The most insidious thing about Trump is that he’s rehabilitated guys like GW Bush and Ronald Reagan. These were not good people, though in Reagan’s case I suspect he believed he was doing good — to the degree he was still capable of that level of cognition. But the fact is that the Reagan Revolution was begat by Nixon’s Southern Strategy, and both had their roots in the writings of Russel Kirk (still cited by guys like “Morning” Joe Scarborough today). Eisenhower recognized them for what they were before he left office, but dismissed them as a small, stupid minority.
Kirk’s philosophy was born out of that of Edmund Burke, whose belief that if the middle class got too comfortable, it would mean the end of the Empire. KIrk reprised this in his writings in the 1950s, and was largely ignored until the post-war boom really caught fire and the middle class mushroomed into something unprecedented in global history. America — nay, the world — had never seen a middle class so vast or so prosperous, and suddenly Kirk seemed not addled, but prescient. And once Nixon was enthroned, he began the work of dismantling that social dynamic, aided by— albeit unwittingly — by the anti-war movement and the rise of social justice for women and minorities. It was a simple matter to convince old white men to vote against their own interest, once they were convinced they were voting against the interest of the young, the non-white and the non-men. But the goal was (and is) always the same: to keep the working class in their place, and not let them start getting to comfortable, lest they demand a seat at the table.
This, in no small way, explains the howling from the obscenely rich during the Biden administration when unemployment dropped to its lowest level in 50 years, and real wage growth actually outpaced inflation for the first time since LBJ. There was at least one such oligarch crying for a RISE in unemployment — because the labor market no longer belonged to the employer.
Reagan was no more or less than Trump with a veneer of class and a gift for storytelling. Tax cuts for the rich, and deregulation for the corporate, and the rest of us be damned. He just hid it better.
Thomas Mills - My name is Joh Galles. I like your newsletter and want to learn more about you. Would you mind giving me a call? My number is 704-576-0477. I would like to chat about NC political strategy.
The image of darkness on The Hill--as difficult as this is to see, know, and feel--IS the image most fitting. Not quite yet a full month since the burn, slash, crashing picked up speed as winter 2025 blunders on, terrifying realities keep hitting close to "home" for us all. Both my niece and her husband work for the US Army Corps of Engineers in fields of environmental marine biology and hydro geology. Bright couple with a nine-year-old son--now wondering day to day IF and for how long either/both will keep employment. They keep receiving mixed messages. Both are in their prime--early forties. They are ONE couple. Multiply this by umpteen hundreds. The current stress test we are all suffering is a deadly reality.
There are days, many of them, in fact, when I believe I am having a bad dream about what America has become. What has happened to us? More critically, how do we rescue our country from the oligarchic dictatorship into which the U.S. has fallen in a matter of weeks?
I saw it coming long before the 2024 presidential election. While my predictions regarding Donald J. Trump in previous years, chiefly that the American people were too savvy to elect this cretin to the presi- dency, were wrong, I have not been wrong about my prediction in the months prior to Mr. Trump’s election late last year.
I tried and tried and tried to warn people. In my heart of hearts, I knew I did not stand a chance in moving many of my neighbors to avoid like the plague returning this man to presidential power. I knew that many of them would not vote for a woman, let alone a Black woman, to the presidency. I knew that the price of eggs was more a motivating factor in that election than the sacrifiees demanded to maintain democracy. We as a people are unworthy heirs of the Greatest Generation, and Mr. Trump has not low- ered the prices and can’t. We are stuck with this grifter and Musk and spineless congressional Republicans, and our guardians have been removed. What an appalling state, and in the game of finger-pointing, mine is pointed at voters who put their own little comforts and prejudices ahead of the country’s welfare. It is the biggest national tragedy of my life, and the sadness is beyond words.
The most insidious thing about Trump is that he’s rehabilitated guys like GW Bush and Ronald Reagan. These were not good people, though in Reagan’s case I suspect he believed he was doing good — to the degree he was still capable of that level of cognition. But the fact is that the Reagan Revolution was begat by Nixon’s Southern Strategy, and both had their roots in the writings of Russel Kirk (still cited by guys like “Morning” Joe Scarborough today). Eisenhower recognized them for what they were before he left office, but dismissed them as a small, stupid minority.
Kirk’s philosophy was born out of that of Edmund Burke, whose belief that if the middle class got too comfortable, it would mean the end of the Empire. KIrk reprised this in his writings in the 1950s, and was largely ignored until the post-war boom really caught fire and the middle class mushroomed into something unprecedented in global history. America — nay, the world — had never seen a middle class so vast or so prosperous, and suddenly Kirk seemed not addled, but prescient. And once Nixon was enthroned, he began the work of dismantling that social dynamic, aided by— albeit unwittingly — by the anti-war movement and the rise of social justice for women and minorities. It was a simple matter to convince old white men to vote against their own interest, once they were convinced they were voting against the interest of the young, the non-white and the non-men. But the goal was (and is) always the same: to keep the working class in their place, and not let them start getting to comfortable, lest they demand a seat at the table.
This, in no small way, explains the howling from the obscenely rich during the Biden administration when unemployment dropped to its lowest level in 50 years, and real wage growth actually outpaced inflation for the first time since LBJ. There was at least one such oligarch crying for a RISE in unemployment — because the labor market no longer belonged to the employer.
Reagan was no more or less than Trump with a veneer of class and a gift for storytelling. Tax cuts for the rich, and deregulation for the corporate, and the rest of us be damned. He just hid it better.
Thomas Mills - My name is Joh Galles. I like your newsletter and want to learn more about you. Would you mind giving me a call? My number is 704-576-0477. I would like to chat about NC political strategy.
Thank you.
The image of darkness on The Hill--as difficult as this is to see, know, and feel--IS the image most fitting. Not quite yet a full month since the burn, slash, crashing picked up speed as winter 2025 blunders on, terrifying realities keep hitting close to "home" for us all. Both my niece and her husband work for the US Army Corps of Engineers in fields of environmental marine biology and hydro geology. Bright couple with a nine-year-old son--now wondering day to day IF and for how long either/both will keep employment. They keep receiving mixed messages. Both are in their prime--early forties. They are ONE couple. Multiply this by umpteen hundreds. The current stress test we are all suffering is a deadly reality.
There are days, many of them, in fact, when I believe I am having a bad dream about what America has become. What has happened to us? More critically, how do we rescue our country from the oligarchic dictatorship into which the U.S. has fallen in a matter of weeks?
I saw it coming long before the 2024 presidential election. While my predictions regarding Donald J. Trump in previous years, chiefly that the American people were too savvy to elect this cretin to the presi- dency, were wrong, I have not been wrong about my prediction in the months prior to Mr. Trump’s election late last year.
I tried and tried and tried to warn people. In my heart of hearts, I knew I did not stand a chance in moving many of my neighbors to avoid like the plague returning this man to presidential power. I knew that many of them would not vote for a woman, let alone a Black woman, to the presidency. I knew that the price of eggs was more a motivating factor in that election than the sacrifiees demanded to maintain democracy. We as a people are unworthy heirs of the Greatest Generation, and Mr. Trump has not low- ered the prices and can’t. We are stuck with this grifter and Musk and spineless congressional Republicans, and our guardians have been removed. What an appalling state, and in the game of finger-pointing, mine is pointed at voters who put their own little comforts and prejudices ahead of the country’s welfare. It is the biggest national tragedy of my life, and the sadness is beyond words.
10/10. I'm glad and happy I left, though still feeling like this is a worsening nightmare.
Concur.