Author: Thom Hartmann

MAGA America: Resurrecting the Confederacy’s goals to enshrine White dominance and crush Democracy

Restoring power to the richest, Whitest men in the room. How long can democracy survive under Trump’s iron grip? Welcome to the new Confederate States of America. Much like the old CSA, the new CSA (also known as MAGA America) is devoted to making American as White as possible, stripping women and minorities of political and economic power, gutting workers’ rights, rigging election outcomes, leaders nakedly taking bribes, using a phony veneer of Christianity to justify brutal policies, making queer people invisible, reconfiguring schools for indoctrination, having militias terrorize minorities and their opponents, and maintaining a government of, by,...

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Predators and Prey: What the science says about why the morbidly rich dominate poor working people

Nature and economics share some fascinating patterns. One of which explains why Donald Trump became president again, and how the morbidly rich have appropriated over $50 trillion from working-class people since the 1980s. Scientists use something called the Lorka-Volterra equations to explain how predators and prey interact in the wild. These equations show us that animal populations rise and fall in predictable cycles — when there are lots of rabbits, fox populations grow, but as foxes eat more rabbits, the rabbit population shrinks, which then causes fox numbers to drop, allowing rabbits to multiply again. Incredibly, this back-and-forth pattern...

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The Great Demolition: How Trump’s economic policies will bulldoze the financial backbone of America

Donald Trump is preparing to crash the American economy. He intends to do it by tearing up vital parts of our American government. He may even hire Elon Musk to pull it off. And from his point of view, this is not going to be a bad thing. The farther the economy crashes, the greater the buying opportunity for billionaires. It all has to do with something called the administrative state. While it is not sexy or even particularly interesting to the average American voter, having a strong administrative state is essential to a high-functioning economy. A strong administrative...

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When profits kill: The dark reality of corporate healthcare that gains wealth at the expense of health

The recent assassination of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, the health insurance company with, reportedly, the highest rate of claims rejections and thus dead, wounded, and furious customers and their relations, gives us a perfect window to understand the stupidity and danger of the Musk/Trump/Ramaswamy strategy of “cutting government” to “make it more efficient, run it like a corporation.” Consider health care, which in almost every other developed country in the world is legally part of the commons — the infrastructure of the nation, like our roads, public schools, parks, police, military, libraries, and fire departments — owned by the...

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Seoul’s cautionary tale: Democracy shows its fragility in an age of autocratic rulers

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, whose declaration of a state of emergency on December 3 shocked the world, has often been referred to as “South Korea’s Donald Trump.” A political outsider, he came to power with anti-establishment and often outrageously inflammatory rhetoric, trash talking women’s rights, “reforming” their healthcare system, and pushing hard for a neoliberal agenda that included raising the workweek from 52 to 69 hours. In that, he reflects a growing trend among advanced democracies around the world, as decades of neoliberalism have weakened multiple nations’ abilities to sustain middle class lifestyles while enriching an oligarch...

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Dictatorship vs. Democracy: Why the fight for Ukraine’s sovereignty could redefine America’s future

Russia unleashed one of its most violent missile attacks against Ukraine recently. The United States and at least one other European country have given President Zelenskyy permission to use long-range missiles to attack within Russia. Putin has also brought in North Korean troops, internationalizing the incident as if he wants to turn it into World War III. Europe and the United States both know they must stand against this. And on November 20, Putin presumably launched an ICBM against Ukraine. Ever since the days of the Cold War, the United States and Russia have always notified each other of...

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