The Grift Bubble is a symptom of the real problem which was created by the organized and funded attack on democracy by Republicans, corporations, and oligarchs launched by the Powell memo in 1971. The attack created the core problems in America, wealth inequality, affordability with the high cost of housing and the lack of good jobs for the working class supported by the rigged political system, the rigged economy, and the weak legal system.
Democrats have sided with Republicans, corporations and oligarchs while ignoring the working class since Bill Clinton adopted neoliberalism in the 1990s.
Two new bold actions by a new generation of progressive Democrats are needed who have a strong commitment to adopt new strategies required to stop the illegal felony criminal insurrection led by Trump and his administration that began on January 6, 2021, and continued into 2025 as planned in PROJECT 2025, with illegal felony criminal support of the insurrection from Republicans in Congress and the Supreme Court to install a lawless fascist autocracy.
The first action is legal adoption, implementation and enforcement of the proposed new law in 15 states controlled by Democrats modeled after the federal law against insurrection which is described in this post to take control of the House and the Supreme Court before the midterms.
PROJECT 2029 is a new turning point in politics and the economy for a new generation of progressive Democrats to get elected in 2028 by campaigning on solving core problems in America by committing to implement PROJECT 2029. Core problems are affordability caused by the high cost of living, housing, food, and healthcare, wealth inequality, and a lack of good paying jobs for the working class.
Voters in 2016 and 2024 elected Trump because they were dissatisfied with how the traditional Republicans and Democrats had run the federal government and for 60 years voters had been waiting for solutions to core problems which Trump falsely claimed he would deliver.
1. Infrastructure (if that’s the right word) that is necessary to a decent life such as healthcare, childcare, elementary and higher education, broadband, postal service, public transportation… should have some public option to remove them from profit motive.
2. Citizen’s United needs to be repealed.
3. Federal law should impose that all states use an independent commission to draw their voting districts.
Re your #4: I doubt that increasing the number of Supreme Court justices will improve things -- we'd still have people hanging on past their prime.
My preferred solution would be a mandatory retirement age: Pick a number, set an age limit, and that way SCOTUS (and presidents) will have more insight into when change will happen for sure, instead of waiting for actual death or total mental derangement to occur.
I agree about Clinton taking on the neoliberalism of Ronald Reagan, and now it is established policy, although Joe Biden tried to take it on. Look where it got him.
I am reading that Larry Summers of Epstein File infamy is a big neoliberal contributor to Project 2029, and I am convinced that the wrong people are in charge if that is the case. Who are the progressive names working on P2029? I am wondering because having read P2025, I can think that was a document which if carried out even in part would destroy the US as it was and turn it into a third world country. Seems to be successful in its progress towards that outcome. Is P2029 as a group anticipating where we might be if Trump is allowed to continue along the vein he is and how to redo our country, not as it has been, but into something better, and definitely not guided by neoliberals.
Where did you read about Larry Summers contributing to Project 2029. The only Project 2029 I know about is the Project 2029 described in my post which I authored.
Yes that Project 2029. I am not sure whose Substack I read this on. Someone who was discussing Summer as an economist. It might have been Matt Stoller, but I don't remember. I look up the topic and find this:
I am just as against him as a neoliberal giving economic advice, as I am about his creepy relationship with Epstein. The person I read said he was being asked for economic advice. Why the horrid Summers, whom women hated back in his Harvard Administration days for insulting our intelligence, should be consulted by anyone when someone else like Paul Krugman is smarter and has better economic sense is beyond me.
I am also perturbed by the idea that the old guard is drafting a blue print when it is the new guard coming into power and they will probably toss that document aside.
Thanks. I agree with all your thinking about Summers and the old guard which obviously includes neoliberal CAP - the Center for American Progress which key founder has promoted and worked for the neoliberal Bill and Hillary Clinton. There is another Project 2029 on the web with hands out for donations but no specific plans described for solutions. We need the new guard to adopt my proposal which has a real plan funded by taxing the wealthy like they were in 1965 to implement solutions to wealth inequality, affordability of housing, and a alck of jobs for the working class.
Of course tax the wealth of the wealthy, not just their incomes, but their wealth. Public housing can be affordable, and it should be public. Other countries invest in public housing. We need to do this again. It just should be mixed income like in Vienna, and also carbon neutral. Geothermal energy and that sort of thing.
I think that this "grift bubble" and other actions are turning Americans off is clearly showing up in the recent Gallop poll that says 20% of Americans want to leave the US for good, with 40% of women aged 15-44 saying this. That is over 26 million women who would like to leave the US for good. Those are the years that are considered child bearing years.
Meanwhile the brain drain is going on. Canada is preparing to receive people who want to leave and have skills to offer that they seek.
A friend was pointing out that this happened in Germany during Hitler's regime, and in East Germany under the DDR. I used to go to a bookstore in Germany where they used to have pictures of Germany's Nobel Prize winners in physics and chemistry on the wall by the escalator so you could look at them while you were going up- and down-stairs. Those prizes switched to US physicists and chemists after the brain drain. So did the innovations and advances.
Linda - Thanks for that link! Passing on to all the young women I know. Would be interesting to see a state by state breakdown. Guessing there are states where it's even higher than 40%. Women don't want to live in Gilead.
Thank you. It seems to me there are in essence three fundamental types of people. Type one is people who care only about themselves and their own welfare and status. They do not genuinely care about or for others, even those in their “tribe.” They are selfish and truly believe they are right about everything and disinterested in the views of anyone else. For the purpose of this analysis we will call them MAGA Republicans. The second group are those interested in the common good. They see and care for others and the welfare of all. This group believes in governing for the common good. They believe in diversity, equity, and inclusion as a solution not a problem. They believe in and respect the dignity and equality of all. They are defenders of our Constitution and the rights it provides. They support and respect the rule of law. For the purpose of this analysis we will call them Democrats. The last group are the civically disengaged. Unfortunately this group is an even bigger problem for society than the group of selfish MAGAs, because their disengagement allows for minority governance. They do not observe and are not paying attention to civic affairs or what is happening around them. They are easily distracted and more interested in being entertained than being lead or governed. They care more about what is about to or may happen than about what may have recently happened. They have little interest in learning about anything. For these folks it is simply about waiting for the next bright shiny object distraction to appear and then for it to be almost immediately forgotten in anticipation of the next distraction. These folks are not actors or players, but merely spectators, an audience.
We need to spend more time and attention with our youth’s civic education and civic engagement so they can make a wise choice about which of these groups they will align themselves with as they mature.
“The last group are the civically disengaged. Unfortunately this group is an even bigger problem for society than the group of selfish MAGAs, because their disengagement allows for minority governance.”
Nailed it, Bruce! Thank you. I agree that biggest deterrent to a fair and just society is the huge number of Americans who don’t bother to vote (85.9 million in 2024, or 35.9% of the voting-eligible population). Knowing that over one-third of voting-eligible Americans just don’t give a damn is distressing, demoralizing and infuriating.
“The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." — Plato
I'm in my 60s. When I was in public school, we had classes categorized as Social Studies. Are these classes still being taught? All that I hear being promoted are STEM programs.
My BA is a Humanity. I use it every day and I would do it all over again. It seems to me that non-STEM programs are not valued by society today.
Although I understand your point, Steve, and it is well taken, I think, considering the failure of our education system, especially with the downgrading of so many programs, we should be grateful that STEM programs are still in place. Since Covid, in particular, students' grades have dramatically fallen and many are less engaged. I remember social studies, also, and having to find an article in the news paper, read it and give an oral presentation. I worry too that Black Studies are being dropped from schools, an essential part of our history, and the banning of books. I'm near Bonn, Germany presently, one of my daughters lives in the area. In front of the Rathaus in Bonn, which was once the capital of Germany, the city hall, there are plaques in the ground of authors whose books were burned right there by the Nazis because they were, "unGerman". Earnest Hemingway, Albert Einstein, Freud, Thomas Mann, Helen Keller, to name a few. I might add that nothing hits home regarding Nazi Germany quite like seeing plaques in front of buildings both in Bonn and neighborhoods throughout the area, with names, sometimes of entire families, who were pulled from their homes and sent to concentration camps.
Joanna, regarding your remark about the US education system's failure...part of the problem is that we DON'T HAVE anything resembling a US 'system'. We have a high fractured assemblage of 13,000 different districts within State and Territorial Ed. systems, which are only loosely related to one another.
With our politics so divisive, and everything politicized to the nth degree, it is a tough environment for school boards and state Superintendents of Ed. to operate effectively. And of course, it is the kids' education that suffers.
Well, Steve, it would be real nice if we had federally-set minimum national standards, but since the Righties get their knickers in a twist every single damn time someone mentions setting Federal education standards, what we have is a patchwork of over 13,000 public school districts, each of which is free to select its own curriculum, subject t0 supervision by their state's requirements.
The National Council for the Social Studies has compiled a set of graded standards for students in pre-K-12. Here is a link to their website:
I would venture a guess that every school district requires 'some' civic/government and social studies (history, geography, economics, sociology, anthropology) at the middle and upper school levels, but you are right, some districts put a lot of effort into STEM as well as reading proficiency, sometimes at the expense of other subject or skill areas.
Both are needed for proper citizenship. We need ordinary people to understand the basics of reasoning and some simple statistical principles. Maybe there would be fewer people wowed by anti-vax loons. As it is, 90% of the population believes in "anecdata".
Thank you! Let’s go back to teaching civics to our children. Create more programs that provide national service opportunities. Democracy dies in darkness.
I recently finished Joyce Vance's, Giving Up is Unforgivable. It's excellent. One of the things I loved about the book was the many civics lessons throughout. We have forgotten how important civic knowledge and engagement is.
I also recently read Joyce's book, "Giving Up Is Unforgivable." I also purchased a small supply and gave it to my children and several friends. Civic education is not taught today in many communities with the same enthusiasm and energy as it was in my own youth. It is also important to promote civic engagement in every community. There are far too many civically disengaged, and this contributes to many of our challenges.
If people are too busy or too lazy to get up off the couch and vote, then I assume they don't know what they want or don't care what they get, so I would rather they didn't vote.
Agreed. Democrats often form circular firing squads, blaming each other for alienating a few existing Democratic-leaning voters, rather than look for ways to reach disengaged potential voters.
The grift-bubble. A perfect metaphor for what is going on. The unpredictability of the future is part of the ongoing disaster. The patriotism of resistance and opposition will save us, but it will take generations to get back from what is now going on and of course we don’t have that much time any more. It is all so sad. Their machetes against the delicate threads that bind us.
Read this to my 94 year old blind father, Rhodes Scholar and historian, this morning for his birthday breakfast. His face, normally passive, became animated with admiration and energy. ‘What a gift to inspire and educate’ he said as I finished. Thank you.
Thank you for this wise essay. Your metaphor strikes true. You understand the psychology of these grifters-in-power well. I think of Bandy X. Lee and Ruth Ben-Ghiat who similarly do. Your speaking to us helps us keep acting from our love for common good.
Couple this with the following and you'll move towards a better understanding of not just Trump, not just MAGA, but the billionaires who support them -- and what we’re up against.
Via Andrew Tobias:
In her new book, The Second Estate: How the Tax Code Made an American Aristocracy, Ray Madoff warns:
The United States has allowed many of its wealthiest individuals to quietly secede from the country that benefits them financially. As the richest 1 percent of Americans have come to control more than 30 percent of the country’s wealth, the tax code has given them the tools to abdicate their responsibilities and, in a sense, to relocate to a tax-free version of American life—a wealth island of sorts.
While millions of working Americans . . . pay substantial portions of their resources to support the expenses of the country—its social safety net, national defense, interest on the national debt, and the myriad other expenses that are needed to support the most economically developed country in the world—the individuals on wealth island are insulated from such workaday burdens by a tax system that imposes little or no tax on their most common sources of wealth: investments and inheritances. Their ability to avoid taxes in those areas allows their wealth and power to grow unabated and exponentially. The existence of these two different systems—one for people who earn money, one for people who own wealth—bears remarkable resemblance to the tax system of prerevolutionary France, in which the aristocracy was written out of the tax system, leaving the burdens of the country’s expenses to everyone else. As the French economist Pierre-Samuel du Pont de Nemours (who later fled to America with his two sons, one of whom founded DuPont chemical company) said to the French National Assembly, “In order to become noble, it is sufficient to become rich; and to cease to pay taxes, it is sufficient to become noble. So there is only one way of escaping taxation, and that is to make a fortune.” In France, these untaxed rich were known as the Second Estate—nobility who enjoyed sweeping financial and social privileges on the basis of their wealth. As was the case then, the existence today of a class of untaxed elites signals something broken and alarming about the US economy. It also invites the question of how a country founded on principles of equality—and with a special aversion to aristocracy—could end up where it has.
This is what happens, M, when schools drop humanities.
When this happens, people -- for many various other reasons -- just lack humane perspectives. They lose contexts. Anesthetize themselves to the hurts of others.
Loved your post about the 'grift bubble'. By coincidence I just published this relationship map about Kristi Noem's grift at the DHS. Like they say, "the fish rots from the head first".
Follow the money behind Kristi Noem's massive $143 million corruption scandal at DHS ICE.
Noem's hatefulness first came to my attention when Native Nations in South Dakota reported that she was stopping them
from growing industrial hemp. Noem kept industrial hemp illegal in South Dakota and her state troopers famously seized a semi tractor trailer of hemp headed from Colorado to Minnesota. The hemp was going to make biodegradable packaging for a Minnesota manufacturer. I thought maybe Noem misunderstood the difference between industrial and psychoactive hemp. But, really, it's interesting thinking about loading discarded packaging in a bong. Great idea, Kristi!
Months passed, the covid pandemic arose, and Native Nations in South Dakota closed their entrance roads to outsiders. Noem pitched a fit! How dare they! She sued and won, for similar reasons to Trump winning a case in his Supreme Court. Breaking the natives' quarantine brought covid to those people. The number of native language speakers was reduced as the plague took elders. Some survivors got the long covid.
Noem used her state's federal allowance for covid response to buy South Dakota tourism advertisements which aired on television in Minnesota.
Noem installed a fence around the Governor's Mansion in Pierre, as if she expected the natives to attack.
When she ran for reelection, the Lakota draped their Star Quilt on her opponent Billy Sutton's shoulders at a ceremony during the South Dakota State Fair. It should have been enough, just like Trump never should have won.
As awful as Noem was, some of your sources were misinformed. The tribes maintained their secure borders. They protected their elders, although some died despite protection. Noem really didn’t understand the difference with industrial hemp, although CBD products had long been legal. The tribes routed industrial hemp shipments and one set up their own processing plant. By the end of her term Noam had been physically banned from all but one reservation. Her misuse of state money and resources was so egregious, however, that legislators are rewriting the laws. I could go on, but she is stupider than she appears and also inherently corrupt.
It's like they are stealing water from a great lake. Who owns this water, everyone or no one? They believe that no one really owns it, so they can take as much as they want. Actually, we all own it and once we understand that they are stealing from us, we can, hopefully, stop them. We all need our increment of water to survive, and they threaten that survival. Just like the pool of water sustains us, we must pool our resources to protect the pool.
Where Timothy Snyder says, "They think that the magic of words will always save them," I'd edit for "They think that the magic of lies will always save them."
Nothing should detract us from this important warning about the true dangers we face. The dismantling of government itself remains perhaps the only goal of the awful penny ante grifters who got themselves undeservingly elevated to the Big Leagues.
At the same time, it feels important to acknowledge something else taking place at the same time -- they're not winning, they're losing. For these aren't brilliant architects of evil and personal gain, but Rube Goldberg fuck-ups who can't do anything right. Their vast contraption of lies and absurdities are held together by scotch tape and fear, and right now, the whole shebang is heaving and creaking in gale-force winds.
Literally everything they touch is turning to shit around them -- deservedly. On the one hand it make them more desperate, more dangerous. On the other, it underscores the reality, which worsens every day -- these people can't walk and chew gum at the same time. Their nightmares manifest. They're underwater on every issue you can think of, not by a little bit, but often by 2:1 ratios. Their own darling Epstein monster is coming home to eat their faces. Danger mounts that their own prosecutors and high-ranking military officers will not obey their contaminated, illegal orders. More and more judges are ruling against them, and not wasting time doing so. Their constituents swear at them in town meetings, if they dare to hold any.
This is happening less because their opponents are so brilliant (they're not), but because the grifters are catastrophic losers way out of their depths. Prediction is dangerous, but going into 2026, I would far rather be a Democrat than one of them. Momentum continues to be on our side, events of the rocky shutdown and re-opening notwithstanding. I feel an optimism which even Professor Snyder's diagnosis can't shake.
I also feel optimistic for many of the reasons you cite (their incompetence, the rising tide of consequences, etc). I hope Snyder is wrong about Federal agencies squaring off but certainly they have been weakened as has the military. I do worry about what will be left standing after the grift bubble bursts. I also worry about what will happen during the bursting part.
I completely agree with you, but I wonder if Russell Vought, and the other seemingly more intelligent Project 2025 people, are seeing the end game. Is it more in their self interest to let Trump and his minions grift themselves into extinction so that they can take over and create something more sinister?
Very intelligent people can come up with very many ways to rationalize their policy aims and strategies, and to conveniently avoid any personal responsibility for the damage done.
Thank you, Dr. Snyder. Such a spot on discussion of mega stupidity, a/k/a, grifting, that it increased the intensity of my headache (haha), then my patriot resolve! As a naive Ohio kid, with nine generations here, including early European “pioneers”…another story there…I got a college education and law degree. Many of us did, thanks to the hard work of my WW II veteran father, and that of my RN mother, as they had paved the way for working class folk to rise. That New Deal thing was trusted by my family, and FDR, then JFK were revered. There were good Ohio governors along the way (Dick Celeste), and some not!
Well here we are. My family was always proud of their heritage, the Am Rev, Civil War victory, and then fighting for union rights and those of others. And yet, here the h-ll we are.
Sorry that I missed you in Cbus. You are right. This grifting bubble won’t last. We who are Patriots have to help Patriots like Dr. Amy Acton to succeed and be the tough, fair, and compassionate governor we need in Ohio.
Then, we can and must pick up the pieces of our beloved state and country, and save America from this human pandemic of virulent grifters in the WH.
Thank you for this…the “grift bubble” frame is exactly right.
Authoritarianism here isn’t about governing, it’s about hollowing out institutions for profit and control.
That bubble blinds its architects to the collapse they’re accelerating.
Naming it matters, because resisting it isn’t just opposition, it’s patriotism.
—Johan
The Grift Bubble is a symptom of the real problem which was created by the organized and funded attack on democracy by Republicans, corporations, and oligarchs launched by the Powell memo in 1971. The attack created the core problems in America, wealth inequality, affordability with the high cost of housing and the lack of good jobs for the working class supported by the rigged political system, the rigged economy, and the weak legal system.
Democrats have sided with Republicans, corporations and oligarchs while ignoring the working class since Bill Clinton adopted neoliberalism in the 1990s.
https://thegoldfishmind.substack.com/p/markets-to-menace-how-neoliberalism
https://jacobin.com/2022/07/democratic-party-neoliberalism-dlc-clinton
Two new bold actions by a new generation of progressive Democrats are needed who have a strong commitment to adopt new strategies required to stop the illegal felony criminal insurrection led by Trump and his administration that began on January 6, 2021, and continued into 2025 as planned in PROJECT 2025, with illegal felony criminal support of the insurrection from Republicans in Congress and the Supreme Court to install a lawless fascist autocracy.
The first action is legal adoption, implementation and enforcement of the proposed new law in 15 states controlled by Democrats modeled after the federal law against insurrection which is described in this post to take control of the House and the Supreme Court before the midterms.
https://williamlmiller.substack.com/p/how-to-stop-trump-republicans-and
The second action is campaigning in 2028 to implement PROJECT 2029 described in this POST #6.
https://williamlmiller.substack.com/p/post-6-project-2029-will-get-democrats
PROJECT 2029 is a new turning point in politics and the economy for a new generation of progressive Democrats to get elected in 2028 by campaigning on solving core problems in America by committing to implement PROJECT 2029. Core problems are affordability caused by the high cost of living, housing, food, and healthcare, wealth inequality, and a lack of good paying jobs for the working class.
Voters in 2016 and 2024 elected Trump because they were dissatisfied with how the traditional Republicans and Democrats had run the federal government and for 60 years voters had been waiting for solutions to core problems which Trump falsely claimed he would deliver.
I believe
1. Infrastructure (if that’s the right word) that is necessary to a decent life such as healthcare, childcare, elementary and higher education, broadband, postal service, public transportation… should have some public option to remove them from profit motive.
2. Citizen’s United needs to be repealed.
3. Federal law should impose that all states use an independent commission to draw their voting districts.
4. SCOTUS be increased to 13.
5. We need public financing of elections with shorter campaign periods.
Yes, I agree. My list is not complete by any means.
You can't "repeal" a Supreme Court decision, which is what Citizens United is. You have to overturn it. Hence the need for your #4.
Thank you for the correction
Re your #4: I doubt that increasing the number of Supreme Court justices will improve things -- we'd still have people hanging on past their prime.
My preferred solution would be a mandatory retirement age: Pick a number, set an age limit, and that way SCOTUS (and presidents) will have more insight into when change will happen for sure, instead of waiting for actual death or total mental derangement to occur.
Repeal citizens United; modify section 230 of the “communications decency act of 1996“.
Please read my post for PROJECT 2029 which removes 6 justices from the Supreme Court and does the other things you want
I agree about Clinton taking on the neoliberalism of Ronald Reagan, and now it is established policy, although Joe Biden tried to take it on. Look where it got him.
I am reading that Larry Summers of Epstein File infamy is a big neoliberal contributor to Project 2029, and I am convinced that the wrong people are in charge if that is the case. Who are the progressive names working on P2029? I am wondering because having read P2025, I can think that was a document which if carried out even in part would destroy the US as it was and turn it into a third world country. Seems to be successful in its progress towards that outcome. Is P2029 as a group anticipating where we might be if Trump is allowed to continue along the vein he is and how to redo our country, not as it has been, but into something better, and definitely not guided by neoliberals.
Linda
Where did you read about Larry Summers contributing to Project 2029. The only Project 2029 I know about is the Project 2029 described in my post which I authored.
https://williamlmiller.substack.com/p/post-6-project-2029-will-get-democrats
Yes that Project 2029. I am not sure whose Substack I read this on. Someone who was discussing Summer as an economist. It might have been Matt Stoller, but I don't remember. I look up the topic and find this:
https://prospect.org/2025/11/14/epstein-confidant-larry-summers-guiding-democrats-project-2029/
And this,
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/will-creepy-epstein-emails-be-the-end-of-larry-summers.html
I am just as against him as a neoliberal giving economic advice, as I am about his creepy relationship with Epstein. The person I read said he was being asked for economic advice. Why the horrid Summers, whom women hated back in his Harvard Administration days for insulting our intelligence, should be consulted by anyone when someone else like Paul Krugman is smarter and has better economic sense is beyond me.
I am also perturbed by the idea that the old guard is drafting a blue print when it is the new guard coming into power and they will probably toss that document aside.
LInda
Great reference - to the CAP Project 2029 https://prospect.org/2025/11/14/epstein-confidant-larry-summers-guiding-democrats-project-2029/
Thanks. I agree with all your thinking about Summers and the old guard which obviously includes neoliberal CAP - the Center for American Progress which key founder has promoted and worked for the neoliberal Bill and Hillary Clinton. There is another Project 2029 on the web with hands out for donations but no specific plans described for solutions. We need the new guard to adopt my proposal which has a real plan funded by taxing the wealthy like they were in 1965 to implement solutions to wealth inequality, affordability of housing, and a alck of jobs for the working class.
Of course tax the wealth of the wealthy, not just their incomes, but their wealth. Public housing can be affordable, and it should be public. Other countries invest in public housing. We need to do this again. It just should be mixed income like in Vienna, and also carbon neutral. Geothermal energy and that sort of thing.
I think that this "grift bubble" and other actions are turning Americans off is clearly showing up in the recent Gallop poll that says 20% of Americans want to leave the US for good, with 40% of women aged 15-44 saying this. That is over 26 million women who would like to leave the US for good. Those are the years that are considered child bearing years.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/697382/record-numbers-younger-women-leave.aspx
Meanwhile the brain drain is going on. Canada is preparing to receive people who want to leave and have skills to offer that they seek.
A friend was pointing out that this happened in Germany during Hitler's regime, and in East Germany under the DDR. I used to go to a bookstore in Germany where they used to have pictures of Germany's Nobel Prize winners in physics and chemistry on the wall by the escalator so you could look at them while you were going up- and down-stairs. Those prizes switched to US physicists and chemists after the brain drain. So did the innovations and advances.
Linda - Thanks for that link! Passing on to all the young women I know. Would be interesting to see a state by state breakdown. Guessing there are states where it's even higher than 40%. Women don't want to live in Gilead.
From one patriot to another: thank you. :-)
Thank you. It seems to me there are in essence three fundamental types of people. Type one is people who care only about themselves and their own welfare and status. They do not genuinely care about or for others, even those in their “tribe.” They are selfish and truly believe they are right about everything and disinterested in the views of anyone else. For the purpose of this analysis we will call them MAGA Republicans. The second group are those interested in the common good. They see and care for others and the welfare of all. This group believes in governing for the common good. They believe in diversity, equity, and inclusion as a solution not a problem. They believe in and respect the dignity and equality of all. They are defenders of our Constitution and the rights it provides. They support and respect the rule of law. For the purpose of this analysis we will call them Democrats. The last group are the civically disengaged. Unfortunately this group is an even bigger problem for society than the group of selfish MAGAs, because their disengagement allows for minority governance. They do not observe and are not paying attention to civic affairs or what is happening around them. They are easily distracted and more interested in being entertained than being lead or governed. They care more about what is about to or may happen than about what may have recently happened. They have little interest in learning about anything. For these folks it is simply about waiting for the next bright shiny object distraction to appear and then for it to be almost immediately forgotten in anticipation of the next distraction. These folks are not actors or players, but merely spectators, an audience.
We need to spend more time and attention with our youth’s civic education and civic engagement so they can make a wise choice about which of these groups they will align themselves with as they mature.
“The last group are the civically disengaged. Unfortunately this group is an even bigger problem for society than the group of selfish MAGAs, because their disengagement allows for minority governance.”
Nailed it, Bruce! Thank you. I agree that biggest deterrent to a fair and just society is the huge number of Americans who don’t bother to vote (85.9 million in 2024, or 35.9% of the voting-eligible population). Knowing that over one-third of voting-eligible Americans just don’t give a damn is distressing, demoralizing and infuriating.
“The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." — Plato
what a great quote ... there we have it in a nutshell sadly ...
I'm in my 60s. When I was in public school, we had classes categorized as Social Studies. Are these classes still being taught? All that I hear being promoted are STEM programs.
My BA is a Humanity. I use it every day and I would do it all over again. It seems to me that non-STEM programs are not valued by society today.
Although I understand your point, Steve, and it is well taken, I think, considering the failure of our education system, especially with the downgrading of so many programs, we should be grateful that STEM programs are still in place. Since Covid, in particular, students' grades have dramatically fallen and many are less engaged. I remember social studies, also, and having to find an article in the news paper, read it and give an oral presentation. I worry too that Black Studies are being dropped from schools, an essential part of our history, and the banning of books. I'm near Bonn, Germany presently, one of my daughters lives in the area. In front of the Rathaus in Bonn, which was once the capital of Germany, the city hall, there are plaques in the ground of authors whose books were burned right there by the Nazis because they were, "unGerman". Earnest Hemingway, Albert Einstein, Freud, Thomas Mann, Helen Keller, to name a few. I might add that nothing hits home regarding Nazi Germany quite like seeing plaques in front of buildings both in Bonn and neighborhoods throughout the area, with names, sometimes of entire families, who were pulled from their homes and sent to concentration camps.
Joanna, regarding your remark about the US education system's failure...part of the problem is that we DON'T HAVE anything resembling a US 'system'. We have a high fractured assemblage of 13,000 different districts within State and Territorial Ed. systems, which are only loosely related to one another.
With our politics so divisive, and everything politicized to the nth degree, it is a tough environment for school boards and state Superintendents of Ed. to operate effectively. And of course, it is the kids' education that suffers.
We had to take and pass a class called US Civics to graduate from high school.
Well, Steve, it would be real nice if we had federally-set minimum national standards, but since the Righties get their knickers in a twist every single damn time someone mentions setting Federal education standards, what we have is a patchwork of over 13,000 public school districts, each of which is free to select its own curriculum, subject t0 supervision by their state's requirements.
The National Council for the Social Studies has compiled a set of graded standards for students in pre-K-12. Here is a link to their website:
https://www.socialstudies.org/standards/national-curriculum-standards-social-studies-introduction
I would venture a guess that every school district requires 'some' civic/government and social studies (history, geography, economics, sociology, anthropology) at the middle and upper school levels, but you are right, some districts put a lot of effort into STEM as well as reading proficiency, sometimes at the expense of other subject or skill areas.
Both are needed for proper citizenship. We need ordinary people to understand the basics of reasoning and some simple statistical principles. Maybe there would be fewer people wowed by anti-vax loons. As it is, 90% of the population believes in "anecdata".
Yes - to make good citizens.
Thank you! Let’s go back to teaching civics to our children. Create more programs that provide national service opportunities. Democracy dies in darkness.
Sadly, civic disengagement has become a feature of American culture.
I recently finished Joyce Vance's, Giving Up is Unforgivable. It's excellent. One of the things I loved about the book was the many civics lessons throughout. We have forgotten how important civic knowledge and engagement is.
I also recently read Joyce's book, "Giving Up Is Unforgivable." I also purchased a small supply and gave it to my children and several friends. Civic education is not taught today in many communities with the same enthusiasm and energy as it was in my own youth. It is also important to promote civic engagement in every community. There are far too many civically disengaged, and this contributes to many of our challenges.
In Australia voting is mandatory. I wish we had the same law here (along with civic education).
If people are too busy or too lazy to get up off the couch and vote, then I assume they don't know what they want or don't care what they get, so I would rather they didn't vote.
Agreed. Democrats often form circular firing squads, blaming each other for alienating a few existing Democratic-leaning voters, rather than look for ways to reach disengaged potential voters.
The grift-bubble. A perfect metaphor for what is going on. The unpredictability of the future is part of the ongoing disaster. The patriotism of resistance and opposition will save us, but it will take generations to get back from what is now going on and of course we don’t have that much time any more. It is all so sad. Their machetes against the delicate threads that bind us.
Read this to my 94 year old blind father, Rhodes Scholar and historian, this morning for his birthday breakfast. His face, normally passive, became animated with admiration and energy. ‘What a gift to inspire and educate’ he said as I finished. Thank you.
Thank you for sharing this beautiful moment with your dad.
❤️
Thank you for this wise essay. Your metaphor strikes true. You understand the psychology of these grifters-in-power well. I think of Bandy X. Lee and Ruth Ben-Ghiat who similarly do. Your speaking to us helps us keep acting from our love for common good.
Couple this with the following and you'll move towards a better understanding of not just Trump, not just MAGA, but the billionaires who support them -- and what we’re up against.
Via Andrew Tobias:
In her new book, The Second Estate: How the Tax Code Made an American Aristocracy, Ray Madoff warns:
The United States has allowed many of its wealthiest individuals to quietly secede from the country that benefits them financially. As the richest 1 percent of Americans have come to control more than 30 percent of the country’s wealth, the tax code has given them the tools to abdicate their responsibilities and, in a sense, to relocate to a tax-free version of American life—a wealth island of sorts.
While millions of working Americans . . . pay substantial portions of their resources to support the expenses of the country—its social safety net, national defense, interest on the national debt, and the myriad other expenses that are needed to support the most economically developed country in the world—the individuals on wealth island are insulated from such workaday burdens by a tax system that imposes little or no tax on their most common sources of wealth: investments and inheritances. Their ability to avoid taxes in those areas allows their wealth and power to grow unabated and exponentially. The existence of these two different systems—one for people who earn money, one for people who own wealth—bears remarkable resemblance to the tax system of prerevolutionary France, in which the aristocracy was written out of the tax system, leaving the burdens of the country’s expenses to everyone else. As the French economist Pierre-Samuel du Pont de Nemours (who later fled to America with his two sons, one of whom founded DuPont chemical company) said to the French National Assembly, “In order to become noble, it is sufficient to become rich; and to cease to pay taxes, it is sufficient to become noble. So there is only one way of escaping taxation, and that is to make a fortune.” In France, these untaxed rich were known as the Second Estate—nobility who enjoyed sweeping financial and social privileges on the basis of their wealth. As was the case then, the existence today of a class of untaxed elites signals something broken and alarming about the US economy. It also invites the question of how a country founded on principles of equality—and with a special aversion to aristocracy—could end up where it has.
This is what happens, M, when schools drop humanities.
When this happens, people -- for many various other reasons -- just lack humane perspectives. They lose contexts. Anesthetize themselves to the hurts of others.
Many (most?) billionaires didn’t attend public schools. They inherited wealth that got them started.
Loved your post about the 'grift bubble'. By coincidence I just published this relationship map about Kristi Noem's grift at the DHS. Like they say, "the fish rots from the head first".
Follow the money behind Kristi Noem's massive $143 million corruption scandal at DHS ICE.
https://thedemlabs.org/2025/11/16/kristi-noem-dhs-ice-corruption-scandal/
Noem's hatefulness first came to my attention when Native Nations in South Dakota reported that she was stopping them
from growing industrial hemp. Noem kept industrial hemp illegal in South Dakota and her state troopers famously seized a semi tractor trailer of hemp headed from Colorado to Minnesota. The hemp was going to make biodegradable packaging for a Minnesota manufacturer. I thought maybe Noem misunderstood the difference between industrial and psychoactive hemp. But, really, it's interesting thinking about loading discarded packaging in a bong. Great idea, Kristi!
Months passed, the covid pandemic arose, and Native Nations in South Dakota closed their entrance roads to outsiders. Noem pitched a fit! How dare they! She sued and won, for similar reasons to Trump winning a case in his Supreme Court. Breaking the natives' quarantine brought covid to those people. The number of native language speakers was reduced as the plague took elders. Some survivors got the long covid.
Noem used her state's federal allowance for covid response to buy South Dakota tourism advertisements which aired on television in Minnesota.
Noem installed a fence around the Governor's Mansion in Pierre, as if she expected the natives to attack.
When she ran for reelection, the Lakota draped their Star Quilt on her opponent Billy Sutton's shoulders at a ceremony during the South Dakota State Fair. It should have been enough, just like Trump never should have won.
As awful as Noem was, some of your sources were misinformed. The tribes maintained their secure borders. They protected their elders, although some died despite protection. Noem really didn’t understand the difference with industrial hemp, although CBD products had long been legal. The tribes routed industrial hemp shipments and one set up their own processing plant. By the end of her term Noam had been physically banned from all but one reservation. Her misuse of state money and resources was so egregious, however, that legislators are rewriting the laws. I could go on, but she is stupider than she appears and also inherently corrupt.
Thank you for this. I'd read about it, but couldn't really sort it out.
What a tangled web of grift! I'm wondering how many more little webs are delivering our tax dollars to the trump circle of grifters.
It's like they are stealing water from a great lake. Who owns this water, everyone or no one? They believe that no one really owns it, so they can take as much as they want. Actually, we all own it and once we understand that they are stealing from us, we can, hopefully, stop them. We all need our increment of water to survive, and they threaten that survival. Just like the pool of water sustains us, we must pool our resources to protect the pool.
Speaking of water, AI is using massive, massive amounts of water. It's frightening.
Wow. This post took my breath away. Scary stuff. Hope that the decent folks can overwhelm the grift🙏🏻💔🇺🇸
Agreed, Kelly. With on exception.
Where Timothy Snyder says, "They think that the magic of words will always save them," I'd edit for "They think that the magic of lies will always save them."
Nothing should detract us from this important warning about the true dangers we face. The dismantling of government itself remains perhaps the only goal of the awful penny ante grifters who got themselves undeservingly elevated to the Big Leagues.
At the same time, it feels important to acknowledge something else taking place at the same time -- they're not winning, they're losing. For these aren't brilliant architects of evil and personal gain, but Rube Goldberg fuck-ups who can't do anything right. Their vast contraption of lies and absurdities are held together by scotch tape and fear, and right now, the whole shebang is heaving and creaking in gale-force winds.
Literally everything they touch is turning to shit around them -- deservedly. On the one hand it make them more desperate, more dangerous. On the other, it underscores the reality, which worsens every day -- these people can't walk and chew gum at the same time. Their nightmares manifest. They're underwater on every issue you can think of, not by a little bit, but often by 2:1 ratios. Their own darling Epstein monster is coming home to eat their faces. Danger mounts that their own prosecutors and high-ranking military officers will not obey their contaminated, illegal orders. More and more judges are ruling against them, and not wasting time doing so. Their constituents swear at them in town meetings, if they dare to hold any.
This is happening less because their opponents are so brilliant (they're not), but because the grifters are catastrophic losers way out of their depths. Prediction is dangerous, but going into 2026, I would far rather be a Democrat than one of them. Momentum continues to be on our side, events of the rocky shutdown and re-opening notwithstanding. I feel an optimism which even Professor Snyder's diagnosis can't shake.
I also feel optimistic for many of the reasons you cite (their incompetence, the rising tide of consequences, etc). I hope Snyder is wrong about Federal agencies squaring off but certainly they have been weakened as has the military. I do worry about what will be left standing after the grift bubble bursts. I also worry about what will happen during the bursting part.
argh....naming it does matter. Grift. Not sure the majority of the public know this word.
I agree! Unfortunately it shares too many letters with the word “gift”……
Some know it and choose to ignore it, or feel helpless regarding what they can do about it.
❓🤨
I completely agree with you, but I wonder if Russell Vought, and the other seemingly more intelligent Project 2025 people, are seeing the end game. Is it more in their self interest to let Trump and his minions grift themselves into extinction so that they can take over and create something more sinister?
Very intelligent people can come up with very many ways to rationalize their policy aims and strategies, and to conveniently avoid any personal responsibility for the damage done.
Thank you, Dr. Snyder. Such a spot on discussion of mega stupidity, a/k/a, grifting, that it increased the intensity of my headache (haha), then my patriot resolve! As a naive Ohio kid, with nine generations here, including early European “pioneers”…another story there…I got a college education and law degree. Many of us did, thanks to the hard work of my WW II veteran father, and that of my RN mother, as they had paved the way for working class folk to rise. That New Deal thing was trusted by my family, and FDR, then JFK were revered. There were good Ohio governors along the way (Dick Celeste), and some not!
Well here we are. My family was always proud of their heritage, the Am Rev, Civil War victory, and then fighting for union rights and those of others. And yet, here the h-ll we are.
Sorry that I missed you in Cbus. You are right. This grifting bubble won’t last. We who are Patriots have to help Patriots like Dr. Amy Acton to succeed and be the tough, fair, and compassionate governor we need in Ohio.
Then, we can and must pick up the pieces of our beloved state and country, and save America from this human pandemic of virulent grifters in the WH.
Thank you Professor Snyder!
Thank you! Cynicism being tied to naiveté is a great insight, just as wealth often is. That could be a whole other article about the "wealth bubble".