Fever In The Heartland

 The other day, I finished Timothy Egan's book A Fever in the Heartland about the rise and fall of the Indiana Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s. Interestingly, I can remember a student paper from many years ago that tackled this same subject. In the '20s, the Klan was reinvented from a specifically Southern terror group aimed at unraveling Reconstruction to a national group simmering in the resentments of small town Protestant outrage over a changing America. They lashed out beyond their traditional hatred of Black political and economic autonomy, but also immigrants, cities, modernity and religions they felt were un-American.

Sound familiar?

Coming out of World War I and the Influenza pandemic of 1920 and centered in the struggling farm economy of the '20s, the resentment towards the new urban power was broadly held - especially in states without a center of gravity in the new industrial urban landscape. Places like Indiana, but also Colorado and Oregon, were natural centers of the new Invisible Empire.

Egan's book centers on D.C. Stephenson, a charismatic con artist and drifter, estranged from his family and harboring a deep need for sexual dominance. As he built up a massive empire, he took his cut from membership dues and bilked the rubes for their dollars. He was also a serial rapist.

Again, sound familar?

In the end, Stephenson - despite controlling the Klan that controlled Indiana - was put on trial for the rape and murder of a young woman. Even as the jury deliberated on his guilt the Klan slate of candidates won victories in the November election. However, shortly after the election, Stephenson was found guilty of second degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. He expected a pardon from his creature in the governor's mansion, and when it didn't come, he exposed all the corruption that he had participated in with the elected officials who abandoned him. This caused a collapse in the Klan in the North. It would briefly resurrect itself again in opposition to the Civil Rights Movement, but it would never again reach the heights it had in the 1920s.

Reading the book, it was impossible not to see the parallels to our own age. For instance, the widespread prevalence of sexual predators in the MAGA-sphere precisely mirrors the sexual violence in the Klan, which extended beyond Stephenson. The nurturing of resentments to create a climate of hatred is the classic "Populist" playbook, and it was not unique to the '20s Klan, but I think the more interesting question is not "Is the Klan's spiritual successor MAGA?" because it clearly is. The question is: If we finally get a full airing of Trump's sexual crimes - especially as it relates to Epstein - will that be enough to break the grip of this particular fever?

And So It Ends...

Today the Men's World Cup ends. 

I has sad.

This has been the pinnacle of sport. Unlike the ADHD schedule of the Olympics, where you bounce from sport to sport, here you have multiple games of the same sport, played at the highest level. What's more, this Cup has been joyous. It has been dramatic (and controversial). It has featured the greatest player to ever play the game doing things at 39 that defy age and belief. It has seen tiny Cape Verde push the two finalists to the brink. It has seen fans scream and laugh and cry. Yesterday's 3rd place match - typically a desultory, listless affair between teams upset they aren't in the Final - was the most insane, entertaining game you could hope for. 

At a time when we feel more divided and angry at each other than ever, due to the unique attributes of Trump and the schisms that the social media algorithms exploit, this World Cup has been a beacon of joy and wonder. 

I am sad it's ending. I am grateful I was able to watch so much of it. 

Fascism

 During Trump's first term, I tried very hard to avoid using the term "fascist" to describe his presidency. I felt that he was a patrimonial authoritarian, and to a certain degree, I still hold that belief. Trump believes that the state should exist as an extension of his will and as a means to his personal enrichment. The state should reflect glory and power onto him. I also felt that many of the creatures around him are, in fact, fascist.

At this point - as Richardson so capably catalogs - any plausible argument that Trump is not a fascist has evaporated. The change might be because he's been marinating the increasingly crazed world of people like Stephen Miller and the echo chamber of Fox News. Trump has always denigrated his enemies, but now he's dehumanizing them, and that is the first step on a very, very dark journey. 

His unhinged speech last night and the eager willingness of Markwayne Mullin to threaten to illegal imprison state election officials gives us a pretty clear picture of where things are headed. Republicans must be getting slaughtered in their internal polling, because they aren't even making a case to win elections fair and square. I think they hoped that their gerrymandering would prevent a Blue Wave, but that plan seems to be unravelling on them.

I honestly don't know how successful they can be in finally destroying American democratic governance, but I do know that if Democrats don't win control of at least one, but preferably both chambers of Congress, we are mightily fucked. 

Living Within A Narcissistic Wound

 I didn't watch Obama's speeches; I sure as hell wasn't going to watch President Sundown scream and slur his way through a tired list of grievances. It is of course dangerous that in order to be nominated for any position, including Director of National Intelligence, you have to be willing to coddle the fragile ego of the world's oldest man-baby.

We have to consider the following:

- Trump was a spoiled little shit, who likely struggled with undiagnosed learning disabilities. We know he really doesn't read anything, and he was shipped off to New York Military Academy, which was effectively a reform school.
- Trump spent a LOT of time trying and failing to live up to his more intelligent brother in the eyes of his distant and harsh parents.
- Trump subsequently spent decades in real estate and marketing. He went bankrupt numerous times. He became tabloid fodder and the particular target of Spy magazine back when it was a thing.
- Trump was able to resuscitate his exhausted status via reality TV. This created a false image of the sort of business acumen that he never really possessed.
- Trump then rode misogyny into a fluke 2016 electoral win that endeared him to millions and created a cult of personality around him. 
- Trump - who has struggled his whole life with the gap between his image of himself and his actual accomplishments - now has a coterie of minions and a legion of cultish fans. His omnivorous id is now consuming every scrap of praise and gnawing on every criticism and slight. 

Anyway, we are screwed as long as the Worst Person in American History is effectively in charge of all three branches of the US government.

Working

 After a great deal of deliberation, I rented a tractor-backhoe to do some heavy landscaping on the property we are building our retirement home. Felt I could save some money. (The tractor did what tractors do: it broke down halfway through the first of the two days I rented it.)

What was striking was that I planned the rental around a brief heat wave in order not to die. Instead, I had to worry about whether I could breathe the air, as Canada is once again on fire and the sky is choked with smoke.

The good news is that I'm sure I can bet on whether the World Cup final in New Jersey will be played under air quality that is basically the same as being inside a chimney. 

Pillaging

 This summer, I am writing a student reader - an abbreviated textbook replacement - to compensate for a new schedule with fewer class meetings and therefore fewer homework readings. Who cares about learning, when you can follow the trendy herd in school scheduling?

Anyway, I'm condensing six textbook readings on the Gilded Age into three readings (see "who cares about learning" above). As I do so, I find myself including things like posse comitatus or the Wong Kim Ark case that likely wouldn't be in an accelerated text, because they have such relevance today with Trump's plan.

This morning, I was reminded by a better historian than I that one of the primary assaults on the Post-Progressive State that Trump and Project 2025 have launched is on the idea of preserving public lands. The National Park system is something that my wife and I have inordinate fondness for. I doubt we will get to every single park - American Samoa and the Alaska parks around the Arctic Circle are a wee bit remote - but we are going to give it our best effort. In a few weeks, we are headed to Colorado to finally see Black Canyon of the Gunnison. Yeah, sure, sure, we are going to see our kids, but also Black Canyon of the Gunnison. 

Trump's decision to allow mineral exploitation of public lands and his efforts to shrink protected lands is something that isn't a headline in the avalanche of Trump's malfeasance and corrupt governance, though I would wager that bribes changed hands to make this happen. Some of this is corruption; some of this is kowtowing to businesses over the public weal; some of this is ideological hostility to a government that actually does things that people like; some of this is just "pwn the libtards."

What it is, is not good or popular. 

In the midst of our first Gilded Age, there were still enough public spirited people to create the National Park ideal. There were still enough farsighted people to see that preserving nature was both morally and economically proper. Republicans want to return us to the cavalcade of corruption and self-dealing of the first Gilded Age, but that age ended, and Dog willing this one will, too. 

Institutional Serial Killer

 According to Richardson's research, ICE is responsible for killing 10 people on the streets of America. In ICE run detention centers - outside of the public eye - another 21 people have died this year.

The tactical decision to throw the outright Nazi, Greg Bovino, out the door has reduced the rhetorical temperature and some of the more egregious public displays of force in American cities. This has not meant a change in culture within Trump's Brown Shirts. They can't help but feel that they are immune to public accountability, as the killers of Renee Good and Alex Pretti are still shielded from the consequences of their actions.

The killing yesterday of Juan Sebastian Guerrero in Maine is a sadly typical extrajudicial killing for ICE. They targeted the wrong person based on appearance - a Kavanaugh Stop - and then got trigger happy. Guerrero was shot in the head in front of his 3 year old daughter. Guerrero is legally able to work in the US, but for the Nazis like Stephen Miller, it is not his legal status but his skin color that makes him a target. His crime was not crossing a line on a map without paperwork, but being brown skinned.

It is worth noting that this happened in Maine. Susan Collins will not have the luxury of facing a rapist with a Nazi tattoo. Maine Democrats will select a replacement soon, but Collins will have to go before the voters of Maine and explain her support for an organization that has killed 31 people in about six months. 

According to the Gestapo's own statistics, there have been 9 killings (including manslaughter) by undocumented aliens so far this year. From 2023-25, the number ranged from 23 to 29. That means ICE is responsible for more deaths than the so-called "dangerous aliens" that they have purportedly mobilized against. At this pace, they will extinguish the lives of about 60 human beings, which is an par with the worst surge of violence committed by undocumented people during the crisis of 2021-2.

ICE is often compared to a criminal gang, but I also think they are like an institutional serial killer. They operate across geographic distance to dilute their crimes, they prey on a certain ethnic group, they escape accountability for far too long.

We are governed by psychopaths. 

The Cost Of Incompetence

 I've argued repeatedly that an underrated peril of Trump and the general Republican Party being able to control government is the long slow (and now accelerating) erosion of governing competence. Martin Longman makes the case that Lindsay Graham - despite his myriad flaws and failings - was one of the final pillars of the GOP that had at least some vague desire to keep the lights on.

Now cometh the pestilence. Typical GOP stupidity looks at basic health and food safety measures as communism or something, so we gut the agencies responsible for preventing screwworm or hamstring the ability of the relevant agencies to track foodborne illness. Trump has always governed like a Facebook rant from your crazy uncle but now he's doing shit like opening up drilling and mining in endangered habitats, which is just venomous, but also likely really stupid.  Same goes with the various cuts to public health measures: Who exactly is asking for this shit?

You can be "pro-business" and still assume that government regulation is possible and necessary. One of the ideas about regulation that the Progressive Movement argued for was that it would create a level playing field where everyone would follow the same rules. Now there are no rules and no reason not for some businesses to engage in a mass rush to the bottom.

So, if you're keeping track, under Trump we have had three of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. We have had the Pale Horse of death under Covid; the Red Horse of war in Iran, Venezuela and elsewhere, and now the Black Horse of famine is saddling up. 

The White Horse, is the Anti-Christ, a charismatic figure who will corrupt the world, so maybe we've had all Four. 

Lindsey Graham

 I suppose the admonition not to speak ill of the dead deserves following. However, I do think that Graham's death will and should be focused on how a man who was a devoted acolyte of John McCain and who knew instinctively what a piece of shit Donald Trump is could become so incredibly compromised in his support of a man who seemed to stand in opposition to the previous years of public service.

Whatever Graham's actual accomplishments were - and I don't imagine the list is long - he is now reduced to his servile devotion to that horrible creature who hijacked his party and his political career.

For all the other Republicans in Washington who know better, consider that Graham's legacy is not public service and devotion to "conservative values" but a craven submission to Donald Trump.

Slaughtered

 Richardson notes one of the myriad scandals that flies under the radar in the never ending onslaught on professional governance wrought not just by Trump but by Republicans. The Slaughter decision seems to give the President the ability to fire the heads of independent commissions created by Congress. This was an egregiously terrible decision in the way so many decisions - Citizens United, Rufo, Shelby, Trump - have been. It's a wholesale attack on the capacity of the government to produce neutral public goods and competent administration. For the Federalist hacks on the SCOTUS, poor government performance is a feature, not a bug. The worse the government performs, the more it justifies the anti-government, pro-business positions that are what truly motivated the Federalist Six. This makes a 2008 style crash far more likely.

So far, the lower courts are protecting the independence of our elections, but this is why the outcome in November is so critical. Two more years of unfettered Trumpist attacks on the fabric of civil governance and there might not be a government left to save. 

The good news is that the pissy little drama queen watched the Housing Bill become law at midnight last night without his signature. The subsequent problem is that some elements of the bill will have to be put into effect by his cronies and grifters, blunting the ability of the law to actually help ease the housing crunch.

Josh Marshall is correct when he has been arguing that Court reform has to be at the top of the list of any incoming Democratic trifecta.

There Is No Base

 Josh Marshall makes an interesting argument that the Democratic Party does not actually have a "base."  Plausible groups that make up a substantial part of the party are Black voters - especially Black women - women in general, college-educated liberals and the Left.

Of course, the Left isn't really a PART of the Democratic Party. Their shriveled avatar is Bernie Sanders, who isn't even a Democrat. They prefer to slam Democrats more than Republicans. They tend to be overwhelmingly young men who are processing their own psychodramas through their own form of identity politics. The final boss of this form of leftist politics is Graham Platner. If you want a succinct synopsis of this argument, check out Jamelle Bouie's video at this post, and you can skip to the 4 minute mark.

Marshall also notes that the two most important voting blocs - Blacks and college educated liberals - are VERY different culturally. Blacks are among the most regular church goers and white liberals are the least. 

Marshall also notes that the while the Republican Party has factions, they are overwhelmingly white, conservative Christians. That gives one group a stranglehold on the party, and conservatism - as a psychological expression - is already hierarchical, so Republicans can fall in line pretty easily, once its evangelical base makes its preferences known.

Trump was able to become the unlikely leader of this faction because he channeled their grievances, not because he was Christian (Jesus wept, he is not) or because of policy, but because he hated all the right people. Once in charge, his positions became the evangelical's positions, because they tend not to be wildly independent in their thinking to begin with. Oh, sure, "I wish he didn't tweet so much" but c'mon. They abandoned their decision making to him once he mocked those they wished to be mocked.

Ideally, the factionalism of the Democratic Party would make it more robust with internal debates that force groups to defend their positions and policies. However, the Terminally Online nature of, well, everything means that factional disputes harden and become permanent wedges. There are people who have made the specific naming of Israeli actions in Gaza "genocide" not just a deeply felt policy position, but their whole personality. If you are a Democrat who is insufficiently in tune with this, you are simply part of a "corrupt" system.

Republicans, meanwhile, just eat Trump's shit and ask for more.

Still - and this is REALLY important - Democrats won more votes than Republicans in 2008, 2012, 2016, 2018, 2020 and 2022. Then 2024 happened, which was kind of the fracturing along these lines combined with anger over nominal prices and Covid policy. 

Republicans combine structural advantages based on the House of Representatives and thus the Electoral College that work hand in hand with the servile fealty of their evangelical base. Democrats spend far too much of their ammunition on the circular firing squads. 

Mainiacs

 I'm not sure I have much to add about the Platner disaster. I think the broad contours are roughly that

- Platner had a superficial charisma that drew in a bunch of pencil necked consultants and cosplay socialists.
- Maine Democrats were gun shy about taking on Collins for reasons that I guess have to do with her electoral overachieving, but really just speak to a certain weakness among elected Democrats that is driving anti-establishment politics on the left.
- That left the choice between Platner and the aging Mills. That choice was made easier by Mills' apparent lack of fire to fundraise and campaign.
- Unsurprisingly, the very green Platner turned out to have a May Day Parade's worth of red flags. I saw a post talking about why are only the worst people running for office. Generally speaking, though, civic minded people run for office, starting with local offices and working their way up. Some recidivist drop-out has never stood before voters and never been put through the ringer and the organic vetting process that comes with running for multiple offices.
- Republicans in the Age of Trump will excuse all the flaws of someone like Platner, if the candidate has an "R" by their name, because they've done it for their Orange Jesus.
- Things Republicans will excuse include Nazi style aesthetics; sexual assault; pig ignorance. Platner should have run as a Republican.
- Platner should have dropped out after the Nazi tattoo and the early raft of sexually predatory allegations. I'm guessing he didn't, because he literally cannot understand why his behavior - "Hey, I was drunk" - constitutes sexual assault. 
- I hope that every leftist podcaster, every online Bernie Bro, every cosplay edge lord who had anything to do with this guy is perma-shunned from Democratic politics. 

In the end, I'm glad his political career seems to be over. (Again, would it shock me if he became a Republican, a la Tulsi Gabbard, another Bernie protege? No, it would not.) Hopefully, there is some Maine Democrat who can bring the energy and independence to beat Collins in what should be a wave year.

The Post-US World

 Richardson does her usual brilliant round up of the day's atrocities, which is usually most damning when it just quotes Trump verbatim. In this case, there is the embarrassing performance of Trump at the NATO summit in Ankara.

Krugman provides a bit more analysis. Trump went in and started doing his usual blustering bullshit, including resurrecting his Greenland nonsense. What was significant is that it seems that NATO heads of government mostly just ignored the senile old fool. As Krugman argues, this is because what Trump has done is expose every possible weakness in America's place in the world.

We are measurably weaker than we were on January 19th, 2025.

His tariffs have not worked to do anything but weaken our economy by driving up prices. Europe is de-Americanizing its economy, working to decouple from their crazy cousins in Washington. The debacle in Iran - now starting up again - has demonstrated his fecklessness and the failure of defense planners to recognize the new contours of 21st century warfare. He has abandoned the commitment to defend democracy in Ukraine. His constant antagonism has led countries to begin to move away from a dependence on US financial institutions. 

Richardson points to a quote from Robert Kagan:

In January, Robert Kagan warned that Trump’s destruction of the order that has underpinned global security for the past 80 years was creating the most dangerous world since World War II. With the end of open access to global resources, markets, and strategic bases and without reliable friends or allies, the U.S. will need more military spending than ever.

“Americans are neither materially nor psychologically ready for this future,” Kagan warned. They are accustomed to the “basically peaceful, prosperous, and open world” and have come to think it is “the normal state of international affairs, likely to continue indefinitely. They can’t imagine it unraveling, much less what that unraveling will mean for them.”

Everything will be up for grabs, Kagan wrote, with myriad “flash points for potential conflict.” “If Americans thought defending the liberal world order was too expensive,” Kagan wrote, “wait until they start paying for what comes next.”

"There is a lot of ruin in a nation." We will find out just how much.

Talking Past Each Other

 Yglesias takes issue with Josh Marshall's take on why leftists are winning primaries in safely blue districts. On the one hand, he does make the solid point that Democrats need to run moderates in swing districts. I don't think Marshall would argue any differently. Marshall - and I actually exchanged emails with him on this - is talking more about system vs anti-system politics. 

Two things I would disagree with Yglesias on is first of all the true "pundit's fallacy." He coined that term to describe the fallacy that pundits engage in when they assume that if a candidate just takes their favored policy positions, then they will win. I think the true pundit's fallacy is that voters - especially persuadable voters - really make sophisticated judgments based on policy at all. The American people were so upset about nominal higher prices that they elected a guy whose signature policy - tariffs - was going to be inflationary. 

The second thing I think is false is that the winning of safe blue seats is somehow draining resources to fight Trump. Sure, at the margins, every dollar spent in a primary battle is a dollar that could have been spent in the general election. I don't think that means that holding THOSE seats is going to be a problem, and I doubt that the person giving to Brad Lander was going to give to Mary Peltola anyway.

Where I agree with him is that I think the Left has largely abandoned reason in its politics. Yesterday I briefly engaged in a Twitter exchange (that I finally wised up and walked away from) where I responded to someone saying the Gaza was a litmus test for candidates. My question was "Why, in 2026, is Gaza not just important, but some people's whole personalities?" I can understand being upset by Israel's conduct in Gaza, deeply upset. I can't understand why this has become someone's entire personality, both politically and even socially.

I think we should cut off military aid to Israel. I think we should stop protecting their bad behavior with our veto power in the UN. I think Biden was slow to arrive at the realization that Israel had gone off the rails, but I also think Biden did a lot more to rein in Israel than Trump ever did. I've also noticed that once you go offline, the campus protests and sit-ins have all pretty much ended now that Trump - who is WAY closer to Netanyahu than any Democrat - is president. Weird.

What I don't believe is that Israeli policy in Gaza is a first order issue in the 2026 midterms. One of the crazier - but I think very emblematic - assertions in the Twitter thread was someone saying that the US was directly responsible for the depredations visited upon Gaza. We did that. We bombed them. Not even, we sold weapons that Israel used, but that we were the ones ultimately responsible for the IDF's actions in Gaza. 

Yeah, no. 

Israel is a wholly sovereign country with a very powerful military. They are perfectly capable of setting their own policy and conducting their own operations. To assume that the US is responsible for that is a form of egocentrism bordering on narcissism. It asserts that there are no other actors in the world but us. That means that MY vote for city council is entirely going to determine what Netanyahu does in Gaza.

Attacking Israel has become part of anti-systems politics. We've been overtly allied with Israel since the 1960s at least. To stand against that is stand against the status quo, which is what seems to be motivating a lot of primary voters - in both parties. Trump is anti-systems politics, too. 

UPDATE: Marshall responds.

What Would A Democratic Trump Look Like?

 He would look like Graham Platner.

Like Trump, he would be a child of privilege who pretends to be something he's not. In Trump's case, he inherited millions, lost much of it and pretended to be a savvy businessman, when really he's just the heir to someone else's hard work. In Platner's case, he pretends to be a salt of the earth oyster farmer, when really he's just the kid of two rich parents who support him in adulthood.

Like Trump, he seems to be a rapist.

Like Trump, he projects an aura that certain people get fooled by. Trump's aura of the no-nonsense businessman; Platner's aura of the working class socialist. 

Like Trump, there's an omnivorous narcissism at work. Both men figured that they could run for office and not have all their many flaws exposed to the world. Both men seemed oblivious to their own failings, though hopefully only the Republicans are willing to ignore those failings.

Like Trump, he was protected from the consequences of his actions. Trump was sent to the New York Military Academy because he was a behavioral problem in school (many kids with learning disabilities would act out before we knew what learning disabilities were). Platner was sent off to Hotchkiss where he flamed out. In both cases, the ultimate reckoning, the consequences for fucking up, were smoothed over for them. 

There is a surface appeal to both men. Trump spent his whole life cosplaying as a hardnosed business savant. Platner looks the part of the former grunt who becomes a blue collar success. That appeal does not survive closer examination. In Trump's case, he has sailed through his many, many scandals. Platner seemed to be doing the same.

I hope that he drops out now. Hell, I hope he enters therapy, because he has some serious issues. As things stand, we have lost the Maine Senate seat, because a certain clique of Very Online Democratic Influencers saw the surface appeal of Platner and then overlooked the growing forest of red flags. Much like two years ago, we have a last minute chance to replace a flawed candidate, but that process will not  necessarily sit well with voters. The only chance of finally ousting Collins will be if the Democratic Party can do what the Republican Party didn't and shun this very "problematic" man until he retires from the scene.