What an important and analytical artical. Thank you!
All thse programs, from Americorps to the rural library service, have helped keep American from the depths of despair during previous Republican regimes. That's probably why Project 2025 was so focused on eliminating every program or service that allowed people to live their lives with dignity.
These are people -- the authors of 2025; the brats from DOGE; the ship of fools called "the cabinet" -- who have indeed a greater vision: they want not just to end the democratic America of our 248-year history; not just to return to pre-Civil War roles of human ownership; but to take America back to, literally, a state of feudalism.
THIS IS WHAT THEY WANT. (I read the entire Project 2025 and analyzed for a Southern Black monthly newspaper.) This is their dream. The very concept of a middle class offends them, as does equalization of income, or fair distribution of wealth. Goodbye New Deal, and Reconstruction, and Trustbusters; hello Gilded Age, inherited titles and estates and power. Goodbye citizens, hello serfs.
Yet the people most impacted, those whose lives are daily being destroyed by Musk-Trump-Vought-Jarvanka-Bessent et al., continue to vote for Republicans in ever bigger, more slavish numbers.
I've begun to believe that there are indeed people who prefer slavery to liberty, serfdom to freedom, handouts to opportunities. And they vote for Republicans. What the HELL are the rest of us supposed to do about them?
I believe, however naively, that there's a portion that can see the light if they have the time and resources while trying to survive. Others, though, need a boogeyman. And if they can't get beyond the brainwashing, they will always blame anyone but themselves and their vote.
For many years I believed as you do; but two things have made me less the "cynical optimist" that I was and more of the frustrated pessimist that has crept inside me.
First was my friend Anita who, in 2027 and 2018, said that she found she could engage Trump's people at bars and country hangouts by wearing a little pin or MAGA image and saying (after a beer and slightly exaggerated affects), "Boy I love the guy, you know, but I just wonder sometimes ... there's something I don't get. Can you explain to me whey he X Y Z to this/that/the other?"
From time to time there'd be some reciprocation, and the guy (always a guy) would basically say he didn't really like this that or the other policy, either -- i.e., "the bloom is off the rose" -- but "he's still better than Obama."
That kept my hope alive. Plain old racism; nothing to see here, kids. And they saw the same bogeyman in Kamala Harris. Not just an uppity Black man; not just a bra-burning Hillary; but a combination of the two! Bogeyman squared! Yet I did still think, some could see the light, and that may some had in voting for Biden.
But even after seeing the devastation his first regime wrought on their own lives, neighborhoods, jobs, families (especially deaths via Covid), they voted for him in even greater numbers this time. Like Gollum, they like the darkness of the tunnel!
That's where my despair comes from. Because Gollum wasn't redeemable in the end.
Any reference to Lord of the Rings always commands my attention. I met a Gollum recently. Bear with me because it relates to racism, history and rural America. I went to a small church in the Oklahoma burbs recently (2024!). The congregation was White, with nary a brown or Black person in sight except for me. One particular woman invited me to her home. Not knowing that I was a history major and a law student, she blithely, innocently, and with some pride started telling me about this group, she called it a consortium she belonged to. This group of White people, according to her, regularly and for generations, brings people from Africa to work on farms throughout the American south as laborers. Somewhere in the middle of her narrative she said to me, "Oh. They're far better off than they were in Africa. We clothe and feed them and give them a nice place to live ..." They also get a modest wage. It was WAY BELOW the minimum wage. At this point, I had to interrupt her monologue. I said to her, "You mean you bring people from Africa to the United States in 2024 to work as sharecroppers?" She said, "Yes! (excited) That's what we call them. It's perfectly legal," she said to me. I must have had a look of utter shock and horror on my face because she abruptly ended sharing any more information about the subject. All I could think was, The Transatlantic Slave Trade never ended?! Fury doesn't begin to describe my emotions. I've never seen or talked to her since this. I tried because I wanted to find out where her consortium was holding these people. She hasn't return my phone calls. Today, all I hear when I think of her is, "Let's Make America Great Again." Gollum willing to die and to kill the rest of the world to protect his "Precious."
This is an excellent piece. It covers the truth of what's happening in rural America. I wish I could get my friends and relatives that voted for and continue to support this regime to read it. I'm going to try.
It’s actually so much easier to understand than we make it, just consider the quote from LBJ; “Hell, give him (the white man) somebody to look down on and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
The power structure in this country has depended almost solely on the Jedi mind trick employed by nearly every magician and/or conman, misdirection.
Look at the current ‘bogeyman’, trans people (less than 1/2 a percent of our population), “woke”, (thinly veiled racism) or “DEI”, (the system whereby we sought to level the field).
It is not hard to understand anymore than the so-called Pro Life movement. If it was really pro life why will we destroy all protections for life once it’s out of the womb?
This Demonic process started under Clinton and is consistent with the American Death Spiral that started in 1973 and has now resulted in 66.6 million infants ablations. Now it's the full sized humans that will be eliminated. Freedom! 🎉🎉🎉
Sobering article. I’ve lived in Iowa my whole life and it’s become polluted and cancer ridden. It pisses me off when this area is called the breadbasket. Most of its crop production is not for human consumption. It’s just corn and more corn for biofuel, every square foot in production, environment be damned.
Very thorough. Very compelling. Very exasperating...our "government" is leaving wide swaths of the country behind, both rural and urban. We must unite and fight back against the devastation. We, the people, deserve far better than the treatment we are receiving under the current regime.
Yep to buy up/steal their land too. Sad how they forget the prior land grab farm foreclosures that ruined so many & their families. What happens when one continually votes against their own good interests. The reason farm aide was started also.
****imp! The Heritage Foundation was created and funded by trump for 4 years for project 2025. For that he is financially vulnerable now. However, The first Dept l DOGE hit was Financials, why, to GET Russell Voght and the Heritage Foundation on the Federal PAYROLL now!! We are now paying their salary and it is them, who are organizing the take down and destruction of America sequentially and the planned out almost DAILY assaults. It is the Epicentre. So we are paying them to break us into their new Russia 2.0. Diabolical and effective and how to circumvent their power and efficiency?!? Before it is too late !?
You're wrong. That's what all of you don't get. They want to kneel. They already do it in their churches. They LOVE their 'ministers' having private jets. You're not connecting the dots. the Bible says don't worship the Golden Calf. Our Founding Fathers said Religion shouldn't control government. Don't you see? 100 million people are doing exactly what they 'believe' in...has told them not to do. They are not new. They are what we were warned about...
Maybe. I'm not sure. Religious attendance is declining, even in rural areas. But I agree that a certain segment of the population just wants to be ruled, even if they scream freedom. Maybe it feels safe. Maybe having an enemy to blame for their situation is convenient because it prevents having to face one's own complicity.
Excellent. Comprehensive. Thank you.
Typical Dictator Donnie. Use RURAL to get their votes and then TURN ON THEM AND STAB THEM IN THE BACK!!!!!!!!
They continue to buy the lies and vote these people in. Really sad.
What an important and analytical artical. Thank you!
All thse programs, from Americorps to the rural library service, have helped keep American from the depths of despair during previous Republican regimes. That's probably why Project 2025 was so focused on eliminating every program or service that allowed people to live their lives with dignity.
These are people -- the authors of 2025; the brats from DOGE; the ship of fools called "the cabinet" -- who have indeed a greater vision: they want not just to end the democratic America of our 248-year history; not just to return to pre-Civil War roles of human ownership; but to take America back to, literally, a state of feudalism.
THIS IS WHAT THEY WANT. (I read the entire Project 2025 and analyzed for a Southern Black monthly newspaper.) This is their dream. The very concept of a middle class offends them, as does equalization of income, or fair distribution of wealth. Goodbye New Deal, and Reconstruction, and Trustbusters; hello Gilded Age, inherited titles and estates and power. Goodbye citizens, hello serfs.
Yet the people most impacted, those whose lives are daily being destroyed by Musk-Trump-Vought-Jarvanka-Bessent et al., continue to vote for Republicans in ever bigger, more slavish numbers.
I've begun to believe that there are indeed people who prefer slavery to liberty, serfdom to freedom, handouts to opportunities. And they vote for Republicans. What the HELL are the rest of us supposed to do about them?
I believe, however naively, that there's a portion that can see the light if they have the time and resources while trying to survive. Others, though, need a boogeyman. And if they can't get beyond the brainwashing, they will always blame anyone but themselves and their vote.
Thanks for your response, Marie.
For many years I believed as you do; but two things have made me less the "cynical optimist" that I was and more of the frustrated pessimist that has crept inside me.
First was my friend Anita who, in 2027 and 2018, said that she found she could engage Trump's people at bars and country hangouts by wearing a little pin or MAGA image and saying (after a beer and slightly exaggerated affects), "Boy I love the guy, you know, but I just wonder sometimes ... there's something I don't get. Can you explain to me whey he X Y Z to this/that/the other?"
From time to time there'd be some reciprocation, and the guy (always a guy) would basically say he didn't really like this that or the other policy, either -- i.e., "the bloom is off the rose" -- but "he's still better than Obama."
That kept my hope alive. Plain old racism; nothing to see here, kids. And they saw the same bogeyman in Kamala Harris. Not just an uppity Black man; not just a bra-burning Hillary; but a combination of the two! Bogeyman squared! Yet I did still think, some could see the light, and that may some had in voting for Biden.
But even after seeing the devastation his first regime wrought on their own lives, neighborhoods, jobs, families (especially deaths via Covid), they voted for him in even greater numbers this time. Like Gollum, they like the darkness of the tunnel!
That's where my despair comes from. Because Gollum wasn't redeemable in the end.
And you're still a wonderful writer!
Any reference to Lord of the Rings always commands my attention. I met a Gollum recently. Bear with me because it relates to racism, history and rural America. I went to a small church in the Oklahoma burbs recently (2024!). The congregation was White, with nary a brown or Black person in sight except for me. One particular woman invited me to her home. Not knowing that I was a history major and a law student, she blithely, innocently, and with some pride started telling me about this group, she called it a consortium she belonged to. This group of White people, according to her, regularly and for generations, brings people from Africa to work on farms throughout the American south as laborers. Somewhere in the middle of her narrative she said to me, "Oh. They're far better off than they were in Africa. We clothe and feed them and give them a nice place to live ..." They also get a modest wage. It was WAY BELOW the minimum wage. At this point, I had to interrupt her monologue. I said to her, "You mean you bring people from Africa to the United States in 2024 to work as sharecroppers?" She said, "Yes! (excited) That's what we call them. It's perfectly legal," she said to me. I must have had a look of utter shock and horror on my face because she abruptly ended sharing any more information about the subject. All I could think was, The Transatlantic Slave Trade never ended?! Fury doesn't begin to describe my emotions. I've never seen or talked to her since this. I tried because I wanted to find out where her consortium was holding these people. She hasn't return my phone calls. Today, all I hear when I think of her is, "Let's Make America Great Again." Gollum willing to die and to kill the rest of the world to protect his "Precious."
This is an excellent piece. It covers the truth of what's happening in rural America. I wish I could get my friends and relatives that voted for and continue to support this regime to read it. I'm going to try.
It’s actually so much easier to understand than we make it, just consider the quote from LBJ; “Hell, give him (the white man) somebody to look down on and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
The power structure in this country has depended almost solely on the Jedi mind trick employed by nearly every magician and/or conman, misdirection.
Look at the current ‘bogeyman’, trans people (less than 1/2 a percent of our population), “woke”, (thinly veiled racism) or “DEI”, (the system whereby we sought to level the field).
It is not hard to understand anymore than the so-called Pro Life movement. If it was really pro life why will we destroy all protections for life once it’s out of the womb?
All of it, every last bit of it, is about CONTROL
Maybe they could fight for themselves rather than succumb to hate of the other.
Well, if people keep voting against their own interests they get what they deserve. The problem is that all the rest of us suffer too.
This Demonic process started under Clinton and is consistent with the American Death Spiral that started in 1973 and has now resulted in 66.6 million infants ablations. Now it's the full sized humans that will be eliminated. Freedom! 🎉🎉🎉
Sobering article. I’ve lived in Iowa my whole life and it’s become polluted and cancer ridden. It pisses me off when this area is called the breadbasket. Most of its crop production is not for human consumption. It’s just corn and more corn for biofuel, every square foot in production, environment be damned.
Very thorough. Very compelling. Very exasperating...our "government" is leaving wide swaths of the country behind, both rural and urban. We must unite and fight back against the devastation. We, the people, deserve far better than the treatment we are receiving under the current regime.
Turned it into one big trailer park.
Yep to buy up/steal their land too. Sad how they forget the prior land grab farm foreclosures that ruined so many & their families. What happens when one continually votes against their own good interests. The reason farm aide was started also.
****imp! The Heritage Foundation was created and funded by trump for 4 years for project 2025. For that he is financially vulnerable now. However, The first Dept l DOGE hit was Financials, why, to GET Russell Voght and the Heritage Foundation on the Federal PAYROLL now!! We are now paying their salary and it is them, who are organizing the take down and destruction of America sequentially and the planned out almost DAILY assaults. It is the Epicentre. So we are paying them to break us into their new Russia 2.0. Diabolical and effective and how to circumvent their power and efficiency?!? Before it is too late !?
I learned so much reading this article. It is truly a needed and humanitarian piece. DOGE and Trump have to be stopped.
You're wrong. That's what all of you don't get. They want to kneel. They already do it in their churches. They LOVE their 'ministers' having private jets. You're not connecting the dots. the Bible says don't worship the Golden Calf. Our Founding Fathers said Religion shouldn't control government. Don't you see? 100 million people are doing exactly what they 'believe' in...has told them not to do. They are not new. They are what we were warned about...
Maybe. I'm not sure. Religious attendance is declining, even in rural areas. But I agree that a certain segment of the population just wants to be ruled, even if they scream freedom. Maybe it feels safe. Maybe having an enemy to blame for their situation is convenient because it prevents having to face one's own complicity.