After concluding my three-part series on solutions, culminating with my taxation solution yesterday, I want to thank those who have reached out privately to me, not just to thank me for bringing some clarity to some relatively obscure consequences they hadn’t spotted before.
I’m more than aware that I’m the guy who always seems to be delivering bad news, but until we wake up to reality, how can we be expected to make any progress in addressing a threat that so many choose to ignore, either because ignorance is bliss, or because they are too busy trying to survive TODAY to worry about tomorrow? Don’t get me wrong, I get it; lies and fairytales sell much better than truth and honesty. Believe me when I say that reporting the truth is expensive. There was a time when my writing here covered the cost of the research and analysis tools needed to do the job properly. Now, I can only afford to write five days each week. I’ve had to come out of retirement to make up the ever-increasing shortfall by consulting a couple of days a week.
It is a sad reflection of the times in which we live, but let me assure you that for as long as I can fund this work, it will remain free to everyone. Once I can’t afford to do it properly, I’ll simply stop and leave my work here as an archive, then just keep a private diary of my thoughts.
Fact-checking and detailed analytics tools are imperative for accurate, factual reporting. I don’t have the might of a media organisation to fund what I do; all I have is a paid subscriber base that is being squeezed more every day by a government out of control. The truth does matter to me, and I owe it to everyone to be transparent about the challenges faced in spending 8 hours a day, sometimes many more, making sure that readers have the comfort of knowing they can trust what they read here. I’m not prepared to cut corners when it comes to the facts.
Putting that aside, I was reading through the mountain of notes I created for my solutions series of pieces, and I have to tell you, I woke up today with what I think is a much better understanding of why people are either blind to the reality of where we are, or simply unwilling to face reality. That scares me to death. Sometimes I can’t hide my frustration when I get the feeling I am screaming into the abyss, and I know that is noted by those who regularly read my observations. I never came to Substack thinking I would build a community of over 100,000 subscribers, and that’s the truth. I came here to journalise my thoughts in these challenging times, so I could later reflect to see how right or wrong I was.
This community has been a joyous revelation to me. To think that my musings have resonated with so many others in a little over a year is the fuel that drives me on. I take the responsibility of having a voice here very seriously, as I know many respect and recognise it. If what I do helps people understand the threats and the consequences of what’s happening under the tyrant in the White House and his complicit enablers, then it’s worth all the stress it brings.
It’s very easy to get caught up in the traps Trump sets every day to keep us from focusing on the things that matter. The distraction, the lies, the misdirection are all part of a carefully crafted plan to hide his malign intent to serve the few at the expense of the many. The aim is to make those who don’t share his vision of his reimagined America feel powerless and in a constant state of fear and anxiety about what he might do to punish dissenters. Let me assure you, fear and anxiety are the oxygen that fuels his ambitions to establish an apartheid theocratic autocracy, and we must deny him that objective.
Independent truth seekers and critical thinkers have become enemies of his state, but they are in reality the resistance that will see his fragile empire crumble, and I aim to be an active player in that and to be here to see that happen. What about you? Truth is his kryptonite, and combined with the geopolitical evolution that is now rewiring global trade, economics and security, his imperial ambitions are on borrowed time. As I have said many times, this is not about if the regime will fall but rather when and the scale of the dissent that will ultimately lead to it.
I’d like you to bookmark this post so we can hopefully reconvene a year from now and review the thoughts again I’m about to share because unless you’re prepared to zoom right out, you will not be able to see the wood from the trees in the forest of deceit Trump and his sycophants have created. We have already established that independent media is largely the only link left in a world drowning in lies and disinformation; the trust deficit in media is now on par with the trust deficit in politicians and the Supreme Court. This is why we MUST NOT allow independent media to whither on the vine of democracy preservation.
There is a reason the Heritage Foundation has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in its vision for a white Christian Nationalist nation for decades. They believe above all, with religious fervour, in ‘economic dominance’ both domestically and globally. They understood that all they needed was a compliant president in the White House prepared to burn the system to the ground to achieve their objective. Then along came Trump. You often hear the right complain about the ‘deep state’; it is pure projection. In less than two years, they have built a police state Stalin would be proud of. They’ve constructed a foreign policy agenda that Hitler would be proud of and are on the road to delivering an apartheid state Netanyahu would be proud to put his name to.
This isn’t small change stuff; it’s the ambition of empire, and it has been constructed with military precision. Its existence is an indictment of the Democratic Party's failure. Their joint enterprise with corporate America and special interests has allowed the Heritage Foundation to have inside knowledge, enabling it to anticipate and nullify any attempt to stop their march to destroy democracy in America. They have literally war-gamed the entire Democratic response. This is why they have managed to implement the core objectives and then some of Project 2025.
We now live in a world of adversarial soundbites that drive the political narrative, which is able to spread more effectively from the right because the regime has effectively taken social media hostage, while at the same time they have rendered left-leaning media impotent and living in fear of economic retribution. In a coup, what’s the first thing you take control of? The media ecosystem, and Trump has unquestionably done that. What remains encouraging, though, is that even with the level of control he’s captured, the heart of America’s democracy is still pumping political antibiotics through the system to fuel resistance.
This is not about engaging in a political brawl; it's about engaging in a tactical fight. I can’t tell you how unhelpful ‘Eat the rich’, ‘Tax the rich’, ‘Defund the police’ and even ‘Abolish ICE’ are. Yes, they are provocative, and certainly, in the case of abolishing ICE, there’s a good case, but it’s impractical to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It has a key role to play in the immigration process in every country. Nobody in their right mind wants to abolish a key agency designed to protect the American people. The statement should be ‘Reform ICE’ and ‘Reform the police’. As for ‘Tax the Rich’ and ‘Eat the Rich’, these are just unhelpful slogans that can easily be attacked by asserting we are just jealous of their wealth.
They lead to the creation of the T-shirts and the bumper stickers that are a gift to the Republican messaging monster, which is far more effective and efficient than any counter-messaging system the Democrats have been able to come up with. It’s an affliction that the Dems have of handing a loaded gun to the Republicans to shoot them in the face, and it’s beyond infuriating. They need to learn from the Republicans' mastery of narrative capture. Take this Fauci nonsense and their ability to suck the oxygen out of the room in order to distract attention away from their incompetence. It’s been as effective as the Benghazi hearings that helped defeat Hilary Clinton in 2016. How many times do Democrats need to be humiliated before someone says, ‘We might need to take a different approach?’
Although nobody dares talk about it today, I will. Abdul El-Sayeed’s victory in Michigan yesterday was evidence that the American people are open to a new ‘people first’ politics. However, it was NOT the overwhelming victory that either he or the wider progressive movement were expecting. While there is no question that being outspent 9:1 by AIPAC and corporate PACs was unquestionably a factor, it was a cautionary tale that the result should be taken into account when measuring the race for change. I think Abdul is a phenomenal political talent who could help usher in transformative change with his presence in the US Senate. However, he’s now up against the entire right-wing propaganda machine in November, and that’s a whole new ball game. On the good news front, however, the Democratic machine will now be forced to hold their nose and line up behind him. I’m not sure how that works, though, with an empty bank account.
The point I’m trying to make is that it is NOT a done deal that Republicans will suffer a major defeat in November. Democrats are broke, and the Supreme Court gave the green light for Republicans to pour unlimited amounts of cash into Republican coffers to hold onto power. This fight will need to be approached with eyes wide open and a smart campaign strategy which focuses on the 90 million Americans who chose to sit on their hands in 2024. Unless Democrats regain the power of subpoena in November, I fear the consequences are unimaginable. The harsh reality is, even if they do win, Trump will attempt to discredit any victory and use the courts to delay handing over any power until he’s forced to do so. This, I’m afraid, is inevitable, so it’s going to be a long few months ahead.
I’ll be off radar most of the day tomorrow as I’m doing a consultancy job over the next three days, but I have done a post for tomorrow which I’ll post before I head out, so be aware it will drop early tomorrow; then after that, I’ll be back on Monday. Have a great weekend.
For those who want to support my work but can’t commit to a paid subscription, you can now make a one-off donation by clicking on the image below. By donating, you help to keep this independent reporting free for all.
I could clunk some of the DS commentator dummies for saying stupid things like: We want to shut down the prisons; We want to open up the borders; We want to abolish ICE; We want to get rid of all taxation. These blanket statements make it seem like Democrats want utter chaos. Perfect examples of short foresight and no workable solutions.
Appreciate you!!