Author: Thom Hartmann

A return of the Ku Klux Kaucus: At stake in American politics is the future of multiracial democracy

Trump recently dumped his blog because he has nothing to say that anyone wants to hear beyond one single message. He’s not thinking deep thoughts about the economy, or the state of the nation’s infrastructure, or offering insights into the Middle East. There’s literally no philosophy Trump holds — other than one single idea — that truly matters to the vast majority of the Republicans who support him. He’s not Richard Nixon, who could be actually thoughtful on foreign policy. He’s not Ronald Reagan, who completely bought into the idea of supply side economics. He’s not George W. Bush,...

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A history of slave patrols: Why America needs a real conversation on the purpose and practice of policing

There has been much celebration in America that a murderous, psychopathic cop will spend the rest of his life in jail for killing George Floyd. While the moment – this rare moment where a White cop who kills an unarmed Black man actually is held to account — does appropriately get nationwide recognition, it also should provoke nationwide introspection. For example, why did a police officer’s knee end up on the neck of a man who was accused of passing a bad $20 bill? And why wasn’t that one of the central questions in this trial? Why was a...

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A Dystopian Democracy: Republicans are playing with a fire that could burn down our nation

People think the January 6th insurrection against our republic was over that evening; the truth is that it never really stopped, and is now spreading across our nation like a virus that has infected the GOP. Let’s just speak the truth: the people who’ve taken over today’s Republican Party hate democracy. And now they’re doing everything they can to destroy democracy in the USA and replace it with a full-blown fascist oligarchy. This is no longer Dwight Eisenhower’s Republican Party. Instead, it’s become the party of racists, fascists and oligarchs: the question is if it’s too late to stop...

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A return to racial order: How the GOP is ensuring the Next Racist Generation embraces their ideology

Imagine if hard-core crazies like Marjorie Taylor Greene ran most of the school boards all across America. They could raise up an entire new generation of civics-clueless right-wing racist kids, and probably keep much of it well below the nation’s radar screen. That is the GOP’s current plan, and they are gaining real traction in getting there. They have found their new 2021 “bigoted wedge issue,” crushing teachers and schools that want to teach the horrors of genocide and racism — and it is stirring up their base just like gay marriage or “radical Islam” did a decade or...

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From Redcoats to Redhats: Oligarchs prevail when the core function of a democratic republic is suppressed

The Republican party has now introduced over 300 pieces of legislation designed to make it more difficult for American citizens to participate in the process of selecting their representatives, the core function of a democratic republic. They’ve also proposed or passed numerous laws criminalizing protest and dissent, primary American values written into the First Amendment, and given a “get out of jail free” card to people who kill protesters. Today’s Republican party does not believe in democracy or the core idea on which this nation was founded: “That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their...

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Under the Dome: Why a coalition of obstructionists fuel a Culture War to feed their agenda

You can tell when Republicans are in trouble: they start throwing gunpowder on the fires of the culture wars. At the end of March, Republicans who control the Michigan State House and Senate passed a law requiring the state to inform recipients of the Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine that it was developed using fetal stem cells. As a result, the state health department had to update their website to say: “The Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine has been produced by growing the virus in fetal cells during vaccine development and manufacturing. Even though fetal cells are used to...

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