“Arnulf Øverland (1889 – 1968) was a Norwegian author, poet, and nationalist. “Du må ikke sove” (You Must Not Sleep) was published in 1937, and is seen as a warning against Nazism and what was to come.
During the war, Øverland wrote several famous resistance poems, and was imprisoned in Møllergata 19, Grini and Sachsenhausen. He survived all three, and after the war became involved in the Norwegian language struggle as chairman of the Riksmålsforbundet (“The Riksmaal Society – The Society for the Preservation of Traditional Standard Norwegian”).”
We should be paying attention to what is happening in America today, instead of sleeping. This is reminiscent of Ben Franklin’s warning, “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”
Original Norwegian and English translation side-by-side
The Old Wolf has nothing more to say, Øverland has said it all.
This video by Ronan Farrow clearly delineates the main far-right movements current in America. There are others, but these are the dominant ones infesting our society, and it helps to understand them.
Ronan Farrow
Below you will find the transcript of his remarks:
“In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination there has been a lot of discussion about the “far right” movement he was part of. But the “far right” is a spectrum of different movements, and understanding them might help you understand what is happening in America.
First, Christian Nationalism. This group’s leaders, like Kirk and Marjarie Taylor Greene, tap into valid frustrations with broken systems, but also exploit xenophobia and racism. They believe that the US was founded as, and must be restored to a Christian State. For many of them, that means white dominance and nonwhite immigration and multiculturalism are threats. Kirk himself said, “You cannot have liberty if you do not have a Christian population” and called the Civil Rights Act a “huge mistake.”
The movement works within the system, and its leaders don’t openly call for violence, but their rage baiting rhetoric has inspired it, with adherents participating in the January 6th attack.
A different strain is the Techno-authoritariarian or Dark Enlightenment movement, pushed by Curtis Yarvin and Silicon Valley billionaire supporters like Peter Thiel.
They hold that democracy has failed, and want an authoritarian society run like a corporation, by an unelected CEO-monarch and enforcing a stratified racial hierarchy based on pseudoscience.
Finally, a view gaining ground across the far right is accelerationism. That’s the belief that society is byond saving and its collapse needs to be hastened.
This view is held by many within the Groyper movement, which is led by Nick Fuentes and seeks to establish a white, Christian, anti-Semitic, authoritarian state.
It’s named after its racist meme toad mascot. Fuentes avoids direct calls to violence, but his followers rely on online harassment, including threats of violence against political opponents and minorities. Some were also charged for their rôle on January 6th.
The Boogaloo movement on the other hand explicitly calls for violence against the government. Its name drawn from memes about the ’80s movie “Breaking 2, Electric Boogaloo” is a reference to a second civil war. Self-described ‘boogaloo bois” have been convicted of domestic terrorism plots and murders of government officials.
A more personal nihilism is embodied in the Black Pill worldview, which cuts across these movements. Its adherents often identify as incels and they want to destroy the progressive society that empowered women to reject them. The name comes from The Matrix, which is ironic. Since that film’s directors have said that the pills were a trans allegory.¹ Black pill followers are mainly misogynistic, but they have a lot of natural overlap with white supremacists
Most are passive, but the philosophy has inspired several mass murders.
People in this country are hurting. They are frustrated with systems that are rigged against them. You can see how those anxieties are exploited in these groups and their visions from building an authoritarian state to just watching the world burn.
What follows is the transcript (auto generated) of the interview with Katie Johnson regarding Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. It has not been edited except to remove the time stamps. Because of auto-generation of captions, there may be some small discrepancies between the text and what was actually said.
Warning: Graphic description of sexual abuse of children
Edit: There is no conclusive evidence proving the video is real or that the woman depicted is genuinely “Katie Johnson” from the lawsuit. The testimony matches the language in a now-dismissed legal complaint but has not been independently authenticated by credible news outlets, fact-checkers, or investigators. The veracity of both the accuser’s identity and her allegations against Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein remains unproven and highly disputed.This transcript and the link to the video are presented here as a part of the whole.
I came to this interview on my free will no there was nothing promised to me for doing this interview excellent yes everything that I say at this interview will be the truth um I met Donald Trump um at some parties I attend um that I was working um for Mr Jeffrey Epstein um there was about three or four times that I um had encounters with Donald Trump I was 13 the first time that I met Donald Trump uh was at uh a party at Jeffrey Epstein's um Mansion uh we were he was there was a um an orgy going on and he was kind of watching off in the distance um and and he basically asked um if I could come over and give him um give him a hand job and at first I wasn't very comfortable with it this was like my first you know first party and I I didn't you know I didn't think that that was my responsibility uh but my recruiter told me that I needed to do it um so I agreed to and um then he you know I said I began to sorry this is um a little difficult but um before I gave him a hand job he kind of slapped my hand away and said um you need to use a glove and the recruiter ran over and handed me a glove and said no one touches Mr Trump's penis without a glove so I needed to use a glove I um gave him a hand job and then um immediately after you know he had an orgasm he left and I didn't see him again at that party Jeffrey Epstein um is a billionaire friend of Donald Trump's that um was responsible for throwing the sex parties um there was um I originally um came to New York trying to be a model and um in my travels I met a girl named Tiffany there um who um was very interested in me and said that you know she that's what she did is that she helped girls you know get what they wanted and and and she could help me get get into modeling that she knew a lot of um people that were that were higher ups and that it would be no problem um and so that's why you know she but I would just basically have to come model um at a couple of events and meet some people there would be no sweat so um of course I went you know that sounded like no big deal um and she was recruiting the girls to come to these parties um and and they all looked I mean most of them were you know my age there was you know maybe a couple girls that were maybe 14 or 15 but it seemed to me like we were all very young so okay um Jeffrey Epstein knew that I was um 13 years old uh when he interviewed me um he asked me to get um down to my BR my just my panties and I thought that was weird but I mean modeling maybe it was something about my figure um and he asked that I give him a massage so he then he asked me my age he asked me and I told him you know told him that I was 13 I told him why I was there um and and he basically said well you'll do you know I'm sure that you'll you'll fit pretty nicely here and then he he tried to uh basically um slip himself inside of me and I I pushed him away and I said you know I'm I'm cuz at that point in time I still believed that there was models and then there was the girls that did that like I thought there was a sep ation so um I I told him that I wasn't interested in that but he said that I would do um and as far as Donald Trump um he knew that I was 13 and I believe that Tiffany told him he seemed to take a liking to me because I was a I was so young um and um I was also a virgin so I don't know he's it seemed like he wasn't really into having um having girls that that were liked by the other guys he kind of you know the whole glove he kind of liked things to be his first you know that for lack of you know a better term but he was the one who wanted to um get to get to a girl before everyone else did Donald Trump knew that I was 13 um because the first the first night that I was there uh Tiffany actually suggested that and she had a whole bunch of different wigs and I express interest in them you know I always told her that I would love to walk around with blue hair and so I tried some on and um there was a blonde wig that that that she said that looked great on me so I wore that wig um and Donald Trump had specifically asked about me because I remind him of his daughter and she said well she's 13 as well so he knew the first time that he saw me but he took a liking to me because I look like his daughter the reason I'm coming out now um is when it happened originally I just wanted to forget about the whole incident uh and when I saw that he was running for president um I felt it was my responsibility to come out and tell our country um what kind of man this person is um I don't think that he should even be the dog catcher let alone running uh the greatest country in the world after I met Tiffany at the bus station um she took me to basically went to her house her apartment and got ready um I put on a blonde wig because it seemed fun to pretend to be someone different but uh we went to the party that that I was basically inter interviewing for um and Jeffrey Epstein was the one that was running the party um he had a quick meeting with everyone that was um employed there and then um he had um a private interview with me the first time that I met Jeffrey Epstein um he did try to force himself um inside of me without getting to go ahead or anything um and then um on the it was probably about the third or fourth party is when um he basically um uh forced was it was another massage and it was basically like it wasn't sex um but it was there was penetration and I told him that I didn't want that but um he kind of got a little irritated so I don't know there was something about him that um I guess I kind of um held him like I held a lot of resentment towards him by that time that that happened I I kind of already started catching on that maybe I wasn't there for modeling and maybe I was just getting used for things and I felt that kind of held him responsible um I did receive money to go to these parties after every um party um I was paid by Mr Mr Epstein there wasn't out of all the girls that were there with me I never I've most of them were 13 14 I think the oldest one might have been 16 just but just turned 16 um and she'd been there for a while um it was actually it was Tiffany um he was it he was he he liked to watch other people have sex I I I it was must and he he's a germ doesn't like germs so he rather than partaking he just watches so um and Tiffany had informed him that I was the Virgin um and so he was I was basically um sorry I I I so it was Tiffany who introduced us okay second time that I saw Mr Trump um was same scenario he was uh on looking some at an orgy and uh Tiffany came over to me and said that Donald Donald Trump had requested that I perform oral sex on him um and and never I'd never done something like that with anybody so I was a little nervous um so I walked up to him uh and and he was standing sitting there very proud like and I just kind of moved in that direction and he kind of slapped me away and said what are you doing you know you need to put a condom on like I was some like dirty filter or something without a condom and Tiffany ran over um and handed him a you know me a condom and apologized you know profusely and said that would never happen again um that that and she looked at me and and scolded me basically like a child and said that that's not how you know Donald Trump always you know any time you touch his penis it needs to have a condom on or glove you know you owe and especially when it comes performing oral sex so um I apologized and then um I performed oral sex on him and once again once he was done he hopped up and that's the last I saw of him at that party it's like once he's done out so okay okay sometimes before the I some of the things that I noticed that were weird with him was sometimes before the parties he would come over um and him Jeffrey Epstein and himself would kind of banter back and forth and he was very uh Donald Trump was very racist he said a lot of racist things like there was uh there was a lot of comments um towards Mr Epstein about you know being Jewish um and you called him a Jew bastard you know so that he was Chap and there was some words I didn't even understand something about um his his P you know the shape of his penis um being directly related to his mole or I mean I'm I'm not too familiar with the Jew you know the Jewish tradition so but I'm pretty sure that whatever he was saying wasn't very nice um also referred to you know people of Hispanic or you know Hispanic n they called him spicks um was that was around the first time that the World Trade Center had gotten the bombed in the in the '90s um and he was you know talking about the towel heads and how you know we would just be better off if we you know uh didn't let him in or you know basically got rid of everyone every single one that was already here and I thought I just that it made me really uncomfortable really really uncomfortable he also loved to to call black people um [ __ ] and he um Arabic people he called sand [ __ ] um the only time that um that he tried to give me some money was the last our last encounter together um where he acted out of rape fantasy um it just um I was forced to I was forced to give that money back because uh Jeffrey Epstein paid us um after the party so but he just gave me the money I I don't even know why he gave it to me maybe to make me feel more cheap but it was um it was a pretty I it was a rap fantasy to him but I I wasn't playing so there was those there was those two times um and then there was after the next the next thing that was that Tiffany approaching with was that he had a fantasy where he walked in on his maid um Maids basically making out and that he it was some type of fantasy for him so she asked I mean I was at that point I was like I don't want to be involved with anything that has to do with him but she's like you were just basically the the other one so there's nothing that you will have to do just don't you know just he wants he's requesting you to be involved so um I reluctantly I mean I don't I I felt like I didn't have a choice there but um it was basically he's walking in his two Maids I was one of the maids I was the white maid and there was um a Spanish girl U Maria who was the Hispanic maid and we were making out and he walks in and he gets really angry and threatens to send call Immigration on Maria if she doesn't come over and make things right and give him a [ __ ] so while she is over there giving him a [ __ ] I am just look trying to you know I'm supposed to look scared like oh oh no you know and you cleaning try to cleaning up things and pretending like I'm trying to go back to my job as a maid um and then he he's being so rude to Maria I felt so bad for her um even though I guess it just didn't seem like a fantasy it didn't it didn't seem like it it's the weirdest fantasy as far as that you know he was threatening he was threatening to call Immigration on her you know so that she didn't know how to you know she went to she wasn't even near going down to give him um perform oral sex on him before he slapped her away and said you know what are you doing you know you need to put a condom on and and she's trying to M you know I'm so sorry and he's like you can't even can't even understand what you're saying you know just you speak English you know called her derogatory um comments um and then he's like you know what you don't know what you're doing have her come over and show you how it's done and so I again I said that I didn't you know I had to go over there or else he was going to call Immigration on Maria I didn't know if it was true or not but I felt that you know he said that if I wasn't if I didn't show her how to perform oral sex on him then he was going to um call Immigration on her and then get rid of us both you know it was anything that was in relation to him getting off or being satisfied or happy had to do with him being in power but extreme power and it's it's very um it's very hard to even it was it was always intimidating when he was like that it was always you didn't really know if it is true or I mean like if you refuse to play along would he really call Immigration on Maria would he really get rid of us both and I didn't even want to know what that meant you know I always didn't it wasn't a game it just felt like it wasn't a game yeah the one night that I had the blonde wig on um he mentioned that I looked like you know I looked like to you know that I reminded him of his daughter um and actually the the the maid fantasy I didn't have a blonde wig on I was trying to stay away from blonde wigs since the time but he actually requested told Tiffany that that's what he wanted me to wear like he wanted it and he's and anytime I put it on anytime I had it on and he'd see me he would say oh man you look just and it wasn't like a oh you remind me of my daughter it was this sick evil like H you remind me of my daughter it was just this weird pleasure sick smile like I I don't even want to know what he was thinking about I I could imagine what he was thinking about after the parties would end uh we were to report to Mr Epstein and basically tell him everything that happened uh with who um what they liked what they disliked if there was any requests if there was any um talk about anything uh that's what you know we told Mr abstein everything and then he paid us and then we got to go home and most with me you know I would either you know I normally got taken taken to the airport you know so to go back home the fact that Trump has a chance to be the next president makes me feel disgusting inside I've always been proud to be an American I think we live in a beautiful country but I just see him ruining everything he's a horrible what he portrays on the outside isn't even that great but people don't even know the half of how evil how sick and twisted that man is I have a friend that's been my friend ever since the school year that I stopped going you know the the eighth grade I confided her and she knows all about it she knows everything I mean I I destroyed everything of like you know any planes to I didn't I couldn't risk my my dad finding out um and now I think I'm old enough to where I think I don't think you I at that point I didn't want to not be his little girl you know I didn't want to lose my dad basically I I any I would never uh as far as keeping proof of any of the trips um the only person I never told my parents you know I there would be no happy you know there would be no good outcome of telling my parents you know they would have grounded me um I would have never been allowed of the house you know my my father would have come unglued um I did tell a friend my best she's still my best friend of this day she knows everything she knows it all I'm prepared to do whatever it takes to save the country that I believe that we have I know what he does behind P like closed doors like if it if that's all I'm willing to sacrifice my life to put our country back to in the right like going maybe in some type of positive direction not even there's no right or wrong but a positive direction this guy's not going to take us anywhere positive you know as far as um my life changing by coming out with this information I've thought long and hard about um whether or not I should uh and I've gone back and forth um but I think that I I can't I think that the American people need to know what kind of man this person is um and if my life changes because of that then so be it but the American people need to know what they're dealing with if I had the chance to talk to Donald Trump I would run the other way I'm scared of him like I've never been scared of any anything else in my entire life I I I can't I can't explain it to you but I just the fear of him even being in the Next Room make I have a panic I would have I have a panic attack um the last encounter that I had with Donald Trump um Tiffany approached me about um a rape scene that was supposed to be played out and I didn't like I didn't like the sound of that at all but um Tiffany prom ured me that it wasn't going to be if I if it was anything I wasn't comfortable with we could stop um that she would be right there and that um it would it wouldn't get out of it wouldn't get out of hand and that um it was just it was a fantasy like it wasn't really going to happen um and so she I told her that I would uh she she basically I mean Tiffany was always nice to me she wasn't that I felt I trusted her else I you know and I wouldn't always trusted her or done what she asked me to but um she was there and uh he came in and I was basically tied to a bed um with panty hose uh and he tied him there were so tied I could it hurt to even like lay there and I tried to you know triy to say something and it was like you know he's just you know shut up you shut up [ __ ] you know this is was basically like he was he was being really really rough and and I understand I don't I mean just didn't seem like a fantasy um and I started to get scared and and he was you know basically like ripping my clothes off and and I was actually really I started I got freaked out and um I told him that I didn't want to do this I was you know I screamed over for Tiffany you she was like Mr Trump she's only you know she's not she's this is scaring her and he's like oh you shut up too he just turned into this animal it was like a completely different um completely compl different person um it was like everyone in the room was scared of him and uh I was um it was like I uh I couldn't do anything about it and he ripped off all my clothes and he started to basically have sex with me and I screaming cuz I'd never had sex before it was my first time and Tiffany was yelling at him too she she was saying I was a virgin and he told us to just shut the [ __ ] up and just basically took my virginity while I was crying and telling him to stop and that's basically begging for him to just stop uh and I don't I Tiffany was didn't know what else to do either she no one was there to help us or me um and [Music] so so after the fact he he he basically finishes it you know didn't it didn't take that long um at all I mean it but it was just it felt like it was like 5 and 1 half hours like it was a eternity like I don't even know how long it was but um he was done and I was crying and Tiffany was Consulting me and she was you know apologizing she told me that she would never she didn't she just never put me in that situation again but uh he comes over mad because I was crying and so that I should be thankful that someone like Donald Trump took my virginity but he basically didn't say took my virginity he said I should be glad that someone like Donald Trump popped my cherry and not some pimply little 14-year-old and I just was like What if I I I said what if I get pregnant not even talking to him I didn't want to talk to him I was talking to Tiffany and he said well you'll get an abortion then [ __ ] and then just walked away um and I I I asked I I I went I told Tiffany I needed to go home I never went back again I guess um I guess it's for you to decide you know I mean if I don't have any kids myself um because I'm afraid to have kids because I who knows what kind of damage they can get into but if you have a 13-year-old daughter and you're I mean would you be okay with the person person who's running our country doing that to your little girl and I just I don't know I just want people to know I think that I I have I have a faith in our in our society that we'll make the right choice he seemed to be taking uh great pleasure and like dominance and control and and just the more I screamed the more I got scared the more he was enraged and like power enraged with power and and it was like he was just charged with it it was scary my experience um with Donald Trump and has made it to where um I I can't be in a healthy relationship much less I can't be in a relationship without um without myself sabotaging it I don't um I don't do well I I mean I I've I've been in I've been in a couple of relationships I mean they never of interest to me normally but one in particular that was a a wonderful he was a wonderful man and I completely knowing I I I I had like subconsciously it I couldn't even control myself it was like I had to get him out of my life because you know I don't I don't know why it was like anytime anyone loves me I don't feel worth it or you know um I've I mean i' I don't even know how to explain it like I can't friends I can have acquaintance that guys that are acquaintances but I just you know anytime it's maybe someone express any else besides that I can't I take some type of pleasure not some type of I don't take pleasure in it but subconsciously whether I mean to or not sometimes I've meant to it's like i' i' I've purposely hurt their feelings um just so they'll never talk to me again like I make sure that it's not ever a possibility and Donald Trump Donald Trump destroyed my feeling of selfworth and my self-esteem when it was still like when it was when it just bloomed it hadn't even had a chance to experience anything um I have I have only spoken to to one therapist about this just recently actually um I for the long time I just really just tried to forget about it just tried very hard but um I've been to counseling for other things um and I went to counseling for a previous the previous relationship that I was sabotaging and my counselor said something has happened to you that where you were just you need to deal with that that's actually what kind of was like hm he knew that there was something that had happened where I was self self Saab you know sabotaging these relationships but you know he said that it was my responsibility to deal with it of course uh this the situation with Donald Trump has has left it destroyed my self-esteem and and it's made it to where I feel like it's destroyed part of my life um I haven't the only he healthy relationship I've completely demolished um and I love to choose the dysfunctional ones that I know I can just push away uh he after what happened with him I can't trust a man ever again I thinking about it just makes me sick to my stomach someone when something so traumatic happens to someone that's so young you never ever really get over it
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Release the Epstein Files.
The Old Wolf has spoken, but Katie has spoken more loudly, and her words need to reverberate around the world until these child rapists are brought to justice.
This amazingly on-target video was created by Instagram user @somethingblackmade. It’s fairly long, so if you prefer to read instead of watching, here’s a full transcript of what he says.
It’s a challenge to the alt-right to really think about what they’re saying when they call for the death of anyone who disrespects the murder of Charlie Kirk.
Note: I do not condone political violence of any sort against any person. Civil disobedience, resisting, and protesting are not political violence.
White Conservatives, I get you now.
The double standard and selective outrage.
I understand it, now I get it.
Y’all can’t stand the mirror that’s been put in front of your face.
All of the [censored] that y’all have been serving for the last few decades now against minority communities, y’all can’t stand having to look at it when it affects you.
See that’s the thing, I finally get it. It took me a lot of time because I’m thinking, “Why are people reacting so violently to this?” And it reminds me of the very first event that I had when I was escaping the alt-right pipeline and changing my mindset of that; [it] was that anger and violence. Because here’s the thing, here’s the thing you really don’t understand because you refuse to put yourself in other people’s shoes and actually be empathetic to other people’s situations.
How do y’all think the Black community has felt for the last five years¹ since George Floyd has died? All the memes y’all shared about that? How do you think they felt about all the memes about Breanna Taylor – you know, the woman who was gunned down in her sleep during a no-knock raid?
How do you think the Latino community has felt with y’all cheering Trump for his deportation efforts and buying merch for Alligator Alcatraz and egging it on that human suffering is a great thing for this country?
How do you think that the gay community felt with all the jokes y’all made about the Pulse nightclub shooting a few years back in Orlando that killed 50+ people in like a predominantly gay club? You are truly experiencing for the first time how it tastes.
The hatred you have been spilling out of your guts for years finally comes back at you and that’s the thing you don’t like.
But you know what the funny thing about all of it is? Where’s the black community calling for war with how you’ve treated them? Where’s the Latino community going up in arms and calling for war – and no, fighting off ICE and protesting, that is not war, that is civil disobedience – and that is our First Amendment right. But calling for the death of innocent civilians because they make jokes about a dead man who spent his entire political career actively making these communities worse with his rhetoric, and their situations worse, where’s their calls for war?
See, you’re just now kind of coming out of the illusion that your hatred and bigotry, that you claim is “free speech,” is free of consequences from the actions of what you just said because you only ever say it online, because when you do say it to someone’s face you almost always outnumber them five to one; you almost always catch people in situations where they are at a disadvantage, so when you say these things you’re protected.
But now with Charlie and his situation you’re having to come to reality for the first time of the vile and awful things that you believe in, and you don’t like it. You’re having to eat that. You’re having to stare that in the face. And what’s your first response? To be violent and angry to innocent people. Because you scream that “everyone’s entitled to their opinion.” You love dark humor but the second you see people making jokes about Charlie Kirk being gone, “Oh, that’s too far!” Oh, that’s too far?
The Hallowe’en costumes of George Floyd being strangled to death? Let’s not even glaze over the fact that I’m seeing a bunch of posts saying “Congratulations George Floyd for being five years sober.” Because he’s dead. But now you want us to care. You’re now noticing just how little actual emotion, like how little actual empathy and sympathy exist amongst your own ranks. Because the funniest thing about this entire situation is the fact that it was one of your own that killed him.
It was a 22-year-old white kid from Utah who came from a conservative GOP family that love Trump, and he was a registered Republican. [Fact Check: the shooter himself was not affiliated with either party, and did not participate in the last two elections, but his family did glorify firearms.]
So if you really, really, really think you want war or bloodshed with innocent people, how about you look in a mirror, and won’t you sit there for a few days and actually digest and break down your beliefs? Because I’m sure it’s screaming at you from the inside. I remember feeling that a long when I was younger and in the alt-right. When there’s this interior voice that is screaming at the things you are saying and doing are wrong, but you don’t care because it’s getting you brownie points with the people around you because you’ve surrounded yourself with hateful people.
How about you actually – actually think – for a few days on your politics and your beliefs. Because at the moment, y’all are disgusting. Y’all call us disgusting for celebrating Charlie Kirk’s death, well, we think you’re disgusting because really Charlie Kirk is no different than any child that has been shot in school for the last [censored] two decades. [Emphasis mine]
The things we have been trying to prevent, the things we’ve been trying to stop, the pain that these incidents cause families, how about you think about which side you’ve been fighting on that for a while.
Charlie Kirk was a human being with a family and friends and loved ones, and they are understandably sad and angry and outraged about their loss. I have nothing but condolences for them. But it must be remembered that Charlie Kirk preached, publicly and repeatedly, some terrible things. Things that a true follower of Christ would never espouse, things that a compassionate person would repudiate entirely, and in the end, those things came back to bite him.
MAGA have found a martyr for their cause, and they will politicize his death to the utter hilt… but God forbid any liberal should do the same. The sad fact remains that if there is political violence in this country, the vast, vast majority of it has been perpetrated by the right wing of the Republican Party. And you wonder why?
I found this beautiful and comforting. “Elohai neshamah shenatata bi tehorah hi” is the beginning of a traditional prayer recited upon awakening – it translates roughly as “God, the soul You have given me is pure.”
For some background, the full Hebrew prayer is below, found here:
Elohai n’shamah shenatata bi t’horah hi.
My God, the soul You have given me is pure.
Atah v’rataH,
For You created it,
atah y’tzartaH,
You formed it,
atah n’fachtaH bi,
You made it live within me [breathed it into me].
v’atah m’shamraH b’kirbi,
And you watch over / preserve it within me,
v’atah atid lit’laH mimeni ul’hachaziraH bi leatid lavo.
and/but one day, You will take it from me and restore it in the time to come.
It is interesting to me that this prayer by Rabbi Keller reflects a core plot point in The Chosen, the seminal novel by Chaim Potok. In it, one of the protagonists is raised by his father, a rabbi, in silence (i.e. without non-essential communication or fatherly affection). The father later goes on to explain:
“Ah, what a price to pay…. The years when he was a child and I loved him and talked with him and held him under my tallis when I prayed…. ‘Why do you cry, Father?’ he asked me once under the tallis. ‘Because people are suffering,’ I told him. He could not understand. Ah, what it is to be a mind without a soul, what ugliness it is…. Those were the years he learned to trust me and love me…. And when he was older, the years I drew myself away from him. ‘Why have you stopped answering my questions, Father?’ he asked me once. ‘You are old enough to look into your own soul for the answers,’ I told him. He laughed once and said, “That man is such an ignoramus, Father.’ I was angry. ‘Look into his soul,’ I said. ‘Stand inside his soul and see the world through his eyes. You will know the pain he feels because of his ignorance, and you will not laugh.’ He was bewildered and hurt. The nightmares he began to have…. But he learned to find answers for himself. He suffered and learned to listen to the suffering of others. In the silence between us, he began to hear the world crying.“
This novel, and this passage in particular, always touched me deeply. I was moved to hear the sentiment expressed in a modern prayer for peace, but also for compassion and compassionate action.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
Footnotes:
¹ This line reflects the prayer Modeh/Moda ani, which is recited upon awakening and before getting out of bed. “As this prayer does not include any of the names of God, observant Jews may recite it before washing their hands.” In Talmudic times, Jews traditionally recited Elohai Neshamah upon waking. The prayer was later moved to the morning synagogue services. (Wikipedia)
When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for a people to break from a leader who governs with cruelty, contempt, and corruption, a decent respect to the opinions of humankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all people are created equal, endowed with inherent dignity and unalienable rights—among these are life, liberty, equality, and the pursuit of justice.
That to secure these rights, governments derive their power from the consent of the governed. When a leader becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right and duty of the people to refuse allegiance and to stand united in the defense of their freedoms.
The current holder of high office has shown himself to be unfit to lead a free and just society.
* He disrespects women, mocking survivors of violence and stripping away their rights.
* He fuels racism and white supremacy, scapegoating communities of color and denying their equality.
* He assaults free speech, attacking the press, punishing dissent, and spreading disinformation.
* He exploits public office for private gain, enriching himself and the billionaire class while abandoning the poor and working people.
* He undermines justice, ignores the rule of law, and places himself above accountability.
* He disregards science, endangering lives in times of crisis and sacrificing the planet for profit.
* He fans division and incites violence to maintain power, wielding fear as a weapon against the people.
Time and again, we have protested peacefully, spoken truthfully, and appealed to our shared humanity. We have been met with indifference, hostility, and violence. A leader who governs through hatred and greed is unfit to govern at all.
Therefore, we, the people of conscience and conviction, do solemnly declare our independence from this tyrant and all he represents.
We withdraw our consent.
We refuse to be complicit in cruelty.
We reject the abuse of power for personal gain.
We stand for dignity, truth, equality, and justice for all people.
With firm reliance on each other and unwavering hope in our collective strength,
We pledge to resist oppression in all its forms,
To uphold the rights of the vulnerable,
And to build a future grounded in compassion, courage, and shared humanity.
Let this declaration be both a breaking and a beginning.
Found at Closer to the Edge on Substack. Worth reading, worth remembering, worth sharing.
SECTION I: THE PREAMBLE
When in the course of human events, a government abandons its duty and weaponizes its power against the people it was meant to serve, it becomes the right, and the obligation, of the people to resist.
We are not radicals. We are not extremists. We are not ungrateful.
We are citizens who have watched our leaders celebrate the suffering of others, legislate away human dignity, and laugh as they strip healthcare from the sick and food from the hungry. We have waited. We have hoped. We have pleaded for decency.
But the government of the United States, as it now stands under President Donald J. Trump, no longer serves the public good.
It does not preserve life—it endangers it.
It does not secure liberty—it undermines it.
It does not promote happiness—it enshrines cruelty.
This is not the product of incompetence. It is intentional. He governs with malice. He legislates with vengeance. He drapes himself in flags and lies and calls it patriotism, while millions bleed beneath the weight of his policies.
We do not rise today to tear this country down.
We rise to tear it back from those who have hijacked it.
We rise not in rebellion against America, but in defense of its soul.
Read the remainder at Closer to the Edge, and do all you can to resist the fascism of this illegitimate administration.
Keen and on-point video discussion about the psychology of Trump voters by “jayneconverse3,” self-described “Political junkie, history teacher, disgusted American.” The original video is here, in case you’d like to listen to her.
I’ve been dying to dig into this. I’ve been asking myself why Trump’s followers can’t see reality. So I did my research, and I’m going to share it with you.
Let’s talk about the psychology behind the Trump Cult, because that’s what it is. It’s not a normal political movement anymore, it’s a cult of peronality and if we want to fight it, we have to understand it. So, let’s break it down.
First, Trump doesn’t offer policies, he offers identity. He’s not popular because of what he does, but because of what he represents. To many of his followers, he’s a walking, talking middle finger to a system they believe has failed them.¹
They see him as “their guy,” not because he’s honest, not because he helps them, but because he talks like them, rages like them, and punches the people they’ve been told to blame for everything.²
In psychology, there’s a term for this: “Identity fusion.” It’s when your personal identity becomes fused with your group or leader. That’s why criticism of Trump feels like a personal attack to his supporters. It’s not just “he’s being criticized,” it’s “I’m being criticized.”
Second, he offers revenge, not solutions. He doesn’t promise to fix healthcare, or raise wages, or protect your rights; he promises to go after “them.” Whether it’s immigrants, the press, Black activists, LGBTQ people, liberals, college students, elites, anyone outside the tribe… that’s classic authoritarianism.
Give people a sense of loss, tell them who stole it, then promise to make them pay. And to some people, that rage, that promise of vengeance is more emotionally satisfying than actual policy. It doesn’t fix their problems, but it feels like power.
Third: People crave order, and Trump promises strength. When institutions fail, when you don’t trust the media, the courts, elections, schools³, you start to look for a savior: Someone who says, “Only I can fix it.” That’s why Trump acts like a strong man. He creates the crisis, then sells himself as the only one tough enough to stop it. He’s done that over and over and over again. He’s not leading a movement, he’s leading a dependency.
Fourth: His follwers are trapped in an information bubble. They don’t just believe lies, they live inside them. Fox News, MAGA influencers, far-right churches, Trump’s own app Truth Social is a closed-loop ecosystem that tells them every day, “The elites hate you, the media lies, only Trump tells the truth.” ⁴ This is called “epistemic closure.” It’s cult logic. If Trump says it, it’s true. If the world says otherwise, the world is lying.
And then fifth: Shame is too powerful, so they double down, just like Trump does. Some Trump supporters know deep down that they’ve been conned. They’ve seen the cruelty, the corruption, the chaos, but they’ve already invested years of their identity into defending him.⁵ To walk away now would mean confronting shame, losing their community, admitting they were wrong, and that’s terrifying to them, so instead they dig in deeper.
And finally, and this one matters, Trump makes them feel seen. He tells them, “They’re not after me, they’re after you. I’m just in the way.” That line is emotional manipulation, but it works… because for millions of people who feel ignored, dismissed, mocked by elites, Trump says, “You matter. You’re not crazy, they are.” He gives them belonging, and in a country where loneliness is rising and inequality is everywhere, belonging is everything.
So when people ask, “Why do people love him? Why would they follow him off a cliff?” it’s not just politics, it’s psychology, it’s identity, and it’s fear. This is deliberate. Trump didn’t create the cult, he just saw the cracks in our society and weaponized them.
But here’s the thing: not everyone in that cult is unreachable. Some are too far gone, but others are on the edge, quiet, doubting, hurting. We don’t get them back with facts, we get them back by offering something Trump never will: real community, real care, and real solutions. Because people don’t join cults when they are happy and secure. They join when they are scared, isolated, and desperate for meaning.
So here’s your call to action: Keep speaking truth, keep exposing the con, and when you can, offer people a way out that doesn’t begin with shame, but with dignity. This fight isn’t just about defeating Trump, it’s about breaking the spell and building something better in it’s place. That’s how we get them in, that’s how we get them to abandon him.
Let’s do it.
There is one other thing I would like to add to this salient analysis, and that’s a mini-essay by someone who goes by the handle “xenophonsXyphos.” It dovetails nicely with what Ms. Jayne has said above, and really should be considered if we want to understand the mentality of the MAGA cult. Their statement has been mildly censored for a family-friendly audience:
You all don’t get it. I live in Trump country, in the Ozarks in southern Missouri, one of the last places where the KKK still has a relatively strong established presence. They don’t care what he does. He’s just something to rally around and hate liberals, that’s it, period. He absolutely realizes that and plays it up, they love it, he knows they love it, and the fact that people act like it’s anything other than that just proves that liberals are idiots, all the more reason for high fives all around.
If you keep getting caught up in why do they not realize blah blah blah and how can they still back him after blah blah blah, you are not understanding what is the underlying motivating factor of his support. It’s much it. 🤬 liberals, that’s pretty much it.
Have you noticed he can do pretty much anything imaginable and they’ll explain some way that rationalizes it that makes zero logical sense? Because they’re not even keeping track of any logical narrative, it’s irrelevant, 🤬 liberals is the only relevant thing, trust me, I know first hand what I’m talking about. That’s why they just laugh at it all, because you all don’t even realize they really truly don’t give a 🤬 about whatever the conversation is about, it’s just a side-mission story that doesn’t really matter anyways. That’s all just trivial details the economy, health care, whatever. 🤬 liberals.
Look at the thing with not wearing the masks. I can tell you what that’s about. It’s about exposing fear. They’re playing chicken with nature and whoever flinches just moved down their internal pecking order, one step closer to being a liberal.
You gotta understand the one core value that they hold above all others is hatred for what they consider weakness, because that’s what they believe strength is, hatred for weakness. And I mean passionate, sadistic hatred. And I’m not exaggerating. Believe me. Sadistic, passionate hatred, and that’s what proves they’re strong, their passionate hatred for weakness. Sometimes they lump in vulnerability, a compromised circumstance, or an overwhelming circumstance in their with weakness, too, because people tend to start humbling themselves when they’re in those circumstances and that’s an obvious sign of weakness.
Kindness = weakness. Honesty = weakness. Compromise = weakness. They consider their very existence to be superior every way to anyone who doesn’t hate weakness as much as they do. They consider liberals to be weak people that are inferior, almost a different species, and the fact that liberals are so weak is why they have to unite in large numbers, which they find disgusting, but it’s that disgust that is a true expression of their natural superiority.
Go ahead and try to have a logical, rational conversation with them though. Just keep in mind what I said here and think about it.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
Footnotes
¹ Much of that belief stems from 60 years of GOP disinformation and jingoism from people like Nixon, Reagan, Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, and others.
² From a New York Times article on Jackson County Florida: “A few miles away, another prison employee, Crystal Minton, accompanied her fiancé to a friend’s house to help clear the remnants of a metal roof mangled by the hurricane. Ms. Minton, a 38-year-old secretary, said she had obtained permission from the warden to put off her Mississippi duty until early February because she is a single mother caring for disabled parents. Her fiancé plans to take vacation days to look after Ms. Minton’s 7-year-old twins once she has to go to work.The shutdown on top of the hurricane has caused Ms. Minton to rethink a lot of things.”I voted for him, and he’s the one who’s doing this,” she said of Mr. Trump. “I thought he was going to do good things. He’s not hurting the people he needs to be hurting.”
This is representative of the mindset of many Trump voters: He needs to hurt Democrats and Liberals.
³ See Footnote 1
⁴ This meme has been circulating for some time, but it says basically the same thing.
Recently a cousin of mine posted this on Facebook:
This put me in mind of something I once saw years and years ago, and have never again been able to find. On June 8, 2007, artist Norm Feuti published this strip on his now – tragically – ended webcomic, “Retail:”
I only discovered this wonderful webcomic a few years before its end, but thanks to Feuti’s preserving the entire run, I was able to go back and peruse the entire archive. In 2021 I commented:
At some point I read about a Chinese restaurant – it may have been in Canada – that drew customers by having fortune cookies with awful fortunes. The two I remember were “Dental work will be done poorly, and you will have to go back,” and “Your fetish for rubber underwear will cause you great embarrassment in public.” I would pay to eat at a place like that, but I guess the schtick was only effective for a while.
What a hoot. I wish the Internet could remember the original article I saw, and provide information about where that place was. But my opinion remains the same – I would drive miles to eat at a restaurant like that, just for the gallows humor. “Circling the drain” is an insufficient metaphor for what is happening in America right now – we’re already past the P-trap and halfway to the sewage treatment plant. In addition to the “Hands Off” protests of April 5, 2025 and more planned demonstrations on April 19th, and writing and calling representatives in Congress, sometimes a good dose of dark humor helps to ease the pain of a nation’s Democracy going up in flames.
While the restaurant I mentioned – and it was a real thing, because otherwise where would I have learned of these “bad fortune cookies” – is no more, you can get some evil fortunes of your own over at FAL.net, and some New Year’s-themed (for 1998) versions here.
This year, people will stop judging you by your appearance and dislike you for who you are on the inside.
You will be reminded of your historic visit to the Oval Office by painful rug burns.
Your long time skin problems will be corrected by an ordinary cheese grater.
Success will never change you. You’ll always be a bastard.
These are so great. But all kidding aside, it is my sincere hope and prayer that somehow, enough people can rise up to throw off the yoke of hateful ChristoFascist autocracy that Donald Trump, Elon Musk, MAGA, the Heritage Foundation, and the Freedom Caucus in Congress is imposing upon our government, for the exclusive benefit of the “broligarchs” – the white, wealthy, Protestant, male, cisgendered minority who want to control our nation with an iron fist for their own enrichment, keeping Liberals, people of color, the LGBTQIA+ community, immigrants, Jews, and other “undesirables” in their “proper place:”
Apologies to the Harry Potter franchise
Our nation deserves better. Its citizens deserve better. We must absolutely keep fighting, because as someone (attributed to Ben Franklin, but probably not) observed, “We must hang together, or we will assuredly all hang separately.”
To end on a less grim note, a thought from Kate Allan (@thelatestkate):
Note: This post is public. If you don’t like what’s being said here, leave your thoughts on your own wall. Comments supportive of MAGA, the GOP, or the Oligarchy will be summarily deleted.
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A few hours ago on the floor of the Senate, Bernie Sanders torched billionaires, scorched Trump, and burned every shred of political cowardice in his path.
Here is his fiery speech, word for word:
“Mr. President,
In the last couple of weeks, I’ve had the opportunity to travel in many parts of our country. And I have been able to talk to folks in Nebraska, in Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada, Colorado, and Arizona. And what I am hearing from in all of these states and in fact all over the country is that our nation right now faces enormous crises, unprecedented crises in the modern history of our country.
And how right now at this moment we respond to these crises will not only impact our lives, it will impact the lives of our kids and future generations. And in terms of climate change, the well-being of the entire planet.
And Mr. President, what I have to tell you is that the American people are angry at what is happening here in Washington, DC and they are prepared to stand up and fight back. In my view and what I have heard from many, many people is that they will not accept an oligarchic form of society where a handful of billionaires control our government, where the wealthiest person on Earth, Mr. Musk, is running all over Washington, DC slashing the Social Security Administration so that our elderly people today are finding it extremely difficult to access the benefits that they paid into.
Where Mr. Musk and his friends are slashing the Veterans Administration so that people who put their lives on the line to defend us will not be able to get the health care that they are entitled to or get the benefits that they are owed in a timely manner. Slashing the Department of Education. Slashing USAID.
And why is all of this slashing taking place? It is taking place so that the wealthiest people in this country can receive over $1 trillion dollars in tax breaks.
Now, I don’t care if you are a Democrat, a Republican, or an Independent. There are very few people in this country who think that you slash programs that working families desperately need in order to give tax breaks to billionaires.
Mr. President, I am the former chair of the U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, and I have had the honor of meeting with veterans in my own state of Vermont—all over Vermont—but all over the country. These are the men and women who put the uniform of this country on and have been prepared to die to defend our nation and American democracy.
And these veterans and Americans all over our nation will not accept an authoritarian form of society with a president who undermines our Constitution every day. Every day there’s something else out there where he’s undermining our Constitution and threatening the very foundations of American democracy. That is not what people fought and died to allow to happen.
Mr. President, I am not a historian, but I do know that the founding fathers of this country were no dummies. They were really smart guys. And in the 1780s, they wrote a Constitution and established a form of government with a separation of powers.
A separation of powers—with an executive branch, the president; a legislative branch, the Congress; and a judicial branch.
These revolutionaries in the 1780s had just fought a war against the imperial rule of the King of England who was an absolute dictator, the most powerful person on Earth. And these revolutionaries here in America forming a new government wanted to make absolutely sure that no one person in this brand new country that they were forming would have unlimited powers.
And that is why we have a separation of powers. That is why we have a judiciary, a Congress, and an executive branch. In other words, way back in the 1780s, they wrote a Constitution to prevent exactly what Donald Trump is trying to do today.
So, let us be clear about what is going on. Donald Trump is attacking our First Amendment and is trying to intimidate the media and those who speak out against him in an absolutely unprecedented way.
Mr. President, he has sued ABC, CBS, Meta, the Des Moines Register. His FCC is now threatening to investigate NPR and PBS. He has called CNN and MSNBC “illegal.”
In other words, the leader—or the so-called leader—of the free world is afraid of freedom. He doesn’t like criticism. Well, guess what? None of us like criticism. But you don’t get elected to the Senate, you don’t get elected to the House, you don’t become a governor, you don’t become a president of the United States unless you are prepared to deal with that criticism.
And the response to that criticism in a democracy is not to sue the media, is not to intimidate the media. It’s to respond in the way you think best.
But Mr. President, it is not just the media that Trump is going after. He is going after the constitutional responsibilities that this body, the United States Congress, has. And I will say it amazes me, it really does, how easily my Republican colleagues here in the Senate and in the House are willing to surrender their constitutional responsibilities. Give it over to the president.
Trump has illegally and unconstitutionally withheld funds that Congress has appropriated. You can’t do that. Congress has the power of the purse. We make a decision. We argue about it here. Big debates, vote-aras, the whole thing. Make that decision. That money goes out. The president does not have the right to withhold funds that Congress has appropriated.
Trump has illegally and unconstitutionally decimated agencies that can only be changed or reformed by Congress. You don’t like the Department of Education, you don’t like USAID, fine. Come to the Congress. Tell us what reforms you want to see. You do not have the right to unilaterally do away with these agencies.
Trump has fired members of independent agencies and inspectors general that he does not have the authority to do.
But Mr. President, it is not just the media that he is trying to intimidate. It is not just the powers of Congress that he wants.
Now, in an absolutely outrageous, unconstitutional and extraordinarily dangerous way, he is going after the judiciary. His view is that if you don’t like a decision that a judge renders, you get rid of that judge. You try to impeach that judge. You intimidate judges so that you get the decisions that you want.
You know, I’m thinking back now as someone who is not a supporter of the Roberts court, and I’m thinking about one of the worst Supreme Court decisions that has ever been rendered—that is Citizens United. I’ll say more about that in a moment. And I’m thinking about the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, taking away American women’s right to control their own bodies.
In my view, these were outrageous decisions, unpopular decisions. But it never occurred to me, because maybe I’m old-fashioned and conservative, and I believe that you live by the rule of law, to say, “Hey, look at the decision Roberts made. We’re going to impeach him.”
No, we try to elect a new president who’s going to appoint new Supreme Court justices. That is the system that people have fought and died to defend.
But it’s not just the movement toward oligarchy, which is outraging millions of Americans—Democrats and Republicans, by the way—and it’s not just the movement toward authoritarianism that we are seeing. The American people, especially with Mr. Musk and 13 billionaires in the Trump administration running agency after agency…
The American people are saying as loudly as they can that they will not accept a society of massive economic and wealth inequalities, where the very richest people in our country are becoming much richer while working families are struggling to put food on the table.
Having gone all over this country, I can tell you that the American people are sick and tired of these inequalities and they want an economy that works for all of us—not just the 1%.
You know, Mr. President, we deal with a whole lot of stuff here in the Congress, and you know, virtually all of it is important in one way or another.
But let’s do something, you know, fairly radical today. Let’s try to tell the truth—the real truth—about what is going on in our society today. Something that we don’t talk about too much here in the Senate. We don’t talk about it too much in the House. We don’t talk about it too much in the corporate media.
But the reality is that today we have two Americas. Two very, very different Americas.
And in one of those Americas, the wealthiest people have never ever had it so good. In the whole history of our country, the people on top have never ever had it so good as they have it today.
Today, we have more income and wealth inequality than there has ever been in the history of America. Now, I know we don’t discuss it. You don’t see it much on TV. You don’t hear it talked about here at all. But the American people do not believe that it is appropriate that three people—one, two, three—Mr. Musk, Mr. Bezos, and Mr. Zuckerberg, three Americans, own more wealth than the bottom half of American society. 170 million people. Really? Three people own more wealth than 170 million people? Anybody here think that is vaguely appropriate?
And by the way, those very same three people—the three richest people in America—were right there at Trump’s inaugural, standing right behind the president. So, you want to know what oligarchy is? I know there’s some confusion out there. What is oligarchy? Well, it starts off when you have the three wealthiest people in the country standing right behind the president when he gets inaugurated.
The top 1% in our country now own more wealth than the bottom 90%.
CEOs make 300 times more than their average worker.
And unbelievably—real inflation-accounted-for wages today—the average American worker, if you can believe it, despite a massive increase in worker productivity, is lower today than it was 52 years ago. And during that period, there was a $75 trillion transfer of wealth that went from the bottom 90% to the top 1%. That is the reality of the American economy today. And you know what? Maybe we might want to be talking about that.
And in our America today, in that top America, that one America, the 1% are completely separate and isolated from the rest of the country. You think they get on a subway to get to work? Think they sit in a traffic jam for an hour trying to get to work? Not the case.
They fly around in the jets and the helicopters that they own. They live in their mansions all over the world in their gated communities. They have nannies taking care of their babies. They don’t worry about the cost of child care. And they send their kids to the best private schools and colleges.
Sometimes they vacation not in a Motel 6, not in a national park, but on the very own islands that they have. And on occasion, for the very very richest—just to have for a kick, have a little bit of fun—maybe they’ll spend a few million dollars flying off into space in one of their own spaceships. Sounds like fun.
But it is not just massive income and wealth inequality that we’re dealing with today. We have more concentration of ownership than ever before. While the profits on Wall Street and corporate America soar, a handful of giant corporations dominate sector after sector—whether it’s agriculture, transportation, media, financial services, etc., etc.
Small number of huge corporations—international corporations—dominating sector after sector. And as a result of that concentration of ownership, they are able to charge the American people outrageously high prices for the goods and services we need.
Mr. President, we don’t talk about it too much. Maybe we should. But there are three Wall Street firms—BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street—that combined are the major stockholders in 95% of our corporations. Got that? Three Wall Street firms—three—are the major stockholders in 95% of American corporations.
So, Mr. President, that is one America. People on top doing phenomenally well. Not only do they have economic power, they have enormous political power. That’s what’s going on there. They live like kings. That’s one America.
But there is another America.
And in that other America, 60% of our people are living paycheck to paycheck. And millions of workers from one end of this country to the other are trying to survive on starvation wages.
And unlike Donald Trump, I grew up in a family that lived paycheck to paycheck. And I know the anxieties that my mom and dad had, living in a rent-controlled apartment. Can we afford to buy this? Why did you buy that?
And that’s the story taking place all over America.
What does living paycheck to paycheck mean?
It means that every single day, millions of Americans worry about how they’re going to pay their rent or their mortgage. All over the country, rents are skyrocketing. And people are wondering: What happens—what happens to me and my kids if rent goes up by 20% and I can’t afford it? Where do I live? Do I have to take my kid out of school? Where do I put my kid? In worst case scenario, do I live in my car?
Let’s be clear. There are many people who are working today who are living in the back of their cars.
How do I pay for child care?
I talked to a cop, a guy the other day—a police officer—spending $20,000 a year for child care.
How do I buy decent food for my kids when the price of groceries is off the charts?
What happens if I get sick or my kid gets sick or my mother gets sick and I got a $12,000 deductible and I can’t afford to go to the doctor?
How, at the end of the month, am I going to pay my credit card bill—even though I am being charged 20 or 30% interest rates by the usurious credit card companies?
People are worrying about simple things. What happens if my car breaks down and the guy at the repair shop says it’s going to cost $1,000 and I don’t have $1,000 in the bank? And if I don’t have a car, how do I get to work? And if I don’t get to work, how do I have an income? And if I don’t have an income, how do I take care of my family?
Those are the crises that millions of Americans are experiencing today.
But it’s not just working-age Americans.
Today, in our country, half of older workers—older workers—have nothing in the bank as they face retirement. And they’re watching TV and they’re saying, “Mr. Musk is firing Social Security workers,” and actually worrying whether Social Security will be there for them.
And it’s not just older workers with nothing in the bank wondering what happens when they retire. Twenty-two percent of seniors are trying to survive on $15,000 a year.
I dare anybody in this country—let alone somebody who’s old, who needs health care, needs to keep the house warm—try to survive on $15,000 a year. And there are people here, by the way, talking about cutting Social Security.
Mr. President, it is not just about income and wealth inequality. It is about a health care system which everyone in the nation understands is broken, is dysfunctional, and is outrageously expensive.
I hear my Republican friends—you know, I don’t know where they are today—wanting to destroy the ACA. And my Democratic friends say, “Oh, we got to defend the ACA.” ACA is broken. It doesn’t work.
In my state, the cost of health care is going up 10, 15%. In America today, you got 85 million people uninsured or underinsured.
Function of the health care system today is not to do what a sane society would do—guarantee health care to all people in a cost-effective way—something which, by the way, every other major nation on Earth manages to do.
The function of our health care system, as everybody knows, is to make billions of dollars in profits for the insurance companies and the drug companies.
So I say to my Democratic friends: It’s not good enough to defend the Affordable Care Act. It’s a broken system. You got to have the guts to stand up and allow us to do what every other major nation does—guarantee health care to all people as a human right—not allow the drug companies and the insurance companies to make massive profits every year.
And Mr. President, I want to touch on an issue that gets virtually no discussion, but I think it is enormously important—and it says a hell of a lot about what’s going on in our society today.
In America, according to international studies, our life expectancy—how long we live as a people—is about four years lower than other countries. Most European countries—people there live longer lives. Japan—they live even more longer lives than in Europe.
So, question number one: Why is that happening?
We spend $14,000 a year per person on health care—almost double what any other country spends. And yet people around the world are living, on average, four years longer than we do.
But here is the really ugly fact—even worse than that.
And that is that in this country, on average, if you are a working-class person, you will live seven years shorter lives than if you’re in the top 1%. If you’re a working-class person, your life will be seven years shorter than if you are wealthy.
In other words, being poor or working-class in America today amounts to a death sentence.
Mr. President, it’s not only a broken health care system.
We have got to ask ourselves a simple question—and the Biden administration began a little bit of movement in this direction—and that is: Why are we living in a nation where one out of four people can’t even afford the prescription drugs their doctors prescribe?
Why are we in some cases paying ten times more than our neighbors in Canada or in Europe? How does that happen?
And the answer of course has to do with the greed of the pharmaceutical industry and their power right here—all of the campaign contributions that they make—which has prevented us from negotiating prices.
But it’s not just health care or prescription drugs.
When we look at what’s going on in America—in Vermont and throughout this country—we have a major housing crisis. Here we are, the richest country on Earth: 800,000 people sleeping out on the streets, and 20 million people are spending more than 50% of their limited incomes on housing.
Can you imagine that? You’re a working person, spending 50% of your income on housing. How do you have money to do anything else? And the cost of housing is soaring.
Do not tell me, Mr. President, that in a nation which could spend a trillion dollars on the military—a nation that gives massive tax breaks to the rich—that we cannot build the millions of units of housing that we desperately need.
So, Mr. President, why is all of this happening?
Why do we have a health care system that is broken? Prescription drugs that are the most expensive in the world? A housing system? Education in deep trouble?
Talked to educators in Vermont, all over the country. Talked to a principal the other day from Vermont. Their starting salary at a public school? $32,000 a year. But don’t worry—they can’t afford to even bring people in because they can’t afford the housing in the community.
Why have we let education sink to the level that it has?
So I think the bottom line of all this is: The American people, I think, are catching on. And Mr. Musk—I must thank him—because he has made it very clear we are living in an oligarchic form of society.
If anybody out there thinks that Mr. Musk is running around out of the goodness of his heart trying to make our government more efficient, you have not a clue as to what is going on.
What these guys want to do is destroy virtually every federal program that impacts the well-being of working people—Social Security, Medicare, postal service, public education, you name it—so they can get huge tax breaks for the rich and eventually make government so inefficient that they will have the ability, as large corporations, to come in and privatize everything that is going on.
So, Mr. President, this is a pivotal moment in American history. And I sense that the American people have had it up to here.
They are prepared to fight back.
They do not want a government run by billionaires who have it all—whose greed is uncontrollable.
You know, we have in Vermont—and I think a lot of this country—serious problems with addiction, with drugs. People drinking too much alcohol. People smoking too many cigarettes.
But the worst form of addiction that this country now faces is the greed of the oligarchy.
You might think that if you had 10, 20 billion dollars, it would be enough. You know—kind of enough to let your family live for the next 20 generations.
But it’s not.
For whatever reason—whatever compulsive reason they have—these guys want more and more and more, and they are prepared to destroy Social Security, Medicare, nutrition programs for hungry people in order to get even more.
That, to me, is disgusting.
So, Mr. President, we are at a pivotal moment in American history. But having been all over this country—or many parts of this country—I am absolutely confident that the American people (and I’m not just talking about Democrats, who are as complicit in the problems that we have right now as our Republicans, because we got a two-party system which is basically corrupt)…
You got Mr. Musk over on the Republican side saying to any Republican who dares to stand up and defy the Trump agenda, we are going to primary you.
And on the Democratic side, you got AIPAC and you got other super PACs saying, you stand up for working people—you’re in trouble as well.
We got a corrupt campaign finance system in which billionaires are able to buy elections. And that’s why all over this country, people are not happy with our two-party system—the Republicans and the Democrats.
So, Mr. President, this is a pivotal moment in American history.
But we have had difficult moments before. And I am confident, from the bottom of my heart, that if we stand together, and we do not allow some right-wing extremists to divide us up by the color of our skin, or our religion, or where we were born, or our sexual orientation…
If we stand together, we can save this country. We can defeat oligarchy. We can defeat the movement toward authoritarianism. And in fact, we can create an economy and a government that works for all—not just a few.”
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This nation needs more Bernies. More AOC’s. More people with good hearts and common sense who are willing to stand up to the fascists, the dictators, and the oligarchs who are raping our country for their own enrichment.
Playing in the World Game 