Author: Thom Hartmann

When I was a child there was a kid in our neighborhood who made my life hell. Dennis was a bully and delighted in chasing and beating up me and several others; we’d alter our route home from elementary school to avoid him. Some of the kids he pounded on joined him as a way of protecting themselves from him — the way Lindsay Graham sucks up to Donald Trump — which only increased the terror level for the rest of us in our little lower-middle-class suburb as Dennis and his friends formed their own gang. If there was...

Republicans finally got around to condemning Trump for having a Thanksgiving week dinner with Nick Fuentes. In front of a crowded dining room that rose to their feet and applauded when Trump, West, and Fuentes walked into the room. For the cameras and the world to see. Senator John Cornyn of Texas is the Senate Minority Whip — essentially the number two Republican in the Senate behind Mitch McConnell — and for four years was the chair of the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, in charge of getting Republicans elected. And, like the old pro he is, Senator Cornyn knew...

The victims of Alex Jones’ lies about the Sandy Hook slaughter of their children were just awarded about a billion dollars by a jury of his peers. Jones made tens perhaps hundreds of millions peddling lies leading to years of stalking, harassment, and emotional torture of the families of the children who died. Which raises a vital question: When will the victims of oil companies’ lies — which have led to far more deaths than happened that terrible day in Connecticut — get their day in court? There is an amazing backstory here. During the week of Christmas, 1953 a group...

Dear Millennials and Zoomers: back in the 1980s a lot of us worked like hell to try to stop the Reagan revolution. We failed. The next two years may be our last chance to save American democracy, our environment, and what’s left of the American middle-class. When my Boomer generation was the same average age as the Millennial generation is today, back in 1990, our generation held 21.3% of the nation’s wealth. Louise and I shared in that wealth; although we were still in our 30s, in 1990 we owned a profitable small business (our fourth) and a nice home in suburban Atlanta....

Three major trends are driving American politics right now and will continue to for at least a decade. If Democrats fail to understand and respond in a meaningful way to each, expect a Republican White House, House, and Senate in 2024. And, with it, the probable end of democracy in the United States. These three political megatrends are: generational “social” changes in America and the Republican Party’s exploitation/demonization of them; he entrance of rightwing billionaires into America’s political scene with the blessing of 5 corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court; the Republican Party’s rejection of democracy. Much has been...

Can a nation survive as a democratic republic without an honest and trusted news ecosystem? Is it an actual fact that truthful and reliable news, combined with the kind of cultural trust people have in both government and each other as the result of a shared reality, are both historic and necessary preconditions for a democracy to work at all? Thomas Jefferson once famously said that if he was given the ultimatum of choosing to live in a functioning nation without newspapers or a place with newspapers but no national government, he would surely choose the latter. It was...