Author: Thom Hartmann

The Rittenhouse verdict sent a shudder through America as terrorists and vigilantes celebrated: one rightwinger called for wholesale slaughter of Democrats saying on Telegram, “The left won’t stop until their bodies get stacked up like cord wood.” On Facebook, rightwing sites celebrating the verdict were the most popular nationwide by a factor of 9 to 1. The parents of Anthony Huber, who Rittenhouse killed as Huber tried to disarm him, put out a public statement that said, in part: “The verdict means there is no accountability for the person who murdered our son. It sends the unacceptable message that...

Our children are dying from gun violence. So why do Republicans in Congress not give them the same concern we do our police and soldiers, who also face gunfire? Imagine your 5-year-old child singing in school, to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star: Lockdown, Lockdown. Lock the door. Shut the lights off, Say no more. Go behind the desk and hide. Wait until it’s safe inside. And then being stalked by another child, this one with, for example, a Sig Sauer 9 mm semiautomatic weapon designed for warfare. Imagine the call from the hospital or the police telling...

In 1926 Ernest Hemmingway published his novel The Sun Also Rises, which has this extraordinary bit of dialogue about how change happens in most aspects of life, and how governments rise and fall. “How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked. ”Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.” ”What brought it on?” “Friends,” said Mike. “I had a lot of friends. False friends.” For some unfathomable reason, Democrats insist on calling their Republican colleagues their “friends.” They are not friends. They are systematically destroying American democracy with the clear objective of replacing it with strongman authoritarianism, a new and...

A significant number of QAnon followers believe the end-point of their religion will be reached when Donald Trump takes back control of America, unleashes police to mass-arrest elected and other high-profile Democrats, and QAnon followers then engage in an orgy of violence and murder against Democratic Party-aligned neighbors, friends, and family. Already, one believer has murdered two of his children, saying they had “serpent DNA” and had to be killed to save humanity. There’s evidence that a majority of the people who stormed the US Capitol on January 6th, leading to more than a half-dozen deaths and nearly overthrowing...

We are demonizing the wrong people. This is not a call to “understand” or “have compassion” for Trump voters. Instead, it is a call for a wholesale political and social indictment of Trump’s Big Lie, along with every elected Republican politician or media member who knows Trump lost but keeps perpetuating that Lie. If we fail, history may repeat itself and — this time — the result will be far worse than Bush’s lying us into two wars and privatizing Medicare. That, in part, is because numerous Republican-controlled states are passing laws and gaming out scenarios that could enable...