Now what? More of the same but different?

 

Fun election time!

To some, MAGA’s election losses were unexpected. To others, the polls predicted it. Regardless of predictions, now the Dems have some power to try to do something about that colossal mess they inherit. What can they possibly do?

Trump told The New York Times, “I am absolutely willing to accept those results,” and said he looked forward to working with Democrats. He also congratulated Democrats for campaigning effectively. Alongside those statements he posted: “I wasn’t on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!” He also promoted a red cap bearing the word “VETO.” AP reports that he denied the losses amounted to a personal defeat and threatened to veto Democratic legislation. Clearly, Trump is not contrite or accepting any responsibility. How that plays out with Dems in charge of congress isn’t clear.

Trump and MAGA elites apparently are not boing to try to contest the election results. That’s a surprise to some, e.g., me. Apparently, the election wins for Dems were too big for MAGA to rig, despite their desire to rig it (link 1, link 2). That’s a very good thing.

The Dems do not have enough votes to overcome a MAGA party veto of Dem bills in the Senate. There’s no reason to think that (1) MAGA senators will choose to be reasonably bipartisan, or (2) major MAGA donors would want them to be reasonably bipartisan. But, time will tell how that plays out.

All the pro-corruption and pro-dictatorship decisions the USSC has made are still in effect. Trump still has vast power, immunity from criminal prosecution, and a vicious, deeply corrupt mindset. That’s not going to change.

Corporate/Wall Street Dems in congress will still be at odds with the liberals, progressives and socialists. That won’t change.

A hopeful sign is that the depth of voter discontent was sufficient to shift control of congress from MAGA to the Dems. That shift came despite years of MAGA demagoguery smearing the Dems as evil, tyrants, socialists, communists, anti-White racists, open border freaks, radical DEI extremists, America haters, and other kinds of fake monsters. Apparently, unhappiness over inflation and the cost of living, the Iran war, AI data centers, special interest money corrupting politics, and maybe some other factors were sufficient to nudge enough voters to vote Dem despite their MAGA-created fears. That seems to be a big deal.

Yesterday, Nov. 3, Bernie Sanders probably accurately summed up what the Dems are facing. An article states the issue, Sanders Calls for ‘Fundamental and Immediate Reform’ to Democratic Party If It Wins Elections. He said, “With a return to power, [the Democratic Party] can no longer continue to ignore the major economic and political crises facing the majority of our people ….. or that return to power will be short-lived.” That sounds about right.

So, for people opposed to Trump and MAGA’s cruel authoritarian, kleptocratic politics, tactics and policy, enjoy the Dem win for a while. This is a very good thing. After that, things will get interesting again. The war of ghastly corruption and tyranny against less corruption, democracy, and the rule of law will continue, but probably in less overt ways.

Q1: Is Bernie right that the Dem Party needs to fix itself?

Q2: Can the Dem Party with its groups at odds probably fix itself in the way that Sanders and maybe most Americans envision or would want?

Some info sources:

Vivek Ramaswamy’s Concession to Amy Acton Went to Voicemail

10 States With Data Centers on the Ballot All Voted to Ban Them | Out of 41 ballot initiatives, just one very local measure in support of data centers passed

Montana Bans Dark Money, Setting Up Challenge to Citizens United

The Democratic majority Chuck Schumer will lead has changed. Will he change with it? — As Democrats grow more divided over Israel, Schumer may have to choose between his longtime support for Israel and what his party wants (Comment: Corporate dinosaurs, and Israel supporters that control the Dem Party are a major impediment to Dem unity, but the old guard is backed by lots of special interest money, and the powerful pro-Israel lobby)

Trump Tries to Blame Everyone But Himself for Democratic Sweep — After begging voters to act as if he were on the ballot, Donald Trump is struggling to cope with the fact that they did (Comment: Trump is not struggling with that, he simply blames others for his own role in MAGA’s losses)

Regarding internet trolls

 

Troll tactic #5: ad hominem attack

Internet trolls are very bad for democracy and truth, to say the least. Lying, slandering, insulting, crackpotting (flawed reasoning), and fomenting irrational emotional responses are standard tactics for internet trolls doing politics. That applies to demagoguery from Trump, and MAGA elites generally. Facts, truths and good faith reasoning almost always contradict troll mind poisoning lies, slanders, manipulations, etc.

Some honest, good faith info about trolls and how they poison minds seems appropriate for election day.

Description of a troll

An internet troll can be generally described as someone who deliberately provokes, antagonizes, or derails online political discussion as a way to provoke anger, get attention, or create division instead of a good-faith exchange of ideas. The troll’s defining feature is deliberate provocation, not simply disagreement or strong, good faith criticism. It’s mostly bad faith and ill-will. Common troll tactics include insults, inflammatory claims, misleading posts, logic flaws (straw man argument, false dilemma argument, etc.), and pretending to engage sincerely while baiting others into futile arguments the troll has no intention of dealing with respectfully and sincerely. Some trolls act independently. Others participate in organized campaigns to spread propaganda or poison political opinion.

Troll Politics — For the majority of the twentieth century, trolls gradually became more and more tame in the face of vanishing cultural heritage. Still, they have gained strength in the last few decades due to the Internet, essentially reincarnated as online trolls.

Political trolls adapt, create material to deceive and confuse the public

And then there’s science!

Troll story: The dark tetrad and online trolling revisited with a glance at humor — Internet trolling is considered a negative form of online interaction that can have detrimental effects on people’s well-being. (comment: Duh. Can have detrimental effects? Trolls do have detrimental effects)

New research finds that many Internet trolls are ’everyday sadists’ — Conclusion: Those who rated highest on the scales for narcissism, psychopathology, Machiavellianism and sadism — highest of all for the trait of sadism — were the same people who were trolls.

Q1: Are there any trolls who routinely participate in any online politics you are aware of, and if so, do you believe that they are, in general, they more harmful than helpful?

Q2: Is it likely that research indicating some degree of mental illness or abnormality is common among internet trolls doing politics is true?

Regarding the Democratic Party

 

There always seems to be at least one or two nominally Democratic politicians in congress who manage to torpedo or significantly weaken the party or its agenda. Joe Lieberman, Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema, the lunatic Fetterman, and most recently the idiot Haley Stevens of Michigan come to mind. By contrast, the MAGA party doesn’t have much major internal dissent that manifests as serious damage to what the MAGAs want to do. Years of RINO hunting have either shut up or got rid of most internal dissention in the MAGA party. Even alleged “moderates” like Susan Collins, despite their hand wringing and other pointless virtue signaling, are rarely significant in terms of meaningful dissenting impact.

For context, the sometimes allegedly dissenter mavericks (or whatever dumb label is applied) Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, and Rand Paul are staunch MAGA supporters no matter what they or the idiot MSM says to the contrary. Murkowski votes for Trump 90% of the time and Collins votes for him 92% of the time and Paul, the only close thing to MAGA dissent in the Senate votes 85% MAGA. That’s not much opposition. One could almost say it is almost no significant opposition.

Exactly what is the Dem Party?

Why did Michigan’s Haley Stevens go off the rails? Apparently because of disagreement over always poisonous Israel politics. She went nuts and supports Mike Rogers, an authoritarian kleptocrat MAGA politician, because she misunderstand El-Sayed’s stated position on Israel.[1] As usual, Israel supporters generally frame any criticism of Israel as fascist anti-Semitism. Even with stakes as high as possible control of the US Senate and the fate of democracy, an arrogant, idiot (yes, I really mean idiot) Dem politician happily tries to sabotage that over the always toxic American politics related to Israel. That is how fragile the Dem Party coalition is.

In the Dem Party coalition, there are 4 main groups, all of which are poisoned by overarching divisive issues of Israel and special interest money. The party is worse than an organizational mess.

Democratic socialists seek the largest shift of economic power away from wealthy owners and toward workers and public institutions. This is generally the group that is (1) most explicitly opposed to corporate political influence, and (2) the strongest critics of unconditional US support for Israel. These people usually are the most directly at odds with AIPAC’s preferred policies.

Progressives / social democrats support stronger unions, universal benefits, progressive taxation, and tighter corporate regulation within a substantially reformed capitalist economy. Their political support includes grassroots donors, unions, advocacy organizations, and as always, organized interests. Increasingly critical of Israeli government policy and unconditional military aid, but not uniformly so. AIPAC-backed campaigns against progressive incumbents demonstrate how disagreement over Israel can also weaken the party’s economic left.

Mainstream / establishment liberals support regulated capitalism, social insurance, and incremental reform. Their position between the left and business-friendly moderates makes them a major arena for competing donors, organizations, and voter demands. The liberals are traditionally supportive of the US–Israel relationship, but increasingly divided over military funding and conditions on support. Some are moving away from AIPAC toward J Street’s more critical, liberal pro-Israel position. Others maintain relationships with both organizations.

Business-friendly moderates / centrists emphasize private enterprise, market-oriented solutions, and compromise. Their economic approach is more compatible with corporate interests. These elites are often donor beneficiaries when pro-Israel organizations support challengers to the left. But economic moderation and support for Israel remain separate positions. AIPAC’s electoral coalition is organized around demagoguing for Israel, not a comprehensive domestic economic platform.

Obviously there are lots of other ways to describe groups of Dem Party elites. But this should help to see why there is almost always a freak like Stevens going nuts over some damned thing or another, often Israel. The elites are mostly a herd of arrogant grumpy cats, not regular, decent people. They’re not pragmatic rationalists. Not clear-minded politicians. Definitely not disciplined in their reasoning or their loyalties.

But at least, unlike MAGA elites, most of the Dem elites are still nominally pro-democracy and pro-rule of law. Well, probably still mostly pro-democracy and rule of law. As a whole, Dem elites are a broad, independent-minded coalition, basically the opposite of authoritarianism-minded MAGA elites.

Q1: Are the elites running the Dem Party too diverse to ever get away from the plague of one or more of their elected politicians going rogue and doing unbelievably stupid things like Stevens has done?

Q2: Was what Stevens did[2] mostly a matter of a fragile injured ego lashing out against El-Sayed, or is it mostly something to do with Israel, no matter how irrational it is, or a combination of both?

Q3: Is it better for democracy to pretend the Dem Party isn’t the organizational mess it is?

Footnotes:

1. The immediate flashpoint for Stevens going nuts was an outside group’s advertisement connecting Americans’ grocery costs to US military assistance to Israel. Stevens demanded that El-Sayed reject it and made that a condition of joining a campaign event. El-Sayed said the advertisement was not his campaign’s and that he disagreed with its contents. CNN reports that Stevens initially praised that response, but nonetheless endorsed Rogers the following day anyway. Is that insanity or what?

2. According to current reporting, Stevens is not Jewish. But she said in an October 31 interview that she was considering converting to Judaism. The NYT reported that Stevens was pissed at El-Sayed because he refused to say whether Iran or Israel was a greater threat to the US. And thus, the balance of power in the US Senate just might hinge on Stevens being pissed off at El-Sayed for whatever reason(s) there may or may not be, rational or not, pro-democracy or not.

Some info sources:

Centrist Democrats Would Rather Lose the Senate Than Win With El-Sayed

Stevens staff resign over Rogers endorsement

El-Sayed’s primary opponent stuns Democrats by endorsing Republican opponent in Michigan Senate race

Pre-election MAGA news roundup

 

Lying about the law: A Huffpo article, Fox News Loses It Over Mamdani Explainer On Constitutional Rights: ‘How Is This Not Illegal?’, reports on MAGA’s mind-poisoning demagoguery industry falsely basically claiming that giving legal advice to the public is illegal. Fox was in a morally outraged snit because Mamdani made a speech (in Spanish) telling New Yorkers their rights when confronted by ICE. That’s MAGA’s morally rotted demagoguery in action. If his speech was in English MAGA mind poisoners would not be so well-armed. Hm, is it illegal to speak a foreign language in the US? Fox should argue that too.

Trickle-up economics: A NYT opinion, Baby Boomers Are Retiring in Droves. Private Equity Is Waiting, provides a glimpse of how the economic walls are closing in on consumers and workers. Wealth isn’t just trickling up to elites and corporations, it is also concentrating geographically in urban areas, especially coastal urban areas. Unregulated or under-regulated private capital is quietly concentrating ownership, decision-making, and claims on future profits without moving physical assets into the cities where buyers live. Simply put, out of town business owners no longer live locally when private equity buys a business someplace else.

Retiring owners create an opportunity for acquisition. Harvard Business School’s account, citing Project Equity, identifies about 2.9 million U.S. businesses with owners over 55, employing approximately 32.1 million people and generating $6.5 trillion in annual revenue. Those figures describe the businesses potentially facing succession, not businesses already purchased by private equity. The Harvard analysis comments: An expected “tsunami” of retirements by private business owners — and no succession plans in place — threatens the future of those firms, the people who work there and the communities where they are located.

Special interest money in the election: Various sources are commenting on the vast amount of special interest money flowing into the 2026 elections. One report indicates that a group of over 100 super PACS has donated over $1 billion. That reports credits the USSC’s 2010 decision in Citizens United as a major factor. Another report of a different group of donors indicates that 515 wealthy individuals have spent ~$4.2 billion for the 2026 elections.

Regarding the CU decision, it was and still is illegal for corporations and major donors to contribute directly to a campaign. But the CU decision opened a gigantic loophole allowing unlimited money to go to political action committees who can then make contributions.

Illegal: Special interest donor → politician’s campaign

Legal after CU: Special interest donor → political action committee → politician’s campaign

Would they spend that much it if wasn’t worth it?

MAGA’s deregulation: Trump and MAGA elites deregulate businesses by simply stopping existing enforcement actions and not raising new ones. That way, existing regulations and laws stay on the books, but are more or less dead because they are no longer enforced. If there is enforcement, it is against MAGA enemies. Power flows from the public interest protected by laws and regulations to the special interests who are no longer constrained. Once power flows from the public interest, wealth will follow once empowered special interests implement formerly regulated commercial activities. That’s not rocket science, it’s just common sense.

Corruption of MAGA: A Democratic Senate report, THE BILLION DOLLAR DEAL: How the Fossil Fuel Industry Bought the Trump Administration, Cashed In, and Left Americans to Pay the Price, documents the corruption of Trump and MAGA elites by legal pollute for profit payoffs, e.g., via super PACs, etc. The report comments: The Trump Administration’s near-total refusal to cooperate with legitimate Congressional oversight—a sharp break from the practice of prior administrations of both parties—complicated this investigation. Industry was also often unresponsive to Congressional oversight requests. Their silence has not stopped this investigation, but it should trouble every member of this institution, regardless of party. Despite this obstruction, the record we have assembled tells a clear story: a President who sold the federal government to the highest bidder, and an industry that got exactly what it paid for. The American people did not get a vote on that deal.

Obviously, Trump, MAGA elites and politicians all vehemently deny there is any corruption going on. Rank & file MAGA voters presumably either believe the denials, or they are not concerned enough to not vote more for more of the same.

Q1: When a special interest is deregulated by any means, e.g., not enforcing existing regulations or laws, does power usually flow from the formerly protected public interest to affected deregulated special interests?

Q2: When a special interest(s) is deregulated, is it likely in most instances that most of the additional wealth from deregulation will flow from the public interest to the deregulated special interest(s)?

Q3: If it either (1) wasn’t commercially worth it to spend money on campaigns, or if (2) special interest donations were matched by public campaign finance, it is reasonable to believe that there would be a lot less special interest money spent on buying politicians, thereby making it much more important for special interests to get political support on the merits, instead of just buying support regardless of damage to the public interest?

On the matter of trust vs distrust

 

Deregulated brass knuckles capialtism doing its thing

A NYT opinion piece, The Open Secret Buried in Anthropic’s 300-Page I.P.O. Filing, focuses on the huge amounts on money in play. This opinion raises the usually-present issue of who and what to trust when elites in politics, commerce or religion are doing what they do. In the years before and after the USSC’s 2010 Citizens United decision opened floodgates that held back much of the corrupting power of special interest money in politics, power has been flowing from the public interest and the public itself to special interests with a lot of wealth, power, or both. With the election of Trump and rise of MAGA elites to power, they have blown the dam itself to smithereens, while being aided by additional pro-corruption USSC decisions. What is left for us are annoyances in the dam’s rubble that special interests have to steer their money and its power through. They usually get what they want.

The trust issue is grounded in what by now is obvious to most open-minded people paying at least some attention to politics. Specifically, now that Trump and MAGA elites have gutted and neutered power and protections for the people and the public interest, can institutions weakened or neutered by politicians made complicit by private wealth and power, still give the public a meaningful protection regarding AI’s basically unregulated expansion. Put another way, what if any any rational basis is left to trust what mostly unregulated AI, or any other business sector** wants to do, regardless of how badly it damages or disempowers us and the public interest?

** For example, consider Exxon-Mobil and other all major pollute-for-profit businesses and their financiers. The public interest dam has not vanished completely. But major breaches and feeble law enforcement leave wealthy interests far too much room to convert small amounts of their private fortunes into lots of public power. That is the political backdrop against which we are being asked to trust the architects of the AI economy, pollute-for-profit businesses, etc.

Thoughts on trust vs distrust

Based on closely watching how American elites operate and what they do, a reasonable person can believe that concluding bad motives** of MAGA and most deregulated businesses is supported by evidence. That can be sufficient for the court of public opinion. If one has watched events in the years before and after the USSC’s 2010 pro-corruption Citizens United decision, nearly all the evidence points to the worst motives in play for the elites in politics and commerce.

** Bad motives like corrupt, authoritarianism, mendacious, deceptive, autocratic, Christian nationalist theocratic, oligarchic, more mendacity, more corruption, etc.

That is not a reflexive suspicion of one company. It is a judgment formed over years. There is a persistent pattern in how powerful people acquire influence, justify their decisions, and distribute the benefits and costs. The accumulated public record of bad motives and bad acts arguably has exhausted the elites’ entitlement to any presumption of good faith.

Q1: Have Trump and MAGA elites in power exhausted their entitlement to any presumption of good faith?

Q2: Have elites among the Democratic socialists and social democrats exhausted their entitlement to any presumption of good faith? What about the Wall Street Democratic Party elites, e.g., Schumer and Hakim Jefferies?

Some info sources:

Ted Cruz for Senate, et al. v. FEC — The FEC struck down the $250,000 limit on using post-election contributions to repay a candidate’s personal campaign loans.

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010) — A pro-corruption USSC decision that legalized this: Corporation $ → PAC → politician’s campaign. Before this decision, this was (and still is) illegal: Corporation $ → politician’s campaign. See the new and “improved” way for special interest money to exert power over our political system by buying politicians and political parties?

McDonnell v. United States, 579 U.S. ___ (2016) — A pro-corruption USSC decision that narrowed the definition of an “official act” for the corruption charges at issue.

Snyder v. United States (2024) — A pro-corruption USSC decision that a federal law covering state and local officials prohibiting bribes, did not cover after-the-fact gratuities. Here the USSC converted illegal bribes to state politicians and officials into legal “gratuities” or “tips” after the politician did what the tip-payer wanted.

Buy me I’m for sale! Give me a gratuity I can’t be bought!

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Can democracy and the rule of law survive with a morally weak society?

 

Does that ask too much of people?

Is that the way to achieve freedom?

Describing an aspect of moral courage or strength

Probably inadvertently, the editors of the NYT raised an critically important but ignored point in their editorial today, Trump Has Failed. Hold Him to Account: Today’s Democratic Party has plenty of flaws, including a disappointing failure to present a coherent agenda of its own. Nonetheless, Democrats offer the only alternative this year to the damage that Mr. Trump and his party have inflicted on the nation.

Well at least for me they raised the point, which is this: Why are Dems so Dog-awful at presenting a coherent agenda of its own? For years, some people of good will have been telling Dem elites in good faith that, for the most part, they are not articulating a coherent agenda of their own. Their messaging was and still is too ineffective.

Why? Arguably an important reason is that for many people facing threatening or unwelcome facts takes significant moral courage. Humans being human, we often we fall short and distort inconvenient reality into something it isn’t. Facing unwelcome facts and reasoning can take more moral courage than we sometimes bring to it. Facing unpleasant reality sometimes means admitting that someone we trusted misled us, questioning a belief central to our identity, or risking disapproval from people whose acceptance matters to us.

This is a moral issue, not a question of intelligence. When our political choices affect other people, which they usually do, we owe each other an honest effort to examine the evidence, even when we would rather not. That responsibility applies just as much to those of us making this argument. The standard is not agreement with me or anyone else. It is willingness to consider or reconsider when the fact or reasoning evidence reasonably warrants it.

Plenty of research documents how people protect favored beliefs and political loyalties. Those phenomena are real, not in dispute by experts. The moral argument here is that we all have a responsibility to resist that temptation when other people’s welfare and rights are at stake. True, the demagogues and liars bear more moral responsibility for their deceit and unwarranted manipulations, but average people are also involved. In general, most people with sufficient moral courage can handle bad news a better than people who cannot. That’s the basic assumption here, but it is strongly supported by research.

The bad news too many people cannot tolerate

What might the critically important but uncomfortable messages be? It might be that the party is over, and the bill is coming due. The truthful message the Dems need to assert but cannot articulate is just too unpleasant. The bad news is that Americans are facing a decreasing standard of living and high cost of living. Although there are economically plausible ways for an honest, pro-democracy government to improve ordinary people’s living standards and make necessities more affordable, doing that is politically impossible at present.

There is no convincing account of how to assemble and sustain the political power needed to apply policies that get at the heart of most of the discontent among average Americans. The central issue is distribution of wealth and power. Improving affordability requires changing who receives income, who bears costs, and who can extract payments from everyone else. That makes it politically difficult, but not economically impossible. Given the intense anti-government and anti-public interest sentiment that dominates radical right MAGA dogma, addressing cost of living for the masses is not politically possible. MAGA authoritarianism is in power and it works very hard to take wealth and power from the public and the public interest, while transferring it to elites and allied special interests.

Q1: Is it plausible that one of the main reasons, maybe the main reason, Dem messaging sucks so badly is that too many Americans cannot handle the very nasty truths that (1) the US is in economic, technological, commercial, fiscal, and social decline, and (2) sooner or later someone has to start paying gigantic overdue bills, e.g., (a) the $40+ trillion on the books federal debt, (b) the additional tens of trillions in unfunded (off the books) federal debt (bye-bye social security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc.), (c) the coming hundreds of billions annually, maybe trillions, for costs of US support for global warming by deregulating or gutting pollution controls, (d) vast damage MAGA has caused critical US infrastructure, e.g., (i) basic and applied research, (ii) trashed alliances with former allies who are now economically and technologically distancing themselves from an untrustworthy and hostile US, (e) etc.?

Q2: Does this moral argument make sense to you? Political demagogues and deceivers wrong (morally violate) citizens by manipulating the information on which informed consent depends, but citizens also bear some responsibility to protect their own political agency (democratic rights and protections), and the agency of others, by making reasonable efforts to distinguish unpleasant truth from comforting falsehood.

Q3: Is it true that when citizens avoid accessible but uncomfortable evidence because it threatens identity, status, or group membership, they make themselves more available for political manipulation, and therefore because their resulting political decisions adversely affect other people, this is a moral failure, not just a matter of excusable ignorance?

Q4: If the US is in decline, is it plausible that the decline is significantly or mostly due to the fact that over the last ~50 years too much wealth and power have been taken from the public and the public interest and transferred to the elites and allied special interests?

Some info sources:

At Least Bias is Bipartisan: A Meta-Analytic Comparison of Partisan Bias in Liberals and Conservatives — This research indicates that the left and right have inherent biases. The unanswered question is how those biases influence perceptions of reality and reasoning in the different information ecosystems that much or most of the left and right usually experience. Here, the authors explicitly acknowledge that similar processing biases can coexist with unequal factual accuracy because one side’s media ecosystem supplies less accurate information. The result here is not evidence that the two sides have equally sound relationships with reality, only that the two sides have a similar degree of bias.

Differences in misinformation sharing can lead to politically asymmetric sanctions — Conservative users shared more unreliable news than liberal users across the datasets studied. That means neutral rules against misinformation on social media can penalize conservatives more without indicating political bias. People on both sides can favor information that supports their political loyalties. But that does not make the two sides equally accurate or their information sources equally honest. That is why I keep posting truth that’s inconvenient to some about significant MAGA propaganda, lies and slanders sources, e.g.,

Enquiring minds want to know all about the Epstein Files, and Trump

 Today, House Judiciary Committee Democrats released a new report about the Epstein files, The Case Against Donald Trump Emerging in the Epstein Files and DOJ’s Desperate Efforts to Cover It Up (report summary at this link). One version of a summary is that there is more than enough evidence in the public record, including this new report, to reasonably believe that Trump is a serial rapist, a pedophile, a chronic liar, and a vicious criminal with sufficient power to subvert and neuter the DoJ, the FBI, and the rule of law as it applies to himself and people with dirt on him.

Sex predator: The released report says: A growing body of evidence demonstrates that Donald Trump was an active participant in Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual abuse of young women during the mid-to-late 1990s.

Of the 11 women who tie Donald Trump to Epstein’s sex trafficking operation, five of them—Beatrice Keul, Stacey Williams, Jill Harth, Katie Johnson, and a Jane Doe—have directly accused Trump of raping or sexually assaulting them in Epstein’s company or direct physical presence: ….. Beyond these direct allegations of physical assault, three survivors speak of encounters with Trump whose circumstances indicate that he was a participant in Epstein’s crimes, as shown by how Epstein and his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, tried to make (or made) these women available for sex.

In total, more than 25 different women—some connected to Epstein and many not—have independently accused Donald Trump of rape, sexual assault, or other sexual misconduct. His ex-wife Ivana Trump stated in a sworn deposition during their divorce proceedings that Trump had physically and sexually assaulted her in 1989, pulling out clumps of her hair and raping her after an argument.

In the face of this wave of evidence, the only recourse for the President has been to spread lies and obfuscation. In July 2019, after Epstein was arrested on charges of conspiracy to traffic minors, Donald Trump claimed that he knew Epstein “just like everybody in Palm Beach knew him” and insisted that he “had no idea” about Epstein’s crimes. This evasion and this denial are contradicted by almost all of the available evidence, including Trump and Epstein’s own words and the documents contained in the Epstein files.

Subversion of the FBI and DOJ: The released report says: The Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) are doing everything they can to keep the American people in the dark about it. From the very first weeks of the Trump Administration, DOJ shut down ongoing criminal investigations into Epstein’s enablers and co-conspirators, lied about clear evidence of crimes in its possession, and sought to silence survivors. In July 2025, then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and one of his senior deputies, Emil Bove—both former criminal defense lawyers for Donald Trump—released a memorandum stating that DOJ and FBI had determined that “no further disclosure” of the Epstein files would be “appropriate or warranted.”

Instead of pursuing justice for Epstein’s survivors, former Attorney General Pam Bondi and Attorney General Blanche have been running DOJ like a private legal defense firm for their former client. Determined to protect the President at any cost, DOJ itself now leads the cover-up of Epstein’s sex trafficking operation.

Chronic liar: Trump lied to the public about his sex with Stormy Daniels and the later payoff to buy her silence. Cohen Plea Deal Exposes Repeated False Claims, Silk pajamas, spanking and questions about STDs: Stormy Daniels details sexual encounter with Trump, Get Caught Up: Trump’s Alleged Affair With Adult Film Star Stormy Daniels, Stormy Daniels Said 2018 Letter Denying She Had Sex With Trump Is a ‘Lie’

Also, there’s a nice graphic showing that based on 1,000 fact checks, about 76% of Trump’s assertions are “mostly false”, “false”, or “pants on fire”.

What PolitiFact learned in 1,000 fact-checks of Donald Trump

There is far more evidence in the public record, but this is a short summary showing that Trump is a vicious lying liar.

Q: Is it reasonable and evidence-based to believe that Trump is a chronic liar and a sex predator with sufficient power to corrupt the DOJ and FBI, or is that just vicious fact checkers and Dems lying and smearing Trump’s good name?

Time is not on our side

 And maybe there’s not much time left for our what is left of our fading democracy, rule of law, and civil liberties. That will depend on how the midterm elections come out. If the MAGA party retains a significant degree of control of the House or the Senate, it’s probably (more likely than not) game over for us by the Nov. 2028 elections.

By significant I mean (1) enough MAGA votes in the Senate to filibuster everything the Dems want to do, and to be unable to override Trump’s promised tidal wave of vetoes, and (2) enough MAGA votes in the House to constantly sabotage Dem bills. In the House, a slim majority won’t cut it. As we all know, the Dems will almost certainly be fatally fragmented and unable to get their shit together. All the MAGA politicians have to do is stick together, something they are very good at doing.

The main point this OP is arguing is pretty simple. By not winning overwhelming majorities in the House and Senate, the Dems will be stymied. There will be another 2 years of congressional failure, gridlock, and believe it or not, further drift into tyranny and kleptocracy. When government is corrupted and broken, as it now is, time weighs heavily against democracy, the rule of law and our precious civil liberties. When government is broken and corrupted, the more time that passes, the weaker our defenses become. It’s siege warfare. We are stranded and our defenses are constantly weakening.

A person paying attention to MAGA politics, tactics and policy related to democracy, the rule of law, and civil liberties since Jan. 2017 when Trump was sworn into office the first time can easily see how close we are to degenerating into a true, cruel, bigoted kleptocratic tyranny. We’re close to that end.

An example of the slow but constant advance of MAGA’s siege against our defenses

An article The Nation published, The Fall of Scientific American, is a great example of how MAGA wears down and neuters our democracy and its defending institutions. Recently the owner of SciAm, Springer Nature, decided to sell SciAm to LabX. Springer is a publisher of serious, high quality science journals including the top science publication in the world, Nature. LabX publishes sensational stuff for clickbait purposes. Springer said to sold SciAm so it could concentrate on academic research and scientific publishing. The thing is though, SciAm is focused on academic research and scientific publishing.

So why sell a high quality science publication like SciAm to a crappy publisher? Money. With MAGA and corrupt capitalism, it always involves money and the power to move it where the elites in power want it to move.

What triggered the SciAm sale to a crappy business was a May 2025 editorial, Science Tells Us the U.S. Is Heading toward a Dictatorship. It’s no surprise that Trump and MAGA elites were super pissed off with that. Tyrants and kleptocrats vehemently hate criticism accompanied by inconvenient facts, truths, and reasoning. Reality make them look bad because they are bad.

MAGA’s political pressure threatened the parent company’s business. Springer Nature faced the potential loss of as much as $25 million in federal contracts after Trump canceled subscriptions to its scientific publications. Internal recordings show executives feared that SciAm’s criticism of Trump endangered their much larger academic-publishing business.

Corporate intervention changed editorial decisions. The Nation’s article documents management’s insistence on softening an opinion piece about government intimidation of scientific journals. After the May 2025 column, management suspended the opinion department’s publishing. Its editors were reassigned. Editor in chief David Ewalt acknowledged temporarily discouraging “Trump” in headlines because the word attracted corporate scrutiny. Ewalt wanted less “editorializing” and more factual reporting, arguing that rigorous news coverage could challenge the administration without jeopardizing the magazine.

Well, as we all know by now, rigorous MSM news coverage catastrophically failed to challenge Trump and rising MAGA tyranny and corruption. Ever since 2017 when it became clear who and what Trump and MAGA were, a few of us have been incessantly warning elites in the MSM (and the Dem Party) of the threat. Not surprisingly, those fine (arrogant, clueless and/or complicit) elites have been equally constantly ignoring the warnings. They acted and still act as if everything was/is more or less normal. Maybe a bit nastier than usual, but still mostly normal.

Anyway, SciAm staff who had not been fired or coerced into retirement wanted to form a labor union to protect SciAm’s editorial independence. What did Springer do? Springer announced the SciAm sale to LabX on June 23, 2026. That was three days before union votes were scheduled to be counted. The union alleged that the restructuring and sale were intended to defeat organizing; the article reports that the related NLRB (National Labor Relations Board) case remained open. But as we all know by now, Trump and MAGA elites have neutered the NLRB (another link), so those employees can go pound sand. Federal law is absolutely not going to protect them — MAGA policy has made damned sure of that worker complaints will be ignored or outright rejected by deeply corrupt MAGAfied government.

Power and wealth flows from protected workers (and consumers) to elite owners. That is MAGA’s core economic agenda and it always has been.

Q1: If the Dems do not win overwhelming control of the House and Senate, which they probably won’t, will we probably will lose having a meaningful democracy, rule of law and civil liberties by Nov. 2028, because as long as Trump and MAGA elites have sufficient power they will continue to wear down our defenses?

Q2: Is science inseparable from politics and social conditions, and thus SciAm commenting on the connections between science, and politics and society important for the public to be aware of?

PTSD treatment update

A 2023 post here mentioned an opinion piece from July 2023, The Best PTSD Treatment You've Never Heard Of.  At the time, the new protocol called RTM (Reconsolidation of Traumatic Memories) sounded to be almost too good to be true. The US military was hostile to it because an effective, low-cost PTSD treatment threatened some military budgets and careers. An article in Science Daily about a different treatment protocol, Breakthrough PTSD treatment achieves 68% remission rate in clinical trial, raised the question, whatever happened to that old RTM protocol? Was it killed off and buried by hostility to effective, low cost treatments, or did it survive despite hostility?

Apparently, RTM is still being tested. Results of another study comparing RTM treatment of PTSD patients (n=48) with the existing longer-term standard of care (n=46) was published last April. in that study, RTM matched the standard of care control group, with meaningful positive responses happening faster in the RTM group. So, RTM is still alive.

The RTM study published April 2026

 An RTM study in Ukrainian children with PTSD appears to be underway. That study, NCT07185126, calls for ~40–48 children aged 6–14 to receive a modified-protocol RTM therapy. The record names the Charitable Foundation Voices of Children and Quresta, Inc. as collaborators. It does not clearly identify a funding amount or financial contributions. That study is detailed on the US government's clinical trials website. So far, no results have been posted for that trial.

And there's some sort of an RTM-clinician focused site that indicates future clinical trials are planned.

It's hard to compare RTM results with the brain stimulation protocol the Science Daily paper talks about. Existing results put RTM in the same broad range of observed improvement as MeRT (targeted transcranial magnetic brain stimulation), but results do not establish that either treatment is better. RTM’s strongest recent trial found substantial improvement comparable to standard prolonged treatment, with more early responders. MeRT’s larger trial found a statistically significant benefit over sham stimulation. Its 68% remission rate cannot validly be compared to RTM’s 58% loss-of-diagnosis rate (PTSD no longer diagnosable). The protocols and follow-ups are too different for direct comparison.