Jack is correct. And the mechanism he identifies has a name in the historical literature: retrograde legitimation. The process by which institutions, already captured, are made to appear neutral while systematically undoing the political gains of a previous era.
File the date: Tennessee’s Memphis redistricting. File the date: Florida’s Sixth Congressional District. File the date: Louisiana’s discarded maps. These are not isolated episodes of political hardball. They form a sequence. Sequences have authors.
Note which word keeps appearing in the defenses offered for each action: fairness. Reconstruction was also dismantled in the name of fairness — fairness to the white voters who felt, as one senator put it in 1875, that Black political power had grown “disproportionate.” The language of proportion, of balance, of neutrality has always been available to those unwilling to say plainly what they mean.
Jack is correct that the more dangerous threat is never the one wearing a hood. Hoods invite resistance. Suits invite negotiation — and negotiation, endlessly prolonged, is itself a tool of attrition.
What the historical record asks of us now is not comfort. It asks a question. When future students examine the legislative record of this decade, alongside the rhetoric used to justify it, alongside the demographic profile of who was consistently targeted — what will they conclude?
I have often felt that this movement of Trump and the rightwing Christian Nationalists have tapped into this feeling of victimhood. They have been very adept at convincing the MAGA base that they are victims of this "woke" agenda and are being materially hurt by this. I have often called Trump followers the cult of perpetual victimhood. I have traveled across the state of Michigan and the areas with the flags flying the most boldly are the areas Trump and his regime care very little for in actions but not in his hollow campaign promises. He stirs up those feelings of being victimized by the alluding to them that people of color are getting something that they are more entitled too
The idea touted by SCOTUS that we have achieved racial equality is so dangerous. The question becomes for all of us what are we willing to do, risk, to bring a change?
Kristine...the victimhood diagnosis is sharp...and I think correct.
Grievance is a more durable political fuel than satisfaction ever could be...because...it's self-replenishing...every disappointment becomes more EVIDENCE...every loss is somebody ELSE'S FAULT.
You've put your finger on the cruelest part: the places flying the flags hardest are the ones being materially abandoned...by the people they're flying them for.
The promises are hollow...but the feeling is real...and...the FEELING is what gets harvested.
The SCOTUS "we've achieved racial equality" posture is exactly the move...declare the problem solved...so dismantling the remedies looks like fairness...instead of REGRESSION. It's elegant...and it's working.
Your closing question is the one. What are we willing to risk? Most of us haven't had to answer that honestly in our lifetimes. We're about to. That...I can promise you.
In the submarine force we had blacks, hispanics, asians, catholics, Jews, muslims, and even some white people on board. We had older people, younger people, handsome people, ugly people, straight men and gay men (yes, gay men on a submarine), Republicans as well as Democrats. Together we made an irresistible force that struck fear in the hearts of America's enemies. We were strong beyond what the normal person sees. The submarine force was the personification of Jack's message. It shows the possibilities when we realize we are all in the same boat together and our strength comes from our unified focus.
Steven...this is one of the best illustrations of the argument I've read.
A submarine...is the LITERAL version of the metaphor...a sealed steel tube...where EVERY person on board is utterly dependent on every other person...and where pretending otherwise...gets people killed.
You can't perform tribalism at test depth. The mission selects for the truth that diversity... well-led...is operational strength.
And...the quiet detail about gay men serving...long before policy caught up is the tell: the people doing the actual work....figured it out generations ahead of the politicians arguing about it. They always do.
Thank you for this. Truly. It deserves a wider audience than a comment thread!
I shared your article with my comment on my Facebook thread. We'll see how this is received. Any suggestions you have for increasing my exposure would be welcome. I already have a Substack page "A View from the Cheap Seats" "One Man's opinion in a sea of pundits." Thanks for the encouragement.
Facebook is still where a lot of persuadable readers actually live...even if it's unfashionable to say so.
A few low-effort moves that tend to compound on Substack: cross-post or restack work from writers in adjacent lanes (me included), which puts you in front of their readers.
Engage substantively in the comment sections of bigger Substacks rather than just dropping your link...since editors and readers notice thoughtful commenters and click through.
Also, pick a posting cadence you can actually sustain...consistency beats brilliance for growth. Notes (Substack's short-form feed) is also where most discovery is happening right now.
"A View from the Cheap Seats" is a great title, by the way. Send me the link sometime.
Agree. Especially on a submarine. In today’s military sadly drunk in charge is doing everything possible to destroy that belief of diversity. I am glad you had a good experience. I hope future military personnel will be able to say the same
Teri...the "drunk in charge" line made me laugh out loud...and the sadness underneath it is real.
What's being dismantled at the Pentagon right now...isn't abstract; it's the institutional knowledge that integrated...diverse units perform better...hard-won...over decades of ACTUAL combat experience.
The people doing the dismantling...have largely NEVER served alongside the people they're purging.
The hope for future personnel is the right note to end on. Institutions can be damaged and rebuilt. The submariner's testimony upthread...is a reminder of what the rebuilt version needs to look like!
Nature is diversity’s life. For those who study nature and those who revere it, know that it is dominant and worthy of our protection. So small things to do like protecting our history in books and pictures and handing that down is important. Recognizing the things Jack pointed out and pushing against those forces is important. We can do that in how we act and communicate every day. We can counter that. We can beat it if enough of us push those walls down that are being constructed. Our diversity needs to gather. We need to vote in overwhelming droves.
Like a steamroller. They almost had the SAVE act. It passed the House.
There are 2 MILLION more WOMEN than men in America.
It feels like taxation without representation.
Look at what Congress looks like.
McConnell has been there over 30 YEARS.
They don't get any smarter by staying there longer.
McConnell once kept 400 bills from being voted on. Mike Johnson didn't let aid for Ukraine be voted on for 15 MONTHS. 20,000 drones were on their way to Ukraine, but they DIVERTED them.😡😡😠😡
If U.S. had sent aid to Ukraine at the beginning....
Congress is either on Spring Break, or Easter break. Nearly on Summer break.😠😡😠😡😠😡
Congress has been AWOL all these months. They don't return, even for the "war."
Difficult to watch women's rights be trampled on. Spent 50 years trying to have rights, only to have them be cancelled/ disregarded.
Especially by DT.
The Forest Service has been dismantled. 53,000 Forest workers gone.
Feels like, " While you were sleeping..." EVERY AGENGY has been gutted.
Netty..the steamroller image is exactly right...the speed has been the strategy...because anything done fast enough gets normalized before opposition can organize.
That's the playbook...and the SAVE Act nearly clearing the House is proof it works.
The Congress-on-perpetual-recess piece...is one of the most underreported SCANDALS of this whole period. The legislative branch is supposed to be the check...and...it has functionally vacated the role.
McConnell sitting on 400 bills...Johnson blocking Ukraine aid for 15 months...those are abdications with body counts attached.
Two million more WOMEN than men...and a government acting like the inverse. You're right that it has the texture of taxation WITHOUT representation.
The 50-year rollback is its own particular grief...and I think a lot of women are carrying it without quite having language for it yet.
Hold fast indeed, Netty. The agencies can be rebuilt. The institutional memory is harder... but not gone.
Collective guilt...subconcious or up front...secondary to all of their despicable actions to All people of color in past centuries? Perhaps dread that they may actually " have it coming" in one form or another? I'm just spitballing here...
Sher'...interesting spitball...and...I don't think it's wrong as one strand of the explanation.
There's a body of work...Robin DiAngelo's gets the most attention...but it goes back further...arguing that a lot of white grievance politics is fear of reckoning...dressed up as fear of REPLACEMENT.
The intensity of the backlash to fairly modest equity efforts...suggests something disproportionate is being defended against.
I'd add that it doesn't have to be CONSCIOUS...to be operative. People rarely think "I'm afraid of payback"; they think "this is unfair to me,"...and the unfairness EXPANDS to fill whatever space it's GIVEN.
The feeling is real...EVEN when the threat isn't.
Whether that's the whole picture...I'd hedge...there's also straightforward economic anxiety...status loss...and plain old RECRUITED RESENTMENT in the mix.
But...the guilt-and-dread layer is probably doing more work...than people admit.
Yes, and another layer of shit. to consider. That fear of payback in kind is itself a psychotic racist projection. I imagine it's damn near impossible for whites who are trapped in the racist bubble to imagine Blacks in power leading with compassion.
Roberta...honest answer: partly, but not on its own.
The generational data is genuinely encouraging on some axes...younger Americans are more comfortable with racial...religious...and LGBTQ diversity ...than any cohort before them...and a lot of the old bigotries...are softening with each replacement of the electorate. That's real progress...and...worth holding onto.
BUT...two cautions.
First, bigotry doesn't simply die...it mutates.
Each generation finds new out-groups...ALWAYS...and we're watching some of that happen now with trans people...immigrants...and Muslims taking the brunt of what used to land elsewhere.
Second, progress isn't automatic...it's the product of constant cultural work... and it can reverse.
The CURRENT moment...is partly a backlash...precisely BECAUSE the generational shift was real...and...threatening to the people losing ground.
So...yes, there's hope. But...hope is the precondition for the work...NOT a substitute for it.
The kids do better...when the adults around them model better. Your household is one of the places that gets decided!
I'm glad you asked this question, Roberta. Thank you.
Thank you, Jack. My aunts (daughters of Italian immigrants) told us stories of how they used to be taunted and disliked because of their background, but they, in turn, had their own set of prejudices, so yes, the mutation happens for sure.
I need to stitch "Hope is the precondition for the work, NOT a substitute for it" on a pillow in my mind.
On the boycott instinct, I'd gently complicate it...the people most hurt by boycotts of red states are usually the Black...brown...queer...and progressive residents already doing the hardest work on the ground there.
Stacey Abrams made this case forcefully when the MLB pulled the All-Star Game from Georgia: disinvestment punishes the wrong people...and removes resources from the organizers who NEED them most.
Targeted boycotts of specific companies funding the agenda...different story...often effective.
But whole-state boycotts...tend to deepen the abandonment that produced the politics in the first place.
Supporting the people fighting from inside those states...is usually the higher-leverage move.
We think we came far and were given the allusion of just about reaching equality.
But the Libertarians, what I call the 1850 Plantationists rule the Republican Party.
The class that lost the civil war and their slaves and have been trying since to re-establish their divine right to rule over the rest of us.
We have minimum wage, not a living wage. If up to the 1850 class it would be free labor.
We don’t have universal health care so that we depend on the 1850 class to provide worthless health care through their minimum wage jobs.
They try to sell us large family’s but with a stay at home trad wife. Can’t afford to buy a house on a one income minimum wage job.
Save for your own retirement. Invest your money in Vegas…. Ooops mean the stock market, we’ll gladly crash out your account while making millions on insider trading. Oh and by the way…. We are going to tie up your retirement accounts in such stupid arbitrary pay out rules that you end up losing money.
Social security?? Sorry, no more hand outs to the old, be like us, 90 years old sitting in a congressional seat woken up by an aide when it’s time to vote. Work till you drop dead or starve.
We are at a cross roads. The Tories never left the South after the Revolution, they had their land given to them by King George prior to the Revolution and had a sprawling economic boon. They didn’t go back to England because they would have lost their land and money. They no longer had their British titles. They became the aristocracy of America with the divine right chip on their shoulders. You can still hear them. They are still here.
They should be scared…. They are scared… this is the last gasp…. Way too loud and seems to me getting desperate.
trump was always a racist, even though in the nineties trump had a girlfriend who is Black. He then dated a Black supermodel named Iman. She dumped him for David Bowie. My, how that wound festered and suppurated. And just like that, the KKK had their shining star, their Chosen One. And all their waiting and scheming in the dark recesses of their minds could once again crawl to the surface and they could hate openly and work towards their sick utopia.
And then came President Obama. They had no problem with Clarence Thomas. He was bought and paid for. But, Obama? He is everything trump could never be. So more hate. Without trump greasing the skids I don't think they would have had this amount of momentum.
And, now I am sickened to the depths of my soul, and yet I hope and wonder if once again our Jack will give us a structure, a plan, a step by step guide.
Jack is correct. And the mechanism he identifies has a name in the historical literature: retrograde legitimation. The process by which institutions, already captured, are made to appear neutral while systematically undoing the political gains of a previous era.
File the date: Tennessee’s Memphis redistricting. File the date: Florida’s Sixth Congressional District. File the date: Louisiana’s discarded maps. These are not isolated episodes of political hardball. They form a sequence. Sequences have authors.
Note which word keeps appearing in the defenses offered for each action: fairness. Reconstruction was also dismantled in the name of fairness — fairness to the white voters who felt, as one senator put it in 1875, that Black political power had grown “disproportionate.” The language of proportion, of balance, of neutrality has always been available to those unwilling to say plainly what they mean.
Jack is correct that the more dangerous threat is never the one wearing a hood. Hoods invite resistance. Suits invite negotiation — and negotiation, endlessly prolonged, is itself a tool of attrition.
What the historical record asks of us now is not comfort. It asks a question. When future students examine the legislative record of this decade, alongside the rhetoric used to justify it, alongside the demographic profile of who was consistently targeted — what will they conclude?
You already know the answer.
#HOLDFAST
He’s not heavy, he’s my brother…excellent…
It’s so disheartening to realize that this is where we are in 2026. We had come so far.. and yet not nearly far enough.
The racists have always been here but not so openly. The MAGA movement gave it legitimacy and now it’s stepped out of the shadows and into the light…
… and while I acknowledge it… I hate it and I don’t know how to fix it but I know we have to find a way.
Thank you, Jack
#Holdfast
~Susan
Susan...what you're describing...the daylight part...is what so many people are sitting with right now.
The racism didn't appear; the PERMISSION structure did.
That's a different...and in some ways...harder problem...because you can't legislate away what people now feel free...to say out loud.
But "I don't know how to fix it" and "we have to find a way" living in the same paragraph is exactly the right posture.
Nobody has the whole answer. The people who move things forward are the ones who keep showing up without it.
#HoldFast
-Jack
Thank you, Jack. I’ll be there doing what I can. Hoping for a better future for everyone.
#Holdfast
~Susan
I have often felt that this movement of Trump and the rightwing Christian Nationalists have tapped into this feeling of victimhood. They have been very adept at convincing the MAGA base that they are victims of this "woke" agenda and are being materially hurt by this. I have often called Trump followers the cult of perpetual victimhood. I have traveled across the state of Michigan and the areas with the flags flying the most boldly are the areas Trump and his regime care very little for in actions but not in his hollow campaign promises. He stirs up those feelings of being victimized by the alluding to them that people of color are getting something that they are more entitled too
The idea touted by SCOTUS that we have achieved racial equality is so dangerous. The question becomes for all of us what are we willing to do, risk, to bring a change?
Kristine...the victimhood diagnosis is sharp...and I think correct.
Grievance is a more durable political fuel than satisfaction ever could be...because...it's self-replenishing...every disappointment becomes more EVIDENCE...every loss is somebody ELSE'S FAULT.
You've put your finger on the cruelest part: the places flying the flags hardest are the ones being materially abandoned...by the people they're flying them for.
The promises are hollow...but the feeling is real...and...the FEELING is what gets harvested.
The SCOTUS "we've achieved racial equality" posture is exactly the move...declare the problem solved...so dismantling the remedies looks like fairness...instead of REGRESSION. It's elegant...and it's working.
Your closing question is the one. What are we willing to risk? Most of us haven't had to answer that honestly in our lifetimes. We're about to. That...I can promise you.
-Jack
Wow!
In the submarine force we had blacks, hispanics, asians, catholics, Jews, muslims, and even some white people on board. We had older people, younger people, handsome people, ugly people, straight men and gay men (yes, gay men on a submarine), Republicans as well as Democrats. Together we made an irresistible force that struck fear in the hearts of America's enemies. We were strong beyond what the normal person sees. The submarine force was the personification of Jack's message. It shows the possibilities when we realize we are all in the same boat together and our strength comes from our unified focus.
Steven...this is one of the best illustrations of the argument I've read.
A submarine...is the LITERAL version of the metaphor...a sealed steel tube...where EVERY person on board is utterly dependent on every other person...and where pretending otherwise...gets people killed.
You can't perform tribalism at test depth. The mission selects for the truth that diversity... well-led...is operational strength.
And...the quiet detail about gay men serving...long before policy caught up is the tell: the people doing the actual work....figured it out generations ahead of the politicians arguing about it. They always do.
Thank you for this. Truly. It deserves a wider audience than a comment thread!
-Jack
I shared your article with my comment on my Facebook thread. We'll see how this is received. Any suggestions you have for increasing my exposure would be welcome. I already have a Substack page "A View from the Cheap Seats" "One Man's opinion in a sea of pundits." Thanks for the encouragement.
Steven...glad you shared it!
Facebook is still where a lot of persuadable readers actually live...even if it's unfashionable to say so.
A few low-effort moves that tend to compound on Substack: cross-post or restack work from writers in adjacent lanes (me included), which puts you in front of their readers.
Engage substantively in the comment sections of bigger Substacks rather than just dropping your link...since editors and readers notice thoughtful commenters and click through.
Also, pick a posting cadence you can actually sustain...consistency beats brilliance for growth. Notes (Substack's short-form feed) is also where most discovery is happening right now.
"A View from the Cheap Seats" is a great title, by the way. Send me the link sometime.
-Jack
Here is a link to the my Substack. Thanks for the encouragement and suggestions.
https://stevenerick.substack.com/p/a-view-from-the-cheap-seats-140
Agree. Especially on a submarine. In today’s military sadly drunk in charge is doing everything possible to destroy that belief of diversity. I am glad you had a good experience. I hope future military personnel will be able to say the same
Teri...the "drunk in charge" line made me laugh out loud...and the sadness underneath it is real.
What's being dismantled at the Pentagon right now...isn't abstract; it's the institutional knowledge that integrated...diverse units perform better...hard-won...over decades of ACTUAL combat experience.
The people doing the dismantling...have largely NEVER served alongside the people they're purging.
The hope for future personnel is the right note to end on. Institutions can be damaged and rebuilt. The submariner's testimony upthread...is a reminder of what the rebuilt version needs to look like!
-Jack
Nature is diversity’s life. For those who study nature and those who revere it, know that it is dominant and worthy of our protection. So small things to do like protecting our history in books and pictures and handing that down is important. Recognizing the things Jack pointed out and pushing against those forces is important. We can do that in how we act and communicate every day. We can counter that. We can beat it if enough of us push those walls down that are being constructed. Our diversity needs to gather. We need to vote in overwhelming droves.
Pamela H...the nature framing is a beautiful entry point... diversity isn't a political preference...it's how living systems actually persist.
Monocultures collapse; mixed systems...ENDURE.
That's not metaphor, it's observation.
And...you're naming something important about the everyday register: preserving books... photos...family histories...the small acts of remembering.
Authoritarian projects...always come for MEMORY first...because a population that knows its own history...is MUCH harder to lie to.
The household-level work of holding onto what was matters more than people think.
Push the walls down, gather...vote in droves. That's the WHOLE assignment.
-Jack
Thank you! 💕Jack.
They moved fast and divided up areas.
Like a steamroller. They almost had the SAVE act. It passed the House.
There are 2 MILLION more WOMEN than men in America.
It feels like taxation without representation.
Look at what Congress looks like.
McConnell has been there over 30 YEARS.
They don't get any smarter by staying there longer.
McConnell once kept 400 bills from being voted on. Mike Johnson didn't let aid for Ukraine be voted on for 15 MONTHS. 20,000 drones were on their way to Ukraine, but they DIVERTED them.😡😡😠😡
If U.S. had sent aid to Ukraine at the beginning....
Congress is either on Spring Break, or Easter break. Nearly on Summer break.😠😡😠😡😠😡
Congress has been AWOL all these months. They don't return, even for the "war."
Difficult to watch women's rights be trampled on. Spent 50 years trying to have rights, only to have them be cancelled/ disregarded.
Especially by DT.
The Forest Service has been dismantled. 53,000 Forest workers gone.
Feels like, " While you were sleeping..." EVERY AGENGY has been gutted.
I know you know all of this.
#HOLDING FAST
Take Care,
Netty
🗽🇺🇲🇺🇦
Netty..the steamroller image is exactly right...the speed has been the strategy...because anything done fast enough gets normalized before opposition can organize.
That's the playbook...and the SAVE Act nearly clearing the House is proof it works.
The Congress-on-perpetual-recess piece...is one of the most underreported SCANDALS of this whole period. The legislative branch is supposed to be the check...and...it has functionally vacated the role.
McConnell sitting on 400 bills...Johnson blocking Ukraine aid for 15 months...those are abdications with body counts attached.
Two million more WOMEN than men...and a government acting like the inverse. You're right that it has the texture of taxation WITHOUT representation.
The 50-year rollback is its own particular grief...and I think a lot of women are carrying it without quite having language for it yet.
Hold fast indeed, Netty. The agencies can be rebuilt. The institutional memory is harder... but not gone.
-Jack
Collective guilt...subconcious or up front...secondary to all of their despicable actions to All people of color in past centuries? Perhaps dread that they may actually " have it coming" in one form or another? I'm just spitballing here...
Sher'...interesting spitball...and...I don't think it's wrong as one strand of the explanation.
There's a body of work...Robin DiAngelo's gets the most attention...but it goes back further...arguing that a lot of white grievance politics is fear of reckoning...dressed up as fear of REPLACEMENT.
The intensity of the backlash to fairly modest equity efforts...suggests something disproportionate is being defended against.
I'd add that it doesn't have to be CONSCIOUS...to be operative. People rarely think "I'm afraid of payback"; they think "this is unfair to me,"...and the unfairness EXPANDS to fill whatever space it's GIVEN.
The feeling is real...EVEN when the threat isn't.
Whether that's the whole picture...I'd hedge...there's also straightforward economic anxiety...status loss...and plain old RECRUITED RESENTMENT in the mix.
But...the guilt-and-dread layer is probably doing more work...than people admit.
-Jack
Right where I went. It goes beyond simple fear of losing control. It's about the terror of 400 years worth of payback
That's my gut feeling.
Yes, and another layer of shit. to consider. That fear of payback in kind is itself a psychotic racist projection. I imagine it's damn near impossible for whites who are trapped in the racist bubble to imagine Blacks in power leading with compassion.
Good point. I loathe that stuff so much. I can't believe that we are back here again. It's reprehensible beyond words.
Spot on. My heart aches. How do we move forward with so many trying to drag us back? #HoldingFast
Roberta...that...is the question.
-Jack
Will this die out in the next generation? My parents had siblings who were bigots, my husband's parents were awful. Is there hope?
Roberta...honest answer: partly, but not on its own.
The generational data is genuinely encouraging on some axes...younger Americans are more comfortable with racial...religious...and LGBTQ diversity ...than any cohort before them...and a lot of the old bigotries...are softening with each replacement of the electorate. That's real progress...and...worth holding onto.
BUT...two cautions.
First, bigotry doesn't simply die...it mutates.
Each generation finds new out-groups...ALWAYS...and we're watching some of that happen now with trans people...immigrants...and Muslims taking the brunt of what used to land elsewhere.
Second, progress isn't automatic...it's the product of constant cultural work... and it can reverse.
The CURRENT moment...is partly a backlash...precisely BECAUSE the generational shift was real...and...threatening to the people losing ground.
So...yes, there's hope. But...hope is the precondition for the work...NOT a substitute for it.
The kids do better...when the adults around them model better. Your household is one of the places that gets decided!
I'm glad you asked this question, Roberta. Thank you.
-Jack
Thank you, Jack. My aunts (daughters of Italian immigrants) told us stories of how they used to be taunted and disliked because of their background, but they, in turn, had their own set of prejudices, so yes, the mutation happens for sure.
I need to stitch "Hope is the precondition for the work, NOT a substitute for it" on a pillow in my mind.
Thank you for this…I’m all it’s brutal truth and bitter ugliness, Jack Hopkins.
You're welcome, J.M.
-Jack
Well said, it’s a real shame that this is happening.
It's a damn shame, Rosalind. Absolutely.
-Jack
It is a real danger.
Truth, Toni Denton.
-Jack
Excellent piece. The level of racism has been handed down through the generations. We need to boycott all these states.
Kassi...glad the piece landed.
On the boycott instinct, I'd gently complicate it...the people most hurt by boycotts of red states are usually the Black...brown...queer...and progressive residents already doing the hardest work on the ground there.
Stacey Abrams made this case forcefully when the MLB pulled the All-Star Game from Georgia: disinvestment punishes the wrong people...and removes resources from the organizers who NEED them most.
Targeted boycotts of specific companies funding the agenda...different story...often effective.
But whole-state boycotts...tend to deepen the abandonment that produced the politics in the first place.
Supporting the people fighting from inside those states...is usually the higher-leverage move.
Thank you for being here, Kassi!
-Jack
We think we came far and were given the allusion of just about reaching equality.
But the Libertarians, what I call the 1850 Plantationists rule the Republican Party.
The class that lost the civil war and their slaves and have been trying since to re-establish their divine right to rule over the rest of us.
We have minimum wage, not a living wage. If up to the 1850 class it would be free labor.
We don’t have universal health care so that we depend on the 1850 class to provide worthless health care through their minimum wage jobs.
They try to sell us large family’s but with a stay at home trad wife. Can’t afford to buy a house on a one income minimum wage job.
Save for your own retirement. Invest your money in Vegas…. Ooops mean the stock market, we’ll gladly crash out your account while making millions on insider trading. Oh and by the way…. We are going to tie up your retirement accounts in such stupid arbitrary pay out rules that you end up losing money.
Social security?? Sorry, no more hand outs to the old, be like us, 90 years old sitting in a congressional seat woken up by an aide when it’s time to vote. Work till you drop dead or starve.
We are at a cross roads. The Tories never left the South after the Revolution, they had their land given to them by King George prior to the Revolution and had a sprawling economic boon. They didn’t go back to England because they would have lost their land and money. They no longer had their British titles. They became the aristocracy of America with the divine right chip on their shoulders. You can still hear them. They are still here.
They should be scared…. They are scared… this is the last gasp…. Way too loud and seems to me getting desperate.
Tax the ***t out of them.
Thanks Jack.
trump was always a racist, even though in the nineties trump had a girlfriend who is Black. He then dated a Black supermodel named Iman. She dumped him for David Bowie. My, how that wound festered and suppurated. And just like that, the KKK had their shining star, their Chosen One. And all their waiting and scheming in the dark recesses of their minds could once again crawl to the surface and they could hate openly and work towards their sick utopia.
And then came President Obama. They had no problem with Clarence Thomas. He was bought and paid for. But, Obama? He is everything trump could never be. So more hate. Without trump greasing the skids I don't think they would have had this amount of momentum.
And, now I am sickened to the depths of my soul, and yet I hope and wonder if once again our Jack will give us a structure, a plan, a step by step guide.
#HoldFast.
Sue
":
“Yes, there is still racial hostility embedded inside parts of American politics.”
“Yes, Black political power is being targeted.”
“Yes, multiracial democracy is under pressure.”
And yes…
we are going to fight for it anyway.
Because this country does not belong to one race."
Somehow you have expressed the thoughts I have been unable to organize so succinctly. Thank you, Jack. Seems as though you do that for many of us.