I am a retired union pilot who used to represent pilots first under the Veteran Reemployment Rights Act (VRR) and then USERRA: Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act. I am NOT an attorney but worked with labor side lawyers. I am also retired from the Air National Guard.
There is an economic downside to Trump activating 4,000 CA National Guard troops. I would estimate that 90% of those activated gave their employers short notice that they were not coming into work. Many are taking pay cuts, some significant, while being separated from their families.
USERRA was passed by Congress in 1994 to replace and strengthen VRR. Employers quickly figure out that having an employee who is in the Guard is expensive. USERRA case law demonstrates this tension. These activations will generate USERRA cases.
When you are in a Guard unit, you are mentally prepared for national emergencies like 9/11. Frivolous activations will hurt retention and impact our national security going forward. The SF Chronicle pictures of soldiers sleeping on the floor of a loading dock in LA are a perfect example of what causes retention issues.
If Trump activates Guard units across our country the economic impact will be significant and our future readiness will suffer.
I had also been thinking that the morale would suffer, and have read that it is. Given that they are not getting paid, do not have proper food, water, toilets or beds, in fact are being treated much like the immigrants who are getting locked up are treated, and in CA many of them may have family in LA who is targeted.
When I read Project 2025 in a book club our group skipped around and did not read in straight order. When I read about the DOD and the Intelligence Community I knew that what they envisioned would really wear down morale. Trump was able to come up with a bunch of soldiers who were excited to hear him or at least perform for him, but I wonder about those who are not and did not.
I also wonder about the "silent" leadership. If they speak out they are fired, and if they want to have any influence at all on what they have put their life's work into, they might just suck it up until the time comes. Of course, their silence is not helpful to us, who would like to know whether they will follow a Buffoon or the Constitution.
Nice, Linda, that you note the other soldiers who may demur.
I, too, demur from Timothy Snyder in one particular. He says, in his conclusion, that "a people only exists in individuals' awareness of one another of itself and of their need to act together."
No. I'd stress much more "individuals' awareness of one another of themselves." Not "itself."
Testing from the 1980s onward was able to gobble up American schools precisely because during the 1970s the far-right foundations of the Powell memo crippled, voided, aborted, rid humanities from the schools. This meant America thence having media with "persons" all without reference to our novels, memoirs, histories, travelogues, biographies, and essay collections. It meant elites all similarly neutered.
Don Siegel's 1956 "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" explained the fear and loathing of the personal. Following the 1970s' campaigns to neuter all, to reverse the apparent chaos of the 1960s, schooled settled to the docility of testing's conceits. So today we still inhabit that legacy, our elites having offshored the jobs, steroided the corporate corrupt, silo-set and bank-indebted the college "educated," and opioided and AR-15-armed the damaged.
Yes to unity on No Kings day. No to an American people illiterate to our diversity.
Phil, I just had a book club discussing Invisible Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism. He talks about economic populism. While his focus is not so much on schools, it is on the historical actions that led us to today, and he is saying some different things than Snyder in his book On Freedom, although both talk about freedom. It is also promoting a Marxist perspective and I am not a Marxist. Still, I
I don't think Snyder is saying yes to an American people illiterate to our diversity. However, he can speak to that himself.
Historian Jefferson Cowie says that 2/3 of Americans do not have a college degree. He spoke about these people as being primed for a populist. I wrote about his talk since my book club was reading his book, Freedom's Dominion.
That led us to having more questions about how he was viewing populism and we invited him to talk to our larger group Democrats Abroad. He graciously accepted and clarified for me what he was seeing as populism, or the aspects of it that which he felt were needed for someone to appeal to working class Americans. I appreciate the books I am reading and discussing for deepening my understanding of the American people and people in general.
I am a Deweyan teacher, and believe that experiences teach us. Americans are getting first hand experience on who Donald Trump is. Let us see if these are the right experiences for them to learn the lessons they need to to participate in our democracy.
But don't think Trump cares about troop morale (or effectiveness, efficiency, etc) at all. His goal is to break every institution of it's independence. So, he is perfectly happy to drive out those who get demoralized by his random acts of violence on citizens and immigrants. All the easier to hire loyalist - of which there will be many. Those who choose power and influence over ethics. Or, just those happy to hit someone over the head.
Apparently, the administration was so focused on getting the troops to L.A. that they forgot about housing and food. I don't think anyone will come away wanting to listen to this "Commander in Chief".
I have not been able to listen to the whole of the rant at Fort Liberty (I expect it will be renamed when the current occupant leaves the Oval Office) - it was too stomach-churning to watch after only a few seconds. And to hear Army troops cheering for his bilge made it all the worse. My colleagues have asked "what are we to do if the military does not stop him and do the right thing by refusing his unlawful orders". We'll see the result soon. The soldiers at that rally are an embarrassment to their unit, as are the Marines who did not have the courage to refuse his order to deploy against civilians in Los Angeles. Shame on them all.
I'm wondering (aloud) if those handpicked, chucklehead soldiers knew that they were being used by a philandering, tax-cheat, conniving, anti-democracy, serial liar, to be a solely owned extension of his ego, and not for any other reason. If Trump were a soldier, he would have been on the losing side of a court-martial decades ago. He would have been dishonorably discharged.
And yet there they are, chuckling at his blockhead jokes and his "mock democracy" right along with him. Tom Nichols and a lot of us are wondering where the generals are.
They knew they were being used and loved it. What is more disturbing is the fact that their commanders did not instruct them to maintain military decorum. Did their commanders encourage them to cheer before they returned to their barracks where Fox News is on 24/7?
All the top ones have been removed, so the only ones left are those congenial to the criminal in the White House, and to the flagrantly drunk, ax-heaving, Fox networking, philandering Hegseth.
I don’t think he would have been discharged. He would have been sentenced by the military and sentenced for years under military law. Confined to a cell at any one of the military prisons. It can, and does happen.
Trump is abusing the US military. The soldiers behind him at Ft. Liberty reportedly were handpicked for optics. I choose to believe that many not on camera felt uneasy with the rhetoric and spectacle. Surely, all of Trump's Congress have been summoned and expected to attend his vainglorious and imperialistic military-birthday parade. The June 14 spectacle will be witnessed and circulated and remembered in photos and videos, to the everlasting shame of the Trump regime, captured for posterity, a reminder to citizens of this shameful betrayal of those who believe in the Constitution and democratic rule. The "Make America Great Again" echo of the German American Bund's efforts to install an American Nazi Party 85 years ago must be faced and addressed head on, along with the need to face and address our continuing national disgrace of slavery, poverty, and inequality. I am ready for Saturday's rally and march in a small Michigan town. We will be joining hundreds of thousands in dissent in all 50 states and around the world. My sign says this: "Dissent without Action Is Consent"
Trump never would have advanced this far without the silence of GOP politicians in Congress who lack a shred of a moral compass. But the most important co-conspirators - the Trump voters - have no use for honesty, integrity, civility, decency, kindness (which Trump considers a weakness) and respect for others. Unfortunately, as long as this depravity in a section of the population continues to thrive, dictators like Trump will continue to rule because he will destroy another of this country's sacred traditions - free and fair elections.
I cannot find words adequate to express my reverence and appreciation for Dr Snyder's sagacity. This piece -- like many of his recent ones -- mixes a cri du coeur with a precise historical analysis, and we ignore either at our peril.
I am a photojournalist and have been in Los Angeles all week, where I am now, and I will continue to cover this ghastly threat to democracy, including June 14 -- a day that may just mark the final nail in the coffin of liberal pluralistic democracy. (I say 'final nail' because I think the destruction already wrought by Trump and his enablers, active and passive, is too great for the American experiment to survive.)
As photojournalists we try to record what we see in accurate and yet gripping detail. We show 'what is happening' but also 'what is being done in our name.' Now, though... some of us have the sense that we are trying merely to ensure an accurate historical record. The erasure of january 6 to become a 'day of love' cannot succeed--there were too many photojournalists there that day. I have the uncomfortable and distressing sense now that we are photographing for history, not for the present.
Every word of Dr Snyder's piece is accurate, and they all reflect the planned realities on the ground. Trump has somehow spread around his private realities to the point that he is able to say 'water flows up hill' and some people will gravely nod their heads. We cannot obey in advance.
Thank you for recording real events for us now and for those who follow. I hold out hope that the United States will endure but am concerned, worried, about what lesson(s) will be taken in and understood from this destructive, divisive, shameful chapter. Please take care and be safe.
John, Your opening paragraph expressing reverence and appreciation for Professor Snyder’s sagacity felt so familiar I wanted to respond by saying after every essay, book, Interview or Substack post I’ve read of his, I can only express my thanks by saying “ bless this man.”
I find it interesting that this administration has no hesitancy in throwing antisemitic accusations out at universities and students, yet willfully rename those ships named after Harvey Milk, Ruth Bader Ginzburg and Harriet Tubman, thereby demonstrating their prejudices. At the same time they are bent upon restoring the names of Confederate generals to military bases.
I've been thinking similarly and conclude that Trump throws around terms like "antisemitic" for political which is to say strategic/financial/commercial reasons. I see him as porous when it comes to his affinities and associations. He seems to enjoy the gaming of others, to prove to himself that he is a superior being. It's interesting in that this is a bind of sorts, because the only way he can see himself is by reflection, in the abjective behavior of others -- their humiliation, compliance, appeasement, placation, adoration, fear and anxiety. In essence, he is an empty container.
Agreed. "Antisemitism" is a charged word that the Zionists have been using for some time to suppress dissent against their persecution of the Palestinians, and the MAGA crowd has adopted the word and use it more broadly. In any country except the US it would be considered ludicrous for people with swastika tattoos or waving Confederate flats to accuse **anyone** of being antisemitic. But here we are.
Thank you, Prof Snyder, for contributing this helpful assessment of Trump's choices and actions.
As you note, "...The question is whether civil war is the future Army officers and soldiers want." Do they want to be confronting, be coercing or violently repressing, their American friends, neighbors, co-workers, and other Americans? Do they want to support the President in his efforts to abuse law and to abuse Americans' constitutional rights and responsibilities?
The same questions are questions to ask ourselves, too. Will we stand publicly in opposition to Trump's abuses of authority and law, and will we do so effectively politically to bring most Americans together to elect government representatives and officials capable of honesty and honest respect?
This weekend and in the days ahead, we need to avoid civil disorder and create civil order through our public protests for the Constitution and our civil society, just as we also very publicly support constitutional efforts to bar the President's abuses of authority. This is the manner in which self-governance is expressed in accord with our Constitution and which actually yields the benefit of constitutional governance to us all.
This is the way we Americans become more clear and most effective in governing ourselves. We must see ourselves, when in military uniform and service or out of it or as civilians, as understanding ourselves as ongoing authors, on going willful agents of rule of law democratic governance and of human justice.
As always, thank you for your informed and, in this case, shocking assessment of America at this moment. If I had the option to exit my country, I would. I do not have that option. The shattering of laws, institutions, and lives will take decades to repair — if they are, in fact, reparable. Killing Fullbright awards was like killing hope, like killing PBS and Big Bird and joy. I welcome harsh rebuke. I welcome honest responses. I’d welcome what now seems like a miracle: the end of this hate-based insanity.
We create our hellscape and we create our promised land. We. All of us. I wonder about those so inspired to vote for this moron’s morass. Why don’t we forge a new fate. No one but us can do that. https://hotbuttons.substack.com/p/forging-fate?r=3m1bs
"...to transform the army into a cult of the Confederacy and a tool to persecute migrants..."
Faux News is 'what's on' at army bases. Not inadvertent. The rank and file is being groomed to provide the only correct answer when asked 'you gonna follow our beloved President, who wants to restore our country, or a well intentioned but vague, hard-to- interpret document like the Constitution?'
A different civil war also resonates with the trajectory of the trump regime: the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939.
In Spain, forces loyal to the Second Spanish Republic fought to defend it against a fascist coalition of Nationalists, backed by a military junta led by General Francisco Franco. The Nationalists won the war, and ruled Spain until Franco's death in November 1975.
Two lessons:
* The republic does not always win.
* When Republican government fails, dictatorship can last a long time
I have looked at a number of images of this disgraceful choreographed performance from a variety of angles. In total I saw 3 Black faces among the crowd. The Army is 17% African American men (no need to account for women, I saw none).
I read Trump's Fort Bragg speech (listening to it may cause an ER visit). It is a MANDATORY read. He is wooing the Army "I will be calling you early" to get ready "wherever the danger is, there the Army will be." And he names the danger: LA, California, Biden, liberals, etc. US. This is a "mandate from the people ... to restore financial institutions and our country itself." No surprises he goes on and on about "raises" to the Army too. He's already "made the call," how are we going to answer?
I am a retired union pilot who used to represent pilots first under the Veteran Reemployment Rights Act (VRR) and then USERRA: Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act. I am NOT an attorney but worked with labor side lawyers. I am also retired from the Air National Guard.
There is an economic downside to Trump activating 4,000 CA National Guard troops. I would estimate that 90% of those activated gave their employers short notice that they were not coming into work. Many are taking pay cuts, some significant, while being separated from their families.
USERRA was passed by Congress in 1994 to replace and strengthen VRR. Employers quickly figure out that having an employee who is in the Guard is expensive. USERRA case law demonstrates this tension. These activations will generate USERRA cases.
When you are in a Guard unit, you are mentally prepared for national emergencies like 9/11. Frivolous activations will hurt retention and impact our national security going forward. The SF Chronicle pictures of soldiers sleeping on the floor of a loading dock in LA are a perfect example of what causes retention issues.
If Trump activates Guard units across our country the economic impact will be significant and our future readiness will suffer.
U.S. Department of Labor (.gov)https://www.dol.govUniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act
Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve > Home
https://www.esgr.mil/
Law Center - ROA
https://www.roa.org/page/LawCenter
I believe many Guard units' full-time, non-active duty (green card), technicians are represented by unions! https://www.fedsmith.com/2013/07/01/the-uniquely-unionized-national-guard/
Abbott's Guard units are around 29.3% minorities and 32.5% of the whites identify as Hispanic or Latino! Looks like these TX state activated Guardsmen can unionize! https://www.ngaus.org/newsroom/doj-guardsmen-state-active-duty-may-unionize
CA Guard units are around 34.4% minorities and 36.4% of the whites identify as Hispanic or Latino!
https://demographics.militaryonesource.mil/chapter-3-race-ethnicity
Excellent info. This needs to be pointed out to anyone who thinks calling up troops has little or no material and human consequences.
Very interesting points that I had not consisered. Thank you for your analysis.
Thank you so much for this information. With so much going on, we need to remember the impact on the soldiers.
Your experience and insights offer a perspective I haven't considered. Thank you.
I had also been thinking that the morale would suffer, and have read that it is. Given that they are not getting paid, do not have proper food, water, toilets or beds, in fact are being treated much like the immigrants who are getting locked up are treated, and in CA many of them may have family in LA who is targeted.
When I read Project 2025 in a book club our group skipped around and did not read in straight order. When I read about the DOD and the Intelligence Community I knew that what they envisioned would really wear down morale. Trump was able to come up with a bunch of soldiers who were excited to hear him or at least perform for him, but I wonder about those who are not and did not.
I also wonder about the "silent" leadership. If they speak out they are fired, and if they want to have any influence at all on what they have put their life's work into, they might just suck it up until the time comes. Of course, their silence is not helpful to us, who would like to know whether they will follow a Buffoon or the Constitution.
Nice, Linda, that you note the other soldiers who may demur.
I, too, demur from Timothy Snyder in one particular. He says, in his conclusion, that "a people only exists in individuals' awareness of one another of itself and of their need to act together."
No. I'd stress much more "individuals' awareness of one another of themselves." Not "itself."
Testing from the 1980s onward was able to gobble up American schools precisely because during the 1970s the far-right foundations of the Powell memo crippled, voided, aborted, rid humanities from the schools. This meant America thence having media with "persons" all without reference to our novels, memoirs, histories, travelogues, biographies, and essay collections. It meant elites all similarly neutered.
Don Siegel's 1956 "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" explained the fear and loathing of the personal. Following the 1970s' campaigns to neuter all, to reverse the apparent chaos of the 1960s, schooled settled to the docility of testing's conceits. So today we still inhabit that legacy, our elites having offshored the jobs, steroided the corporate corrupt, silo-set and bank-indebted the college "educated," and opioided and AR-15-armed the damaged.
Yes to unity on No Kings day. No to an American people illiterate to our diversity.
Phil, I just had a book club discussing Invisible Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism. He talks about economic populism. While his focus is not so much on schools, it is on the historical actions that led us to today, and he is saying some different things than Snyder in his book On Freedom, although both talk about freedom. It is also promoting a Marxist perspective and I am not a Marxist. Still, I
I don't think Snyder is saying yes to an American people illiterate to our diversity. However, he can speak to that himself.
Historian Jefferson Cowie says that 2/3 of Americans do not have a college degree. He spoke about these people as being primed for a populist. I wrote about his talk since my book club was reading his book, Freedom's Dominion.
https://lindaweide.substack.com/p/is-populism-the-way-to-go?r=f0qfn
That led us to having more questions about how he was viewing populism and we invited him to talk to our larger group Democrats Abroad. He graciously accepted and clarified for me what he was seeing as populism, or the aspects of it that which he felt were needed for someone to appeal to working class Americans. I appreciate the books I am reading and discussing for deepening my understanding of the American people and people in general.
I am a Deweyan teacher, and believe that experiences teach us. Americans are getting first hand experience on who Donald Trump is. Let us see if these are the right experiences for them to learn the lessons they need to to participate in our democracy.
Excellent info.
But don't think Trump cares about troop morale (or effectiveness, efficiency, etc) at all. His goal is to break every institution of it's independence. So, he is perfectly happy to drive out those who get demoralized by his random acts of violence on citizens and immigrants. All the easier to hire loyalist - of which there will be many. Those who choose power and influence over ethics. Or, just those happy to hit someone over the head.
…and separate families—his favorite thing.
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/vets/programs/userra this link seems to work. USERRA - Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act
Thx! Link broke when I pasted on my phone:-( others look good
Excellent information. Thank you.
Apparently, the administration was so focused on getting the troops to L.A. that they forgot about housing and food. I don't think anyone will come away wanting to listen to this "Commander in Chief".
I have not been able to listen to the whole of the rant at Fort Liberty (I expect it will be renamed when the current occupant leaves the Oval Office) - it was too stomach-churning to watch after only a few seconds. And to hear Army troops cheering for his bilge made it all the worse. My colleagues have asked "what are we to do if the military does not stop him and do the right thing by refusing his unlawful orders". We'll see the result soon. The soldiers at that rally are an embarrassment to their unit, as are the Marines who did not have the courage to refuse his order to deploy against civilians in Los Angeles. Shame on them all.
I'm wondering (aloud) if those handpicked, chucklehead soldiers knew that they were being used by a philandering, tax-cheat, conniving, anti-democracy, serial liar, to be a solely owned extension of his ego, and not for any other reason. If Trump were a soldier, he would have been on the losing side of a court-martial decades ago. He would have been dishonorably discharged.
And yet there they are, chuckling at his blockhead jokes and his "mock democracy" right along with him. Tom Nichols and a lot of us are wondering where the generals are.
They knew they were being used and loved it. What is more disturbing is the fact that their commanders did not instruct them to maintain military decorum. Did their commanders encourage them to cheer before they returned to their barracks where Fox News is on 24/7?
Where are the generals?
Nice Q, "flagrante delicto."
All the top ones have been removed, so the only ones left are those congenial to the criminal in the White House, and to the flagrantly drunk, ax-heaving, Fox networking, philandering Hegseth.
I don’t think he would have been discharged. He would have been sentenced by the military and sentenced for years under military law. Confined to a cell at any one of the military prisons. It can, and does happen.
Trump is abusing the US military. The soldiers behind him at Ft. Liberty reportedly were handpicked for optics. I choose to believe that many not on camera felt uneasy with the rhetoric and spectacle. Surely, all of Trump's Congress have been summoned and expected to attend his vainglorious and imperialistic military-birthday parade. The June 14 spectacle will be witnessed and circulated and remembered in photos and videos, to the everlasting shame of the Trump regime, captured for posterity, a reminder to citizens of this shameful betrayal of those who believe in the Constitution and democratic rule. The "Make America Great Again" echo of the German American Bund's efforts to install an American Nazi Party 85 years ago must be faced and addressed head on, along with the need to face and address our continuing national disgrace of slavery, poverty, and inequality. I am ready for Saturday's rally and march in a small Michigan town. We will be joining hundreds of thousands in dissent in all 50 states and around the world. My sign says this: "Dissent without Action Is Consent"
God speed to us. Like Ukraine, we've been at war for several years. But this is a critical moment. We are the guardrails.
Yes we are. We show it on Jun 14th at the (PEACEFUL) No Kings demonstrations.
Trump never would have advanced this far without the silence of GOP politicians in Congress who lack a shred of a moral compass. But the most important co-conspirators - the Trump voters - have no use for honesty, integrity, civility, decency, kindness (which Trump considers a weakness) and respect for others. Unfortunately, as long as this depravity in a section of the population continues to thrive, dictators like Trump will continue to rule because he will destroy another of this country's sacred traditions - free and fair elections.
I cannot find words adequate to express my reverence and appreciation for Dr Snyder's sagacity. This piece -- like many of his recent ones -- mixes a cri du coeur with a precise historical analysis, and we ignore either at our peril.
I am a photojournalist and have been in Los Angeles all week, where I am now, and I will continue to cover this ghastly threat to democracy, including June 14 -- a day that may just mark the final nail in the coffin of liberal pluralistic democracy. (I say 'final nail' because I think the destruction already wrought by Trump and his enablers, active and passive, is too great for the American experiment to survive.)
As photojournalists we try to record what we see in accurate and yet gripping detail. We show 'what is happening' but also 'what is being done in our name.' Now, though... some of us have the sense that we are trying merely to ensure an accurate historical record. The erasure of january 6 to become a 'day of love' cannot succeed--there were too many photojournalists there that day. I have the uncomfortable and distressing sense now that we are photographing for history, not for the present.
Every word of Dr Snyder's piece is accurate, and they all reflect the planned realities on the ground. Trump has somehow spread around his private realities to the point that he is able to say 'water flows up hill' and some people will gravely nod their heads. We cannot obey in advance.
Thank you for recording real events for us now and for those who follow. I hold out hope that the United States will endure but am concerned, worried, about what lesson(s) will be taken in and understood from this destructive, divisive, shameful chapter. Please take care and be safe.
John, Your opening paragraph expressing reverence and appreciation for Professor Snyder’s sagacity felt so familiar I wanted to respond by saying after every essay, book, Interview or Substack post I’ve read of his, I can only express my thanks by saying “ bless this man.”
PS John. Bless you also, for your commitment to recording the current historical events.
I find it interesting that this administration has no hesitancy in throwing antisemitic accusations out at universities and students, yet willfully rename those ships named after Harvey Milk, Ruth Bader Ginzburg and Harriet Tubman, thereby demonstrating their prejudices. At the same time they are bent upon restoring the names of Confederate generals to military bases.
I've been thinking similarly and conclude that Trump throws around terms like "antisemitic" for political which is to say strategic/financial/commercial reasons. I see him as porous when it comes to his affinities and associations. He seems to enjoy the gaming of others, to prove to himself that he is a superior being. It's interesting in that this is a bind of sorts, because the only way he can see himself is by reflection, in the abjective behavior of others -- their humiliation, compliance, appeasement, placation, adoration, fear and anxiety. In essence, he is an empty container.
Agreed. "Antisemitism" is a charged word that the Zionists have been using for some time to suppress dissent against their persecution of the Palestinians, and the MAGA crowd has adopted the word and use it more broadly. In any country except the US it would be considered ludicrous for people with swastika tattoos or waving Confederate flats to accuse **anyone** of being antisemitic. But here we are.
There's a gulf of difference between criticism of the Israeli government and antisemitism.
Thank you, Prof Snyder, for contributing this helpful assessment of Trump's choices and actions.
As you note, "...The question is whether civil war is the future Army officers and soldiers want." Do they want to be confronting, be coercing or violently repressing, their American friends, neighbors, co-workers, and other Americans? Do they want to support the President in his efforts to abuse law and to abuse Americans' constitutional rights and responsibilities?
The same questions are questions to ask ourselves, too. Will we stand publicly in opposition to Trump's abuses of authority and law, and will we do so effectively politically to bring most Americans together to elect government representatives and officials capable of honesty and honest respect?
This weekend and in the days ahead, we need to avoid civil disorder and create civil order through our public protests for the Constitution and our civil society, just as we also very publicly support constitutional efforts to bar the President's abuses of authority. This is the manner in which self-governance is expressed in accord with our Constitution and which actually yields the benefit of constitutional governance to us all.
This is the way we Americans become more clear and most effective in governing ourselves. We must see ourselves, when in military uniform and service or out of it or as civilians, as understanding ourselves as ongoing authors, on going willful agents of rule of law democratic governance and of human justice.
As always, thank you for your informed and, in this case, shocking assessment of America at this moment. If I had the option to exit my country, I would. I do not have that option. The shattering of laws, institutions, and lives will take decades to repair — if they are, in fact, reparable. Killing Fullbright awards was like killing hope, like killing PBS and Big Bird and joy. I welcome harsh rebuke. I welcome honest responses. I’d welcome what now seems like a miracle: the end of this hate-based insanity.
Citizens United--the injected cancer that's killing American democracy.
We create our hellscape and we create our promised land. We. All of us. I wonder about those so inspired to vote for this moron’s morass. Why don’t we forge a new fate. No one but us can do that. https://hotbuttons.substack.com/p/forging-fate?r=3m1bs
"...to transform the army into a cult of the Confederacy and a tool to persecute migrants..."
Faux News is 'what's on' at army bases. Not inadvertent. The rank and file is being groomed to provide the only correct answer when asked 'you gonna follow our beloved President, who wants to restore our country, or a well intentioned but vague, hard-to- interpret document like the Constitution?'
A different civil war also resonates with the trajectory of the trump regime: the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939.
In Spain, forces loyal to the Second Spanish Republic fought to defend it against a fascist coalition of Nationalists, backed by a military junta led by General Francisco Franco. The Nationalists won the war, and ruled Spain until Franco's death in November 1975.
Two lessons:
* The republic does not always win.
* When Republican government fails, dictatorship can last a long time
Correction:
Small "r" republican government can fail
I have looked at a number of images of this disgraceful choreographed performance from a variety of angles. In total I saw 3 Black faces among the crowd. The Army is 17% African American men (no need to account for women, I saw none).
I read Trump's Fort Bragg speech (listening to it may cause an ER visit). It is a MANDATORY read. He is wooing the Army "I will be calling you early" to get ready "wherever the danger is, there the Army will be." And he names the danger: LA, California, Biden, liberals, etc. US. This is a "mandate from the people ... to restore financial institutions and our country itself." No surprises he goes on and on about "raises" to the Army too. He's already "made the call," how are we going to answer?
I read the speech. Good God. I'm grateful for the historian's perspective from Prof Snyder, but would like to see a psychoanalyst's view.
I’ll be at the Albuquerque June 14th “No Kings” rally.