Beware the alienated intellectual

The Wall Street Journal usually has pretty good reporting. But I avoid its opinion page, particularly since it was Murdochulated.

But, I’m making an exception for this piece, “The Alienated ‘Knowledge Class’ Could Turn Violent: Societies that exile their intellectuals risk turning them into revolutionaries,” by Jukka Savolainen. In it, the author argues that Trump’s crude and graceless cuts in everything from funding for higher education to salaries for government agencies could have very bad effects. Specifically, they could create hordes of unemployed, alienated, frustrated, and angry individuals…all of whom have University degrees and no little talent for organization.

Savolainen thinks that most such people wouldn’t turn violent, but even if only a few do, the results could be very serious, indeed. He notes that several of the most destructive groups of the 1960s and 1970s – the Weather Underground here in the US, the Red Brigades in Italy – had very similar backgrounds. Those “urban guerrillas” were likewise middle class and well-educated, but could find no place for themselves in their countries.

Possibly the best part in the piece reads, “As the Trump administration downsizes public agencies, dismantles DEI programs and slashes academic research funding, it risks producing a new class of people who are highly educated but institutionally excluded. History suggests this group may become a source of unrest—and possibly violence.”

Thus more gifts from the Trump Administration–misery and unrest, and a society at war with itself. 

MAGA is killing American Science…and America

 

Powerful piece in the Economist recently, “MAGA’s assault on science is an act of grievous self-harm.” In it, the editors note that the Trump Administration’s current attack on science is among the worst things that’s ever happened to the United States. It is driving the best researchers out of the country, and depriving us of myriad scientific and technical advances – the sort of thing that builds economies and prosperity.

It concludes (chillingly) that what Trump and his minions are doing is effectively turning over the future to China, and anyone else who might hate us.

Jill Biden: American Hero

So I read recently in the Daily Beast Trump DOJ Lawyer Floats ‘Criminal Charges’ for Jill Biden, an article by Leigh Kimmins. According to the piece, “Leo Terrell, senior counsel to the assistant attorney general for civil rights” has suggested that Jill Biden is guilty of “elder abuse,” as part of some imagined plot to conceal President Biden’s illness.

This is, of course, ridiculous. No such plot ever existed. And Dr. Bilden is wholly innocent. But, that doesn’t matter. I’m guessing that the whole point of the story was part of the Administration’s strategy of “flooding the zone” with insane non-news to keep the media, the public, and the Democratic Party off balance. I’m betting that in a few days, the whole thing will vanish, to be replaced by yet another idiotic manufactured crisis.

But there’s the rub. The story is an exercise in calculated cruelty, designed to wound the Biden family and distract the public. It is, in effect, a pure falsehood, but one which reveals much about the people. Their sadism, their total disregard for truth, and their willingness to sacrifice everything…including their dignity…for power, all these are on display.

And no one should fail to see that. For it reveals who they truly are.

Which is to say, they are monstrous. And obscene. And must be opposed in every possible way.

Jake Trapper and his smear-all book

I must confess, I’m appalled by Mr. Trapper’s current book, which purports to be a tell-all revealing how diminished was Joe Biden toward the end of his term. That’s partly because I have trouble believing it. The Biden I saw in public was anything but the senile cripple that the book claims he was. If anything, Biden seemed active, alert, and quite bright. He was running the country and doing it well.

But, suppose for a moment that the book is true. I’m still not a fan of Mr. Trapper. The simple fact of the matter is that Joe Biden is not president of these United States at the moment. Donald Trump is. And right now, Trump seems to be a far greater threat to American freedom than any we’ve faced since World War II.

So, why…in God’s name?...are we spending our time and energy yet again trashing Biden (who presided over a healthy economy and a successful foreign policy), when Trump is there, a monument to corruption, and a danger to us all?

What will he do?

So today is Memorial Day. 

How, do you suppose, Trump will mark this solemn occasion? By ignoring it? By making a wholly disingenuous show of patriotism? 

Or…

By dismissing the dead and martyrs as suckers and losers?

I’m kinda guessing that last.

Note to Putin: Don’t Even Think About It

Don't Tempt Him.

So several countries sharing a border with Russia are preparing for war on the theory that once Putin is done with Ukraine, other nations are bound to follow. One of those is Finland (see Finland accelerates preparedness for war in all forms by Shona Murray in Euro.news) and another is Poland (see Poland prepares for war by Rob Schmitz and Greg Dixon on the NPR website.) 

As is clear from both articles, the two countries are quite serious about fighting back. And remember, both nations fought wars of independence with Russia – Finland twice (The Winter War and the Continuation War), and Poland in the Polish-Soviet War of 1919-1921. In both cases, these much smaller European nations did remarkably well against their much larger rival. 

So, note to Putin. Don’t think about an invasion of either Poland, or Finland, or anywhere else in Western Europe. You didn’t do well in your initial invasion of Ukraine. You are still not doing terribly well there. And, yes, you’ve learned a lot over the last few years, but so has everyone else. We’ve all learned the lessons of this new kind of war – the importance of drones, cyberwarfare, social media, etc. –  and we know how to apply them. 

Therefore, here’s a word of advice. Yes, Trump, that repulsive lickspittle, has given you the green light to do what you like in Europe. But he’s not the only factor to consider. Finland, Poland, plus the whole of NATO, are fully capable of hurting you badly.

So badly, in fact, that even a victory might seem Pyrrhic at best, and an abject disaster at worst.

Tariffs On? Or Tariffs Off? Or What?

Are the walls there. Or not?

So as I write this (on May 12) Trump has announced a temporary suspension of tariffs against China, and he’s trumpeting the suspension as a great victory and a feat of deal-making.

But, also as I write this, experts are not convinced that the suspension isn’t just a short-term measure, and that America has gained anything for all the effort (other than a titanic embarrassment internationally), and that the deal won’t collapse in the end. (See The U.S. and China make a deal on trade. Here's what analysts are saying: Stocks are rallying, but this victory looks hollow, analysts and economists say — and it might not last, By Catherine Baab, Quartz)

So, by the time you read this (I’m scheduling it for May 23), pretty much everything may have changed. Probably for the worst.

But maybe that’s the point. Maybe the theory is that if he just keeps talking, just keeps blithering, people won’t notice what a disaster he really is.

Not even when we all end hungry, selling blood to survive, and offering kidneys for the transplant market. 

GOP Mega-Doner: Trump’s Not Such A Good Idea After All

Politico is reporting that Ken Griffin, a major GOP donor and star of the libertarian-free-enterprise world, has startled everyone by rejecting Trump’s tariffs. Not only are they bad for business, he says, they also open the door to Crony Capitalism, with the government deciding who wins and who loses.

It is interesting to see Griffin taking this position. He was, until recently, a serious Trump supporter. Now, quite the reverse. 

It’s good that he is taking on Trump, of course. Though, really, it would have been nice if he'd seen what Trump was a bit sooner. Which should have been easy. After all, Trump made no secret of his intentions. 

Which brings up a question. Why is it that "visionary" business professionals so often fail to see what is right in front of their face? And which all the rest of us…we non-visionaries…have perceived all along? 

The Jewish “Civil War”

 

Conflict

Interesting article in the New Republic, The Coming Jewish Civil War Over Donald Trump, by Eric Alterman. In it, Mr. Alterman says that Trump is dividing American Jews into two hostile camps: on the one hand, those who accept Trump’s leadership and interpret any criticism of Israel as antisemitic, and on the other, those who pursue progressive ends.

It is a thoughtful and disturbing piece. And you have to suspect that there’s more than a little truth in it. Already, it seems, American Jews who support Israel, and who are in no way anti-Zionist, but who disapprove of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, are being demonized by what Atlerman calls “legacy” Jewish groups, such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee ( AIPAC).

In the long term, Alterman concludes, the partnership of the Legacy groups with Trump will be particularly destructive. Such organizations will never be able to escape the taint of corruption which comes along with their support for this benighted administration.

Not Really Hers, But Brilliant Just The Same

Not Liz, But Pru

So, like a lot of people, a few days ago I saw what was said to be a posting from Liz Cheney taking the Democrats to task for inactivity in the face of a serious threat of Fascism. I accepted that it was from the former congresswoman. However, I soon learned that the letter had been misattributed. It had actually been written (and signed) by a Facebook user who goes by the name of PruPru. (It is still not clear who reproduced the letter and claimed it was from Liz Cheney.)

That said, when you read the posting, you have to think it is right on the money. PruPru begs Democrats to stop fund-raising and start fighting. She is dang tired (and aren’t we all?) of getting endless emails and messages begging for $20 here and $15 there, while it seems that the Party Elite is inert, and not confronting Trump in really meaningful ways.

She also has some excellent ideas about what the Democrats could do now, and how they could make the GOP actually squirm.

The letter is well worth reading, and you can see it here: https://www.facebook.com/DrPruLee/posts/pfbid038BY7yThGnhmksswQDbuEauChgPKA8wj5rnBVjZeGeh2kzEEGtFNoxDiQ29YrLfbnl

So, not really from Liz Cheney…

But damn! It makes good reading.

Three cheers to PruPru.

Factory Jobs Aren’t Coming

No Humans Need Apply

So I saw in an article in Fortune that “U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick says factory gigs are the ‘great jobs of the future.’” This is part of the Right’s drive to return manufacturing to America.

That’s fine. It’s even laudable. We need more manufacturing to be done here in the United States. We need to claw back the factories that our business elites happily offshored so that they could get “low-cost labor” … and to crush unions in the process. 

But the idea that Americans are going to get jobs in those new factories is another matter entirely. Let’s face it, in the future factories are going to be automated. It’s going to be mostly robots that are going to be working in them. Even the “robot technicians” working to fix broken robots are going to be robots.

I find it fascinating because the Right seems to be obsessed with the idea that Americans need to get back to “real work” and that “real work” means factory work. Not namby-pamby white-collar office jobs. We need tough guys. Doing tough jobs. You betcha.

And, maybe that’s right. I don’t know. But I do know that huge numbers of humans working in gangs on assembly lines are not in the cards. And not all the Executive Orders from the White House are going to change that.

Which means…perhaps…that the country the Right is building has no real place for people in it.

Kind of disturbing, don’t you think?

5calls

Keep Those Calls And Letters Coming

Yesterday I learned about the app 5 Calls. This is very useful for Democrats. It locates your Senators and Representatives, provides their phone numbers, and even offers you scripts (if you wish to use them) when you call to express your concern or support about various issues. (https://5calls.org/)

You may not ever hear from the Congress members in question, but at least you can go on record. And that counts. They pay attention to that sort of thing.

I called my Senators and Rep to express my concern about RFK Jr.’s anti-vaccine activities. (He could get us all killed.)

Go here: https://5calls.org/

Killing The Black Middle Class

Killing The Black Middle Class

There’s a fascinating article in a recent issue of Fast Company, How Trump’s mass firings could quickly hollow out the Black middle class: The president has gone nuclear against federal union jobs—historically African Americans’ ladder to economic equality, originally in Capital and Main and written by Mark Kreidler.

The piece looks at how Trump’s furious assault on federal workers and unions is hitting Black Americans hardest. Government jobs have been one of the traditional routes by which African-Americans have entered the Middle Class. Now, those jobs are going away, and they could take the Black Middle Class with them.

The question, of course, is whether this is strictly an accident. Trump and the GOP have waged a war of annihilation on federal workers for a long time. And perhaps the demise of African-American employment is just collateral damage.

Or is it? Could there be more? Could there be a design here? After all, Trump and his MAGAts are no fan of racial equality. Perhaps the point of the war against the civil service (or at least part of the point) is to remove those men and women whose ethnic heritage is distasteful to them?

Perhaps we’ll never know for certain. But, that’s irrelevant. It is clear that the current Administration is a disaster for Black America. Whether that disaster is by accident or design does not, even remotely, change the larger effect.  

Martial Law Coming

There Is A Coup Coming.

If you ever had any doubts about where Trump and his enablers are headed, then just consider these three articles:

Trump Orders Hegseth and Bondi to ‘Determine How Military’ Can Be Used in Domestic Law Enforcement, by Charlie Nash, Mediaite, Apr 28th, 2025, 9:08 pm 

Trump Orders Hegseth, Bondi to Send Military Assets to State, Local Police 'to Prevent Crime' in Latest Executive Order, by M.B. Mack / Published Apr 29 2025, The Latin Times, 11:58 AM EDT

Donald Trump's New Order Sparks 'Martial Law' Concerns, by Sophie Clark, Newsweek, Published Apr 29, 2025 at 11:25 AM EDT

Simply put, Trump is more or less openly preparing to use the military to impose his will on the nation. He’s purged the Pentagon of officers who might oppose him. And now he’s working to create a legal fiction that he has the right to use the Armed Forces inside the United States and against American citizens. The final act? It’s obvious. Some sort of coup d'état. 

We can only hope that 1) he and the GOP don’t get a chance to put their plans into motion, and 2) that our men and women in uniform will be unwilling to support his treasonous activities.

But one other thing is very true. To wit, no one can say that Trump and his Fascists have concealed their plans in any fashion. They are not making any secret of their preparations.

The only ones who will be surprised on the morning that there are tanks in front of the Capitol Building will be those members of the Democratic Party’s elite who are doing so painfully little to oppose Trump and his minions, and who have instead wasted their time and resources silencing those Democrats (Bernie, AOC, others) who have had the energy and the foresight to protest. 

 

A National Registry of Jews?

 

Rawstory just ran this alarming piece: 'Vindictive commissar’s list': Alarm as Trump admin appears to build Jewish registry, by Krystina Alarcon Carroll, April 29, 2025 4:08PM ET. According to Ms. Carroll, the Trump administration seems to be building lists of people (particularly in higher ed) who are Jewish. This follows the startling news that RFK Jr. is building a compiling list of individuals who are supposedly autistic. 

Frankly, this may be a story that means nothing. It could be just another of the inane and idiotic stunts that the White House uses to keep us all off balance and exhausted…a distraction while the Orange One and his billionaire enablers loot the country of another few trillion.

But, on the other hand, it could be …terrible. We know, too well, who has had these kinds of lists before. And we know what was done with them.

Let us, therefore, prepare. It may be necessary for us, someday, to find and shred those lists, and to defend the men and women whose names are on them. 

The Great American Kleptocracy

Kleptocrat

So there’s a fascinating article in the current Foreign Affairs. Is America a Kleptocracy? Here’s how life could change for the rich, poor, and everyone in between by Jodi Vittori, who is described as “a professor of the practice and co-chair of global politics and security at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.”

Professor Vittori’s answer to her own question is “yeah, maybe not quite yet, but we’re definitely on our way there soon.” And she adds that being ruled by mega-crooks is going to impact us all in a lot of ways, and none of them will be pleasant. Expect prices to go up (everywhere!) and democracy to be increasingly unavailable at any cost.

And the question is what to do about it all. Personally, I’m afraid that so long as people like Trump, and his enablers, and the tech-bros are running things, there isn’t much we can do about it. They’ll just keep stealing and stealing, until the whole system collapses into ruins.

Still, Professor Vittori says there may be ways of fighting back. Some countries have managed to use a combination of legal action and non-violent protest to bring down the Kleptocrats. She cites in particular techniques developed and promoted by USAID.

Only, USAID was one of Trump’s top targets, and maybe we know why. It taught too many people how to resist him.

Tariffs ≠ Manufacturing

Trump's Economic Legacy

Fascinating article on the MIT Technology Review page this week. Sweeping tariffs could threaten the US manufacturing rebound: They won’t bring back manufacturing, and they could stunt our ability to make tomorrow's breakthroughs, by David Rotman. 

According to Mr. Rotman’s thoughtful analysis (based on a number of conversations with industry leaders), the tariffs that the Trump administration believe will encourage the return of American manufacturing may actually have the opposite effect. Notes Rotman, “In fact, the high and crudely designed tariffs set out by the administration could damage a recent rebound in US manufacturing. Building factories and the supply chains they run on takes years—even decades—of steady investment. Meanwhile, tariffs have the immediate impact of boosting costs for critical supplies, many of which come from overseas—helping to raise prices and, in turn, slowing demand.”

That’s pretty significant.

Once again, Trump and his enablers prove themselves brilliant at doing precisely the wrong thing at the wrong time. 

But, alas, that probably doesn’t matter to his fans, who will…doubtless…continue to support the current administration, no matter no much damage it does them, so long as it lets them “own the libs,” avoid higher taxes on billionaires, and withdraw crucial services to people even more vulnerable than themselves. 

Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of guys

 

What they will become...

So I read on the AP website that things are not going well in Trump’s inner circle. In fact, it seems the insiders are turning on each other. Or, anyway, that’s what is said in the piece, As controversies pile up, Trump allies increasingly turn on one another, by Chris Megerian and Zeke Miller. 

But, of course, we knew that was going to happen. These people are not normal, and they are led by a fool. It was only a matter of time before they started rending each other, like inbred dogs snapping at others in the pack.

The question, of course, is how far will go. My guess? It will get pretty bad, indeed. The metaphor will no longer be inbred dogs, but rather rats…trapped in a locked basement or an air pocket in a sunken ship,with food running short…

And, gradually, inevitably, devouring one another…

Until absolutely none remain. 

Goodbye Europe

Europe says So Long, and thanks for all the movies

If you get a chance, check out this article in Zeit Online: Thanks America, That’ll Be Al:lAndy Warhol, Big Mac, iPhone: It was a grand American epoch. But it’s over, by Florian Illies

In it, the author looks at Trump and the American Right’s foreign policy (such as it is) and concludes that the special relationship that used to exist between the US and Western Europe is gone for good. And, maybe, American cultural vigor has gone as well.

The article is a little bit tongue in cheek, but you have to admit, the author’s got a good point. Trump has effectively ruined our relationship with the rest of the world, in general, and with our allies in Europe in particular.

Frankly, that could hurt us far more than it could hurt Europe. For a long time, Western Europeans accepted our leadership, and devoured our popular culture. But, now, that happy time is gone.

And mind you, all of this was so that one Orange Man could impose his diseased conception of the world on events, and so that rabid MAGAts could “own the libs.”

Somehow, I don’t think the “victory” was worth the price.

Happy Cinco de Mayo

Happy Cinco de Mayo

Happy Cinco de Mayo to everyone.

It’s an odd thing, really, this Mexican holiday which isn’t that big a deal in Mexico, but which has been adopted wholehog by the United States. We celebrate it like it was us, and not the Mexicans who defeated (for a while) the French at the Battle of Puebla in 1862.

I mention all of this because there is an interesting bit of irony here. We’ve adopted the holiday, and it has become a major North American celebration of Hispanic culture, while at the same time our government and MAGA is doing its best to force Hispanic people out of the country. 

Tell me, when it is all done and said, and His Imperial Majesty King Trump III rules in the district of post-democratic Columnia, will we still be allowed to mark Cinco de Mayo on the calendar? Or will it be erased forever? And we’ll just just from 4 May to 6 May, without so much as a moment’s hesitation?

“Under-loved” (and underlovable) Matt Gaetz

Vote...if only to annoy him.

So this is pretty much volume two of yesterday’s post, the one about GOP gubernatorial candidate Kyle Langford’s suggestion that undocumented women could be allowed to remain in the U.S. so long as they agree to marry “incels.”

This one, though, is about Matt Gaetz (yes, he’s still around). It seems that on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, he said that “...Over-Educated, Under-Loved White Women Are This Nation's True Pandemic.” 

Hard to believe, but he really said that.

It seems college educated women are the group which, according to some polls, are the most anti-Trump. So, this is Mr. Gaetz’s interpretation of that data. Too much education, but not enough…well, you know. Call it, “being farped.”

Okay…

So if you had the slightest doubt about what Mr. Gaetz…and the Republican Party…think of women and their role in the world…

You may effectively bury it now.