General Discussion

responsive to Trump--more accommodating--is that everyone, from corporate CEOs to news organizations take his threats far more seriously and are genuinely frightened of the consequences of standing up to him. I do not believe for a second it is because more people like or agree with him.

It has taken us a long time to reach this point. There are books and all sorts of theories, and people a lot smarter than I am can probably pinpoint this or that particular year. But we allowed the GOP to buy up radio stations and news papers and turn them into junky propaganda vehicles. I am genuinely enraged about that. We sat and watched it happen. We had no defense, no response. It destroyed AM radio. In the 1990s I watched as my employer's wife's brain turned to mush as she became a Rush Limbaugh fanatic.

Then there was the Citizen's United decision that made it possible to buy a democracy.

But I share your dismay. By early 2021 I had concluded that no matter who won in 2024 we were losing our democracy at the state level, and then SCOTUS pulled out a samurai sword and delivered the coup de grace.