Trumpism
How Republicans normalized George Santos
Decades ago, Holocaust scholar Hannah Arendt warned: “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, i.e. the reality of experience and the distinction between true and false, i.e., the standards of thought, no longer exist.” With that quote […]
Bookman: Georgia’s gift to Trump is a lump of coal in stocking
When the history books about Donald Trump are written – and believe me, there will be many – Georgia will have earned a place of pride. It’s only a mild exaggeration to say that Georgia has been to Trump what Waterloo was to Napoleon, what Saratoga was to King George and his redcoats, what Gettysburg […]
Democracy haters aren’t going away. They’re digging in.
The midterm elections this month brought widespread failure to election deniers on the ballot. The most toxic of these dishonest Republicans all went down in stinging losses. Losers included: Governor candidate Kari Lake and secretary of state candidate Mark Finchem in Arizona. Secretary of state candidate Jim Marchant in Nevada. Governor candidate Tudor Dixon and […]
Weekend humor from Celia Rivenbark: Civil War II?
Gentle Reader: The following, inspired by Union soldier Sullivan Ballou’s famous “Civil War Letter to His Wife” should be read with wistfully sweet violins playing in the background, a la Ken Burns’ epic documentary. This updated epistle is inspired by a recent poll showing more than half of Trump-supporting Republicans believe a civil war will […]
Biden tangles with Florida GOP Sen. Rick Scott: ‘I think the man has a problem’
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden pledged Tuesday to make a fight against inflation his top domestic priority while rebuking Republican economic proposals he said miss the mark — zeroing in on Florida GOP Sen. Rick Scott. The president’s remarks at the White House came after Scott earlier in the day called on Biden to resign […]
Veteran political scientist: Cawthorn, kudzu and the latest concern for the Republican party
If you’ve been trying to make sense of Congressman Madison Cawthorn abandoning the 11th congressional district for a run in the 13th, coupled with House Speaker Tim Moore decision not to challenge the freshman lawmaker, make time to read this explanation from Dr. Michael Bitzer at Catawba College. The veteran political scientist writes for the […]
Enforced delusions: Stolen 2020 election myth imposes loyalty test on Republicans
The narrative about a stolen election is completely fabricated. None of it is true. None of it happened. None of it, not in Arizona, not in Georgia, not anywhere, none of it. All “evidence” offered to support that narrative is likewise a mirage; it vanishes completely upon closer inspection. It’s just a fiction, a fiction […]
Code red for American democracy
[Editor’s note: The following essay was written by former New York Times Washington, DC bureau chief, frequent NC Policy Watch contributor and all-around legendary journalist, Hedrick Smith. It originally appeared on Smith’s own website, Reclaim the American Dream.] Veteran journalist sums up the current mess and how we got here For all the uproar among […]
Gene Nichol sums up the grim threat that currently confronts our democracy
The good people at Facing South published an important and powerful “must read” essay today by Prof. Gene Nichol of the UNC School of Law. In “Betraying Decency and Democracy in North Carolina,” Nichol employs his customary pull-no-punches style to lay out a damning indictment of a group that he’s rightfully come to call “the […]
Echoes of Trumpism continue to dominate at the General Assembly
While his serial dishonesty and corruption, criminal negligence in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, and complicity in a failed coup d’état clearly combined to make Donald Trump one of the worst presidents in American history, one has to hand the former chief executive one thing: the man continues to inspire slavish loyalty from his blinded followers.
Election fraud? Trans athletes? Term limits? Rudderless GOP flails wildly in search of issues
Say what you will about Donald Trump, but there was a cynical, P.T. Barnum-like genius to his brief and catastrophic run at the apex of American politics. The man obviously has no deeply held beliefs or political philosophy beyond a commitment to self-promotion and personal enrichment, but like so many other skilled con men throughout history, he could sell stuff – most notably lies and half-truths designed to manipulate audiences.
Ham-handed power play at Fayetteville State symbolizes Trumpism in action
Near the end of one of the late 20th Century’s most outrageous and over-the-top action films – director John McTiernan’s 1988 Die Hard – an exchange takes place between a hostage portrayed by Bonnie Bedelia and her captor, a supposed political terrorist played by the late, great Alan Rickman, whose murderous takeover of a Los Angeles office building has been exposed to be merely a big money robbery...