The emperor is buck naked but still no Republican dare speak up

We are living in times few could have expected. Times when election lies have delivered nothing but self-inflicted harm, but no Republican dare stand up and say ENOUGH of this nonsense

As I’ve said many times, I’m a graduate of the University of Life. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my time on this earth, it's that as humans, we often seek refuge in ignorance in times of stress. For those of us who are politically engaged, we like to think we have our finger on the pulse of important issues that might affect us. However, for many, politics is the last thing on their mind until an issue directly affects them. In our me, me, me society MAGA thrives because the whole premise of their proposition is, ‘look after yourself, f*ck everyone else and if you have a problem blame someone else’, it’s the perfect proposition.

The level of targeted political retribution is becoming increasingly disturbing. In a highly dangerous rule change, uncovered by the excellent investigative journalism of the Guardian’s Aaron Glantz, a two-time Peabody Award-winner and Pulitzer Prize finalist, he reports on the highly unethical rule change allowing VA doctors to refuse to treat Democrats and unmarried veterans. Trump has declared all-out war on liberal values in a calculated move to demonstrate to his base that hatred matters. Aaron reports:

Language requiring healthcare professionals to care for veterans regardless of their politics and marital status has been explicitly eliminated.

Doctors and other medical staff can also be barred from working at VA hospitals based on their marital status, political party affiliation or union activity, documents reviewed by the Guardian show. The changes also affect chiropractors, certified nurse practitioners, optometrists, podiatrists, licensed clinical social workers and speech therapists.

This is based on Trump’s January 30th Executive Order, “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government” He goes on to report that they:

“Seem to open the door to discrimination on the basis of anything that is not legally protected”, said Dr Kenneth Kizer, the VA’s top healthcare official during the Clinton administration. He said the changes open up the possibility that doctors could refuse to treat veterans based on their “reason for seeking care – including allegations of rape and sexual assault – current or past political party affiliation or political activity, and personal behavior such as alcohol or marijuana use”

The reason I draw this to your attention is that the tsunami of proclamations, as I prefer to call them, often contain deliberately chosen phrases that allow broad interpretation of their intent, designed to do precisely what has been done here. We should expect many more of these Trojan horse societal IEDs to surface as we move forward. This is culture wars on steroids, and we are going to see much more of it.

What, however, gives me hope in these very dark moments is what happened over the weekend with the No Kings protests. Latest estimates indicate that just over 12 million people took to the streets of every city, town, and community in America, not just to speak up, but by their actions to breathe life back into American values and restate their belief in the American Dream.

What is very important is that while the No Kings movement is spearheaded by Democratic activist groups, it must extend a welcoming hand to disaffected Republicans as well as independents. It represents the single most significant opportunity to build a coalition of the good with the common goal of expelling tyranny from America. It’s imperative that it does NOT become a party political exercise. The population is now demonstrating a genuine apolitical intent to preserve representative democracy. This is no time to look a gift horse in the mouth and turn the other way.

The key moving forward is to maintain pressure through further mass protests, timed to coincide with the administration's actions. They clearly have the organising capabilities and the funding, which, after the weekend, will only increase. There is no doubt that these protests have rattled the right as they bring out their greatest hits messaging to point to George Soros, etc. No Kings need to learn the lessons from the Black Lives Matter movement because there will be extensive attempts to smear both the organisation and its organisers. I would be more than happy to provide my services free of charge on branding, messaging, and strategy. This opportunity must not be allowed to go to waste.

In times of societal structural stress, everything is challenged, and I’ve spoken before about capitalism and the fact that it remains the only viable option in a Western democracy. The problem is not the model itself, but rather the way social guardrails are dispensed with in service of greed. It’s beyond question that poverty and homelessness do not need to exist in the US. Affordable healthcare, childcare, rent, and a living wage are not unattainable; it’s simply that the rich buy politicians on both sides of the aisle, making it so, all in the allegedly most prosperous nation on earth. As of the end of March, America's Richest 0.1% (134,000 households) own $11 trillion in equities, their largest asset class. This is worth more than the total combined wealth assets of the bottom 50% (66.6 million households).

It’s not that in 2023, 43 million people needed to live in poverty, or that as many as 13.7 million children needed to live in "food-insecure" homes. It’s not that in 2022, when a detailed household wage analysis was last carried out, 20.7% of households earned less than $25,000. These are all a result of choices made by politicians and policymakers to redistribute wealth from the bottom and the middle to the top. It’s what corporate America paid them to do.

The wealth gap in the US is best summed up in a report by Urban.org, who state:

Wealth inequality is higher in the United States than in almost any other developed country and has risen for much of the past 60 years. Racial wealth inequities have persisted for generations, reflecting the long-standing effects of racist policies, not individual intentions or deficits. In a nation that professes that those who work hard and play by the rules should be rewarded with social and economic upward mobility, these persistent disparities are a stark reminder that, as a society, we have not achieved this goal.

You would think that in modern America, the land of the free, the disabled and vulnerable in our society would not be made to feel like a burden, but that is precisely how many feel as this administration rolls out a social Darwinism agenda. My fellow Substacker Charlotte en France has a brilliant old-fashioned pen pal club she launched on TikTok. I highly recommend visiting her Substack, especially if you’re a history buff. The following is from a letter Charlotte received from a disabled American living in Nebraska. It broke my heart:

“Many of the disabled people I know have been thinking about an exit plan. By exit plan, I mean self-deletion. I don’t mean they are suicidal, I don’t mean they want to die. I mean, they are thinking about it, but at some point, it might be preferable for them to kill themselves, than to allow the Trump regime to kill them. They’d prefer a swift and relatively painless death to starving, for instance, or suffering in a work camp.

"People are thinking about when it will be time for them to go and how they will do it. I wanted to tell you about this because I’m not seeing many people talk about it, but it’s absolutely what disabled people are talking about. I know someone who is diabetic, and she’s carrying around extra insulin. I know several people who are stockpiling medication. Some people have other methods in mind.

I’ve talked to three different disabled people who also have disabled children, and they are considering taking their children with them. I want you to understand what it takes for parents who’s cared for a disabled child for years to come to this point. Not to just admit it to themselves, but also to admit it to another person. And not because they don’t love their children, but because they love them so much they can’t bear to leave them behind, allowing them to end up in a work camp or worse”

It simply does not have to be this way, but it’s how the rich intend it to be as they suck up wealth from the bottom, while people drown in despair to the point where they consider taking their own lives. What an indictment on society that those who have the least are the victims of a robbery, not only of their meagre subsistence, but also of their dignity and self-worth, by those who have the most.

While being no comfort for those struggling to stay afloat, Trump is a man under pressure right now; in 150 days, he has achieved nothing except marginalising and isolating America. At the G7 yesterday, he embarrassed America again with his abhorrent suggestion that a country led by an indicted war criminal should rejoin the G7. I, for one, felt physically sick at his unacceptable suggestion. What struck me about the event was how Mark Carney absolutely shone in his leadership role at the meeting of leaders in Canada. He made Trump look like the incoherent fool that he is. Words and actions matter, and with every statement Trump makes on Russia, it is clear to the world that he is aligned with Putin.

Just as Trump has diminished America’s standing on the global stage, he has also reduced Western geopolitical strength as a result of his actions. There is no question that Mark Carney is becoming a serious global statesman, and I think his increasing role in shaping the response of US trading partners will be significant moving forward. With international tensions rising and Trump’s foreign policy incompetence on full display, never has it been so crucial for global leaders to hold the line.

In an excellent editorial in The Guardian, they note:

In late 2020, Gen Mark Milley – then chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff – urged Donald Trump not to attack Iran and to ignore pressure from the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who was pushing hard for military action. Mr Trump backed down after the general warned that attacking Iran would start a war, with the risk of US officials being “tried as war criminals in The Hague”.

It was clear to me for sure that when Trump was re-elected in 2024, Netanyahu saw an opportunity to fulfil his long-held ambition to go to war with Iran. It was simply a matter of how he would fabricate the premise for an attack and how he could draw the US into the conflict. It is a masterpiece of political manipulation by a man who has spent decades with varying degrees of success manipulating American presidents.

The level to which Trump has been played is genuinely breathtaking. As Trump came close to signing a deal with Iran, Netanyahu saw that his window of opportunity to attack was closing. As the Guardian writes:

Ever the opportunist, the Israeli prime minister seized the moment. Tehran’s ally Hezbollah was neutralised, Iran’s air defences crippled and Iran’s partner Bashar al-Assad had fled Syria – opening a “corridor” for airstrikes. With US coordination secured, Israel’s military struck. The bonus for Mr Netanyahu was that he received a political domestic boost just as his coalition threatened to unravel.

Trump is now effectively being held hostage by two indicted war criminals while he wages war on his own citizens. His legacy will be one of a wannabe hard man who was played by two leaders who exploited his hubris and foreign policy ineptitude. He has no credibility. He’s pretty angry right now after the massive nationwide protests over the weekend. Nothing makes him make mistakes more than being made to look a fool, and he’s lashing out, threatening to ‘liberate’ blue cities. By coincidence, the same blue cities that protested to be liberated from him.

Israel’s actions have, by default, all but placed America at war with Iran, and the implications of that may well prove highly dangerous. Netanyahu is a masterful propagandist, as demonstrated by his comments on Fox News on Sunday, when he said of Trump, "They want to kill him, he’s enemy number one”. He’s literally leading Trump by the nose into direct conflict with Iran. All that remains to be seen is if Trump will take the bait. Indeed, indications suggest that options are being prepared, given the deployment of US military assets to the region. What’s another broken election promise to Trump? His inability to sit through daily security briefings in these times of grave danger represents a reckless disregard towards what should be his single most important responsibility: to keep Americans safe. He is derelict in that duty. Nobody knows how this will play out, but I expect the Pentagon has thoroughly assessed the threat.

As far as Israel is concerned, there are suggestions that Iran is currently firing their low-grade missile stock to deplete Israeli stocks of interceptor missiles, with the intent of using their most sophisticated missiles once the Iron Dome capabilities are diminished. Even now, missiles are getting through Israeli defences and causing significant damage, so these are early days.

Trump can’t think beyond his next meal, let alone consider the broader geopolitical implications of the conflict, not least of which is the Iran-China 25-year Cooperation Program, signed in 2021, which provides China with heavily discounted oil. They committed $400 billion to Iran’s economy, encompassing oil, gas, and infrastructure development. It’s unlikely China will sit on its hands when it comes to threatening its access to cheap oil.

At the moment, Netanyahu is running around like some errant college student spending money on his dad’s Black American Express card, thinking he can do what he likes, and if he runs out of cash, daddy will bail him out. Netanyahu knows he needs bunker-busting munitions to reach the main targets he intends to destroy, and he’s assuming Trump will deliver. I suspect he’s right, but at what cost to the safety of American citizens around the world?