- rebutting a Trump lie here, trotting out a few stats there, and somewhere in between, continuing to argue his rival's unfitness for the office. However, we can think of a few ways for Biden to reclaim his mojo.

Start by downshifting the elaborate, PBS-style approach that's characterized Biden's campaign so far. Stop getting so lost in the statistical weeds -- which didn't work for Hillary Clinton in 2016, either -- and leave that grunt work to surrogates like Vice President Harris. That's what they signed up for, after all. One day, they can pass that chore onto someone else, when they seek the Oval Office.

Sharpen the campaign to three or four key themes, focused around the reality of who Donald Trump is, and what he intends -- with a special focus on the Extreme Supremes and the mainstream media, the only institutions more unpopular than Biden. Given how often they step on their rakes, it shouldn't be a hard case to make.

Highlight the real threat that the Extreme Supremes' immunity ruling poses, in particular, for pulling our democracy apart at the seams. Tie that greater case into the need for a Congress that will allow Democrats to pass laws that will measurably improve peoples' lives -- such as federal heat protections for outdoor workers, as Biden proposed on Monday.

And if elections really are about the next generation, it's high time for Democrats to begin ushering in new leadership. (Where have we said that before, right?) There is something surreal about the mainstream media continuing to wheel out Clinton-era consultant James Carville, who hasn't worked a domestic election in decades, as some sort of all-seeing oracle. Really? If that's the best we can do, we're in a lot of trouble.

There'd be less need for such a spectacle, if the likes of AOC, Cori Bush, Ro Khanna, Ayanna Presley, and Jamie Raskin -- to name several of the usual suspects -- were called to take on greater roles than they do now, instead of hearing, "Shut up and wait your turn for the next 20 or 30 years, until somebody finally dies off." There is ample talent on the bench, but if nobody capitalizes on

Last, but not least, the Democratic Party needs to start thinking bigger, as it once did, so well. Yes, continue prosecuting the case against Trump, but don't leave it there. The fracturing of Biden's coalition is largely driven by young people's discontent that's boiling in the inequities baked into our society, one that the older generation of Boomer politicians stoutly continues to defend, even as they continue to profit by it. How many non-Boomer landlords or bankers do you know personally?

As a recipe for a functioning democracy, it is a disaster, which is why we cannot allow it to fester. Yes, Biden's failure to effectively address the Gaza situation is also part of that puzzle, but hardly the only one. Without a robust response to the economic pain that so many are feeling, the sugar high of Trumpism -- fueled by its cocktail of class resentment, and populist aggrievement -- will remain difficult to refute.

But the sooner we start, the better. Only then will we meet the test posed in Benjamin Franklin's celebrated response, when asked how he envisioned the United States of America unfolding, in practical terms: "A republic, if you can keep it." Let us keep those words in mind, as we enter the fight of our lives, one that we must win -- until next year's July Fourth message -- and hopefully, one that finds us all in better circumstances. --The Reckoner

Links To Go (Hurry, Hurry,

Before They Turn Out The Last Democratic Lights):
Lucid: The Joys Of Immunity:
Think Like An Autocrat And Predict Trump's Behavior:
https://lucid.substack.com/p/the-joys-of-immunity-think-like-an

Our Previous July Fourth Messages:

https://ramennoodlenation.blogspot.com/search/label/July%20Fourth%20blues

Politico.com: 

UK Election: Tories Set To Suffer Total Annihilation:
https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-election-final-mega-polls-predict-total-tory-annihilation-labour-win/

The Atlantic: David Frum:
Trump Should Never Had This Platform:
https://archive.ph/9TDri

The Hill: Crockett Dfending Biden:
"It's Annoying 'That Democrats Get Into A Frenzy':
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4748238-crockett-defends-biden-annoying-democrats-frenzy/