DeSantis: Der Führer of Flori-duh is a rising star in America's growing fascist movement

 

This post has been updated with additional content as well as editing of original content for the purpose of flow.
~ CC

It can't be stated loudly enough or often enough: Florida governor Ron DeSantis is a fascist. As of now he's a mere spark, relatively speaking, but his elevation to the U.S. presidency could very well burn our democracy to the ground. What DeSantis is doing to Florida, he apparently wants to do to the entire country. In other words, "Make America Florida." Gaaagh!

I've spent years barking about #NeverWasMy President Donald John Trump -- and I know that this has cost me some readers, but so be it -- but in many ways, DeSantis is ever so much worse. That's no exaggeration; DeSantis is so bad that even some (actual) conservatives are very concerned.

Granted, it's all too easy, particularly in these deeply divisive times, to slap the label "fascist" or "Nazi" on people, organizations, ideas, or actions with whom one disagrees, and I am well aware that those labels have at times been unfairly applied to opponents by both "the right" and "the left." But I think it is entirely appropriate to employ such words when referring to DeSantis. For starters, follow the first link in the first paragraph (here is that link again). It contains links to articles about various aspects of DeSantis' fascistic tendencies, including opinions by experts on the history of fascism, authoritarianism, and autocracy.

Or if you want to narrow your focus a little bit, check out this February 10, 2023 Esquire opinion piece by Jeff Vandermeer, who, speculating about a DeSantis presidential run (or, worse, a win) wrote:

In the end, it may not matter whether DeSantis is a “mad king,” a cipher like Rick Scott, an ideologue, an oligarch, an autocrat, or a rather ordinary politician in the right place at the right time. The effects of DeSantis’ actions remain the same, while in his rhetoric he often takes the term “bully pulpit” as literally as possible.

Florida and its people don’t deserve this desecration—no place does, even as DeSantis and his Republican predecessors have managed to turn an absolute paradise into a place that is close to a failed state. Because what Ron DeSantis does, at base—including to his base—is simple. He inflicts damage in pursuit of political gain. On purpose and with abandon and with no regard for collateral harm.

What trickles down, then, in the end, along with all of this “freedom,” is nepotism, corruption, cruelty, greed, and—both by design and as a byproduct of all the rest—shockingly bad ideas about governance.

Why would you want any of this inflicted on the nation?

This is the Ron DeSantis of Florida, who wants to become the Ron DeSantis of America. To tell us to our dying day that we are not communities of loving grace and communion, that we are not all connected, that acts of loving kindness are for fools and traitors. To tell us that only some of us matter, not all of us.

Maybe, in the end, if we do not heed the warnings, DeSantis will tell us, in a thousand lacerating ways, direct and indirect… that none of us matter.

Unfortunately, most mainstream media coverage so far seems to have understated the threat. This December 2022 Truthout post by Henry A. Giroux addresses the infamous migrant-busing political stunts orchestrated by Ron DeSantis and Texas governor Greg Abbott. Giroux lamented the fact that most of the mainstream media reporting on the matter failed to connect the dots between those stunts and unpleasant historical precedents.

It is worth repeating that little was reported about how this story echoed a segregationist past of Jim Crow racist policies and violence. And almost nothing was said about how DeSantis’s politics of disposability was part of a similar logic carried to extremes in the past in fascist regimes such as Nazi Germany. Not only did DeSantis build on the legacy of American white supremacists such as former Gov. George Wallace, he also took a lesson from the history of fascism in trying to ride white supremacy and nationalism to further his political career.

DeSantis’s publicity stunt of using migrants as political pawns was also disconnected in the mainstream and liberal media from his attempt to erase the history of the Jim Crow era as part of his larger project of a politics of disposability. For instance, little was said connecting this racist policy to DeSantis’s passing laws banning books about Black history and racial narratives from schools and libraries, along with limiting what teachers can teach about racism — a policy that clearly indicates how DeSantis is following in the footsteps of the Nazification of education in Hitler’s Germany...

Presidential aspirations aside, DeSantis appears to be on the fast track to becoming the dictator of Florida. And Florida's republican supermajority has happily handed the reins -- and the reign -- over to him. From The Guardian, February 18, 2023:

It turns out, following a special legislative session last week that handed DeSantis victory after victory in his culture wars against Disney, transgender communities, students, migrants and communities of color, the person with the greatest freedom in Florida to do exactly as he pleases is the governor himself.

In November, voters granted DeSantis’s wish of a veto-proof Republican supermajority in the state legislature. In a five-day session, those politicians validated every one of his demands.

They granted DeSantis total control of the board governing Disney, the theme park giant with whom he feuded over his anti-LGBTQ+ “don’t say gay” law.

They gave him permission to fly migrants from anywhere in the US to destinations of his choosing, for political purposes, then send the bill to Florida’s taxpayers.

And they handed unprecedented prosecutorial powers to his newly created, hand-picked office of election “integrity”, pursuing supposed cases of voter fraud.

The special session is over but DeSantis’s devotion to seeking retribution against those who disagree with him is not...

 In other words, he's not just a tyrant, but a petty one at that. 

From the tyrant's playbook: seizing control of education and the media

Dumbing down the schools and universities
DeSantis is working hard to push his "anti-woke" agenda at all levels of education in Florida, from elementary schools to colleges and universities. Arguably, education has always been political, but DeSantis seems to be ratcheting the politix up to alarming new levels, waging a war on Florida students of all ages, as well as those tasked with educating them. From a February 28, 2023 piece in The Nation:

Teachers, superintendents, and school board members in Florida have been assaulted, demeaned, and targeted with death threats. Their classrooms are being surveilled, and anonymous members of the public contact administrators to report a “crime” as benign as finding a rainbow flag pinned to a bulletin board.

Amid the threats, DeSantis has signaled that he will fight a federal investigation into increased teacher harassment in Florida and nationwide.

As this is happening, children watch and learn and get caught in the middle. The people they rely on in school are forced to pay more attention to being under attack than on teaching. Politicians and extremist school board members tell them that some classmates are less equal than others. And the stories they read and the way they learn have been yanked away from them...

I don't know about you, but those pictures of empty bookshelves in elementary school classrooms haunt me.

But I would be remiss if I were to completely gloss over the nuances of this issue, and there are indeed nuances, as explained in this thoughtful March 1, 2023 piece on the Bulwark site, by Cato Institute member and contributing editor to Reason Cathy Young. To put it very politely, I am not a fan of libertarians, particularly in their current incarnation, but Young aptly points out that along with the illiberalism being pushed by DeSantis and his ilk, there's such a thing as progressive illiberalism as well. Citing DeSantis' "War on Woke" on education, particularly as reflected in Florida House Bill 999, Young wrote:

But Democrats and dissident conservatives attempting to describe and respond to this worrisome trend often resort to badly flawed narratives that distort the overall picture in several ways.

First, these narratives sometimes exaggerate the right-wing depredations they critique—for instance, by equating the rejection of the African American studies AP curriculum with an outright ban on teaching African American history.

Second, they tend to discount the very real problem of left-wing illiberalism and ideological diktat in education, dismissing all complaints about it as either astroturfed right-wing disinformation or misguided centrist panic that plays into the hands of the right. To acknowledge that at least in some cases DeSantis and his imitators are responding to real problems and tapping into valid concerns may complicate the narrative, but it doesn’t mean that the “anti-woke” right is fighting the good fight. It just means that the political fights over these issues often pit the proverbial two wrongs against each other—and that the sane middle desperately needs alternatives.

Young went on to list a few examples of "progressive illiberalism." I know what you're thinking, but it would be a mistake to dismiss this piece as mere "whataboutism" or "both-sides-ism." And she did draw attention to an important distinction between the two types of illiberalism.

Attorney and writer Wendy Kaminer, a former American Civil Liberties Union board member who has for years been a strong critic of what she sees as the progressive abandonment of free speech principles, is equally harsh about the right-wing pushback in Florida and other red states. The new Florida legislation and the earlier Stop WOKE bill, she told me by telephone, represent nothing less than “a state-imposed orthodoxy on education, and especially on higher education. It’s saying that there is no such thing as academic freedom, that professors are simply employees of the state and they have to parrot whatever the state tells them to parrot.”

But Kaminer (who is a FIRE advisory board member but stressed that she was speaking only in her capacity as an individual) also pointed to an irony that she believes a lot of progressives miss: The conservative backlash operates by using “theories that were developed on the left” and have been widely applied through college speech codes over the past thirty years or so—theories about the harms of speech that is viewed as traumatic to the listener and the right of listeners to be safe from hurtful or offensive expression.

“You see a very similar hostility to free speech coming from both the ‘woke’ and the ‘anti-woke,’” says Kaminer. However, she adds, while progressives have largely censured speech that they regard as harmful—essentially, as a form of assaultive conduct—using “cultural power” and institutional power, the right, with its current strength in state legislatures, is currently doing it “by force of law.”

"By force of law" -- that's the crucial difference. Cathy Young continued the thought, explaining that this is not an absolute distinction, as, "To some extent, laws prohibiting racial and sexual harassment under Title VII and Title IX of the Civil Rights Act bring the federal government into speech regulation that is not always limited to targeted harassment of individuals." Even so, she added:

In some ways, red-state “anti-woke” bills are broader and cruder in their attempts at speech regulation: No campus policy against “discriminatory speech” has ever tried to kill entire academic programs and majors the way HB 999 would kill critical race scholarship and gender studies. (Here, DeSantis is taking a page from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, the proud champion of “illiberal democracy” and the darling of American “national conservatives,” who signed a decree effectively banning gender studies programs in Hungarian universities five years ago.)

Indeed. Nuances aside, in my book the DeSantis/anti-woke brand of illiberalism is doing the most damage by far to educational systems, not only in Florida but all across the nation. Notwithstanding the usual gang of hysterics who can't stop working the base into a frenzy about the "woke mob," "progressive illiberalism" isn't even in the running, damage-wise.

Jackboots stomping all over the First Amendment
And then there is DeSantis' war on the news media. Similar to Trump's threats, during his first presidential campaign, to "open up libel laws," DeSantis wants to rewrite defamation law in America to make it easier for "public figures" like himself to sue news outlets (and, apparently, others who post critical content about said public figures). From Politico, February 23, 2023:

At the governor’s urging, Florida’s Republican-dominated Legislature is pushing to weaken state laws that have long protected journalists against defamation suits and frivolous lawsuits. The proposal is part DeSantis’ ongoing feud with media outlets like The New York Times, Miami Herald, CNN and The Washington Post — media companies he claims are biased against Republicans — as he prepares for a likely 2024 presidential bid.

Beyond making it easier to sue journalists, the proposal is also being positioned to spark a larger legal battle with the goal of eventually overturning New York Times v. Sullivan, the landmark 1964 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that limits public officials’ ability to sue publishers for defamation, according to state Rep. Alex Andrade, the Florida Republican sponsoring the bill...

...Free-press advocates call the measure unconstitutional and suggest it could have far-reaching consequences beyond major media outlets.

“I have never seen anything remotely like this legislation,” said Seth Stern, director of advocacy for the Freedom of the Press Foundation. “I can’t say I have seen every bill ever introduced, but I’d be quite surprised if any state Legislature had seriously considered such a brazen and blatantly unconstitutional attack on speech and press freedoms.”

Here is a direct link to the proposed bill, HB 991, which was introduced by Rep. Alex Andrade (R-Pensacola), a DeSantis ally. A February 23 piece on the Florida Politics site has more about the matter. As well, the libertarian Reason site shed light on the consequences of this bill's passage.

This bill is only the latest attempt from Gov. DeSantis to chill dissenting speech in Florida.

"The bill is an aggressive and blatantly unconstitutional attempt to rewrite defamation law in a manner that protects the powerful from criticism by journalists and the public," says [Joe] Cohn [the legislative and policy director at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression]."And it really champions the rights of the powerful and public figures in particular as compared to the rights of ordinary people to raise questions and lodge criticisms.

Understand, however, that Ron DeSantis certainly does not hate all media. To the contrary: he seems to adore FOX News, and vice versa, much to the growing chagrin of Donald Trump. And he is not above exploiting and weaponizing certain DeSantis-friendly alt-media. According to a February 28, 2023 Grid story, there are at present a half-dozen right-leaning conservative websites, some of which have only emerged over the past two years, that cover DeSantis on a near-daily basis and enjoy access to him and his administration that most of the rest of the media emphatically do not.

Currently the most notable of these is the online-only "news" site Florida Standard, which was only launched in July of 2022 but has published one-on-one interviews with DeSantis and his crackpot state surgeon general. That's the type of access that DeSantis rarely grants to mainstream Florida newspapers. From the Grid story: 

“It’s all built around a very partisan agenda,” said Rick Wilson, a Floridian and co-founder of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project. “The desire to have your own biases reinforced is across the political spectrum, but only on the far right is it as sophisticated and weaponized — particularly here in Florida.”

These sites play an outsized role given their small staff and traffic, which hover around, or less than, 100,000 monthly viewers at each site, according to data from the media tracking service SimilarWeb. As DeSantis builds his reputation among Republicans nationally, there is a quiet pipeline flowing from these local sites up to major national figures. Conservative stars like Ben Shapiro (5.5 million Twitter followers), Mark Levin (3.4 million followers), Matt Gaetz (2 million followers) and Benny Johnson (1.3 million followers) have all tweeted DeSantis-focused stories written by small conservative Florida news sites, and articles have been routinely cited not just in the right-wing press but the mainstream media, too.

Florida Standard and its editor in chief, Will Witt (who didn't respond to interview requests and questions from Grid) have a fine record of pushing conspiranoid content.

In November of last year, Witt cited the baseless “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory, which has been embraced by extremists such as the Buffalo supermarket mass shooter, that today’s influx of immigrants is a deliberate attempt to increase the number of Democratic voters in the United States. Witt retweeted a clip of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) discussing embracing immigrants in the U.S. and added: “Great replacement is just a theory huh?”

And earlier this year, the Florida Standard published a series of articles about covid that falsely spread information about covid vaccines, such as a story focused on the idea that mRNA can spread from a vaccinated person to an unvaccinated person.

It all seems to fit right in with the DeSantis dystopian vision for Floriduh... and the nation at large.

Then, of course, there are social media, most notably Twitter. A January 25, 2023 article in The Daily Beast (updated on January 26) reports on how Ron DeSantis's political operation has silently been recruiting conservative "influencers." All of them seem to be fine, upstanding people, at least by current rethuglican standards.

According to five Republicans familiar with the discussions, the governor’s top lieutenants have quietly recruited a network of conservative social media influencers as part of a broader attempt to circumvent the mainstream press and appeal directly to GOP primary voters nationwide.

And who are, according to the three Republicans who received the initial pitch, among the ranks in DeSantis’ digital army?

Jack Murphy, a podcast host and self-described “alpha-male giga chad” involved in a quasi-professional cuckolding porn scandal. John Cardillo, a former Newsmax TV host and unregistered arms dealer who allegedly stiffed the Ukrainian government for $200,000 worth of body armor plates. Christian Walker, Herschel Walker’s right-wing influencer son who helped tank his father’s Senate campaign. David Reaboi, a Hungary-loving and Qatar-hating bodybuilder with longstanding ties to John Bolton. And Caleb Hull, an ex-Trump digital strategist who has said some very, very racist things.

This is the DeSantis A-team, and they’re fighting a battle for a presidential campaign that hasn’t even started yet—with plenty of DeSantis face time, dinners, and photo ops.

The only point with which I disagree is that DeSantis's presidential campaign "hasn't even started yet." That wasn't even true in January, and it's certainly not true now. In any case, it's a pretty sure bet that all of the restrictions DeSantis is frothing at the mouth to place upon real news media and journalists won't apply to the Führer-friendly "news" media and "influencers."

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

A history of cruelty and sadism?
Finally, there is some online buzz, though not so much from the mainstream media as of now, regarding Ron DeSantis' murky military history. How relevant this is to the DeSantis of the present and future, I couldn't begin to say, but it's worth noting that he has been accused of enabling and encouraging the torture of detainees back when he was a U.S. Navy JAG lawyer serving at the infamous Guantanamo detention camp in Cuba.

The Bulwark brought up this issue on a February 28, 2023 piece (see the second item, "Is Ron DeSantis a Sadistic Torturer?"). The piece references a transcript of an interview with one of those detainees, Mansoor Adayfi, formerly detainee #441 and also known as Abdul Rahman Ahmed. The interview was originally aired on a Nov. 18 interview podcast of Eyes Left, hosted by U.S. Army veteran and anti-war activist Michael Prysner. (The author of the Bulwark article, Bill Lueders, suggests that the House GOP, being on such an investigative frenzy, should investigate the allegations against DeSantis, among a couple of other matters. But he's not holding his breath, and neither am I, and neither should you.)

A January 26, 2023 article on the Florida Bulldog site has more detailed info about the torture allegations, as well as other aspects of DeSantis's military career. To begin with...

Not much is known about DeSantis’s duties at those locations [Guantanamo and Fallujah, during the Iraq war]. DeSantis has released only limited highlights of his military career – noting in a speech, for example, that he spent Christmas 2006 in Guantanamo without his family – and has declined repeatedly to be interviewed about it, most recently to Florida Bulldog. His official biography, cited by Wikipedia and other information sources, touts that he “still serves in the U.S. Navy Reserve,” but the Navy says otherwise.

A Navy data sheet about DeSantis provided to Florida Bulldog last week lists his separation date from the Navy as Feb. 14, 2019 – a month after his first inauguration. “He’s not active or reserve. He’s not a member of the Navy anymore,” said U.S. Navy spokeswoman Lt. Alyson Hands.

Forty-two pages of heavily censored U.S. Navy records released to the Florida Phoenix during DeSantis’s 2018 gubernatorial campaign say his naval duties included things like assistant urinalysis coordinator. At Guantanamo, where hundreds of people scooped up in the George W. Bush administration’s post 9/11 War on Terror were held indefinitely without trial and amid multiple allegations of torture by the International Committee of the Red Cross and others, the Phoenix reported the records showed that from March 2006 through early January 2007 “DeSantis’s primary duty was a trial counsel – meaning a prosecutor. The record also showed that DeSantis was described as a ‘JTF-GTMO [Joint Task Force Guantanamo] scheduler/administrative officer.’” No further details were released...

The aforementioned Gitmo detainee, Mansoor Adayfi, was held without charges at Gitmo for 14 years. He alleges that JAG Officer DeSantis observed, allowed, and participated in illegal acts of torture to help end a 2006 hunger strike by dozens of detainees.

“I saw a fucking handsome person who was coming. He said, ‘I’m here to ensure that you’re treated humanely.’ And we said, OK, this is our demand, you know. We’re not asking for much,” Adayfi said. He said DeSantis went on, “And if you have any problems, if you have any concerns, if you have…just talk to me.’ And you know we, we, we, we’re drowning in that place. I’m like, ‘Oh, this is cool.’ That person actually writing something. He will raise the concerns, but it was [a] piece of the game. What they were doing, they were, they were looking what’s [going to] hurt you more, to use against you.”

Adayfi, now 44, said DeSantis watched with amusement as he and other detainees were repeatedly force-fed Ensure, a “meal replacement” shake, through a nasal feeding tube pushed down their throats.

“Ron DeSantis was there and watching us. We were crying, screaming. We were tied to the feeding chair and that guy; he was watching that. He was laughing basically when they used to feed us, because…our stomach cannot hold this amount of Ensure. They used to pour Ensure, one can after another, one can after another. So, when he approached me, I said this is the way we are treated. He said, ‘You should start to eat.’ …I threw up on his face. Literally on his face.”

DeSantis’s office did not respond to several requests for comment this week. However, shortly after his election to Congress in 2012 he told PBS NewsHour his time serving in the Navy shaped him as a leader. He told PBS that senior officers are accountable for getting their job done because there are consequences if it’s not done well.

The Bulwark piece mentioned above also has details about the torture allegations.

Adayfi alleges that the Ensure was laced with “some kind of laxative” so he and the other prisoners were “shitting ourselves all the time.” After these sessions, “we were moved to solitary confinement—really cold cells. It was like five times a day. It wasn’t feeding. It was just torture. Five times a day.”

He says the guards also beat them, with DeSantis standing by...

DeSantis didn't use his name in Gitmo, so Adayfi did not know DeSantis's true identity in real time, but says he recognized him after the governor rose to national prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic. He insists that DeSantis is indeed the one who witnessed his torture, encouraged it, and laughed at his suffering. To my knowledge, DeSantis has not yet publicly commented on these allegations, but if and when he does I will add that information to this post

There's really so much more to write about Ron DeSantis, but this post is already more than long enough. But I'm not done yet. Expect more in future posts. For now, I'll leave you with this February 27 commentary regarding a recent opinion piece in the New York Times, said opinion piece having been penned by a self-described liberal, no less, who accused his "fellow liberals" of exaggerating the dangers of DeSantis. The "liberal," Damon Linker, suggested that DeSantis is not, in fact, worse than Trump. But there are different flavors of evil, and Trump and DeSantis are both in their own ways monstrously evil, and both would be disasters in the Oval Office. Linker's piece is pretty weak sauce. The bottom line is that American democracy has never been in greater danger from the rising tide of fascism -- and Ron DeSantis is becoming a bigger threat by the day.

PS, added 6 March, 2023: The inimitable John Oliver mercilessly roasts Ron DeSantis on everything from the latter's bizarre dating tactics back in the day, to the usual fascism stuff.
 

PPS, added 14 March, 2023: A key point of DeSantis' still-unofficial presidential campaign is his outrageously false claim that Florida (meaning DeSantis) was right and "they were wrong" regarding the state's responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Alternet (March 10, 2023) reports that Florida's "right" results rank among the worst in the nation. (But don't expect facts to get in the way of DeSantis' narrative and the "Freedom" Fascists' overall covidiocy.)

DeSantis isn't the only source of fascism in the Sunshine State. Next on my Whirled: In Ron DeSantis' Flori-duh, freedom's just another word for fascism.

Rabbits and Roe and reproductive rights

 

There's a perversely poetic symmetry in the fact January 22, 2023 marked both the beginning of the Year of the Rabbit* -- that universal symbol of fertility and prolific reproduction -- and the would-be 50th anniversary of Roe versus Wade, the United States Supreme Court ruling that revolutionized women's reproductive rights by effectively legalizing abortion throughout the U.S.

Roe, though widely celebrated by women's rights advocates, was consistently fought from its earliest days, a fight that grew fiercer and more violent over the decades. Arguably, anti-abortion terrorism even helped fuel the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol. Even so, many of us clung to the increasingly thin hope that Roe would survive at least to the half-century mark. But when SCOTUS overturned Roe on June 24, 2022, that hope was dashed. And this weekend has been filled with marches and demonstrations that both celebrated and protested Roe's demise.

The anti-choice factions, whom I prefer to call the forced-birth fascists, have been exploiting the 50th anniversary of Roe not only to gloat, but also to double down on their commitment to ending abortion in America altogether, with "fetal personhood" being a key obsession. Pro-choice advocates, on the other hand, declare that the fight for reproductive freedom is far from over.

Still, there's no doubt that it is going to be a fight, and in so many ways it seems like we are right back at square one. In an opinion piece in The Guardian, US columnist Moira Donegan wrote:

In contrast to its political controversy, abortion in the Roe era was – as it is now – aggressively common. Approximately one in four American women will have an abortion at some point in the course of their reproductive lives.

The figure lends credence to the pro-choice assertion that everyone loves someone who had an abortion – and the accompanying quip that if you think you don’t know a woman who has had an abortion, you really just don’t know any women who trust you enough to tell you. But part of the legacy of Roe is not just that these women you know and love have been able to have freer, healthier, more volitional lives, but also that their abortions, for many of them, are not worth confessing. For most, abortions were not tragedies to be whispered about, or life-altering moments of shame, but banalities, choices to which they were unquestionably entitled, and from which they could move unconflictedly on. But Roe is gone. Now, for many women, these choices are crimes.

Donegan mused about how Roe opened a door for women to lives of greater dignity and self-determination, even though there were numerous flies in the ointment almost from the beginning.

This, at least, was the aspiration that Roe came to stand for: women’s freedom, their independence, their acceptance as equals in the American project. Of course, it never quite did work out that way: the Hyde amendment, which banned Medicaid funding for abortions, was passed just three years after Roe, in 1976, and effectively excluded poor women from Roe’s promise. Black women faced the dual barriers of moral judgement and eugenicist legacy – for them, often neither the choice to abort nor the choice to parent were fully free. Members of the anti-choice movement, assisted by a judiciary that became increasingly willing to do their bidding, were inventive and sadistically persistent in chipping away at abortion access, making it more expensive, more onerous, and more stigmatized than other kinds of medical care...

In an opinion piece on CNN.com, journalist and journalist professor Claudia Dreifus reflects on the awfulness of life before Roe. She had first-hand experience.

In my college circle, one routinely heard the most horrific stories: operations in motel rooms, surgeries without anesthesia, abortionists who’d raped women seeking their services. Strange as it seems today: this was common. I had a friend who developed a pelvic infection after a back-alley abortion; she was rendered infertile.

I found myself pregnant in 1964. I was 19. At first, I tried to self-abort. I failed. A friend of my mother’s connected me with a doctor in Pennsylvania.

On the way there, I felt terrified. What if he wasn’t a genuine physician? Would I contract an infection like my friend did? The thought that I might die kept repeating itself. As I drove through the bleak January landscape of rural Pennsylvania, I thought “Whatever the risks, you must do this. There’s no turning back.”

I’d drawn the lucky card. He turned out to be a real physician. I had the operation under anesthesia and with proper medication. He provided abortions because he believed in it, never charging more than $100. His community protected him....

But Dreifus' happy-ending story was more the exception than the rule. Horror stories abound.

One of those horror stories was immortalized in the April 1973 issue of Ms. Magazine, in a cover article titled, "Never Again," written by journalist and advocate Roberta Brandes Gratz. The lead photo in the piece shows a nude and bloodied woman, sprawled face down on the floor of a motel room following an illegal septic abortion in 1964. That photo has haunted me, and apparently millions of other people, for decades. It became a graphic symbol of the pro-choice movement.**

Like many millions of other women, I had a safe and legal abortion in the Roe era, in a clinical setting. I was very young, and for many reasons, having a child would have been a disaster both for me and for the child. My procedure occurred during the earlier years of Roe, when widespread anti-abortion demonstrations and violence were still in the future. So I did not have to face a gamut of screaming protestors, or be escorted into the clinic by an armed guard, or go through a metal detector, or communicate to the receptionist through bullet-proof glass.

Yet the procedure was emotionally wrenching for me, as it is for most people who, for one reason or another, have to make this decision. I rode an emotional rollercoaster of fear and doubt and sadness, punctuated heavily by an overwhelming feeling of relief. My nights were marked by a series of vivid dreams, both before and after the procedure. I vowed that I would never again get into a situation where an abortion was necessary. I kept that vow through the years, and in case you're wondering, I had no regrets then, nor do I now, that I chose to end my pregnancy.

It saddens and angers me that regressive forces have worked so hard, and continue to work so hard, to deny other pregnant people the same rights I had so many years ago. But it is encouraging to know that in the highest levels of government there is an ongoing effort to restore and preserve reproductive rights. For instance, there's the official Statement from President Joe Biden on the 50th Anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Decision:

Today, instead of commemorating the 50^th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade, we are acknowledging that last year, the Supreme Court took away a constitutional right from the American people.
 
Since the Supreme Court’s decision, Americans, time and time again, have made their voices heard:  women should be able to make these deeply personal decisions free from political interference. Yet, Republicans in Congress and across the country continue to push for a national abortion ban, to criminalize doctors and nurses, and to make contraception harder to access. It’s dangerous, extreme, and out of touch. 
 
I’ll continue to fight to protect a woman’s right to choose. Congress must restore the protections of Roe v. Wade in federal law – it’s the only way we can fully secure a woman’s right to choose in every state. 

In keeping with this statement, Vice President Kamala Harris announced President Biden's new memorandum ensuring safe access to medication abortion, and helping to safeguard patient and provider safety and security.

Of course, that's just a presidential memorandum, issued by a president for whom the forced-birth fascists, many of whom are MAGAs, have no respect, and it's a pretty safe bet that they will do everything they can to get around it. But... it's something. And it shows that we have not and will not give in to those who would force a ten-year-old to bear the child of her rapist, or a woman with a dead fetus or an ectopic pregnancy to just grin and bear it.

In the Year of the Rabbit and beyond, reproductive rights, or lack thereof, will remain front and center in political battles all across the United States, and for that matter, in numerous other countries across the globe. We shouldn't expect the issue to go away any time soon. For abortion became a political issue decades ago, and as I've said a few times on this blog, in politix, as in Scamworld, there are no neat and tidy endings. If you want to join the fight for choice and progress, here's a Google link to some resources.

* Note: It is the Year of the Rabbit everywhere except in in Vietnam, which stubbornly insists that this Lunar New Year ushers in the Year of the Cat.

** The April 1973 Ms. article also features a dramatic illustration by the late artist Miriam Wosk. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I took the liberty of snapping a pic of the page in my copy of this issue, as I did the first page. No infringement of copyright is intended.

Serial scammer Kevin Trudeau: fighting to stay out of prison with yet another scam

 

Serial scammer Kevin Trudeau (aka KT, aka Katie on this Whirled), whom we most recently visited on this November 2022 post (updated in early December), is still fighting to keep from being thrown back into prison. Earlier this month, according to Chuck Goudie and the gang of investigators at Chicago's ABC7 News, Trudeau promised the court that he really, really will pay the remainder of the fine he still owes the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for his repeated violation of consent orders in which he'd promised to stop lying to consumers about the contents of his wacko diet book, The Weight Loss Cure "They" Don't Want You To Know About. (That was for the civil contempt part of the case; he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for criminal contempt charges related to the same book.) More specifically, he says that he'll pay the fine as soon as the government will tell him exactly how much he owes, which is the same thing he's been saying for at least the past several weeks, if not years.

But if you believe that promise, then you probably also believed that #NeverWasMyPresident Donald John Trump really, really was going to release his income tax returns just as soon as the IRS finished their (nonexistent) comprehensive audit. In fact, if you still believe anything that comes out of the putrid pie hole of either Trump or Trudeau -- two turds of a feather -- you're setting yourself up for a yuuge disappointment when (if) you eventually emerge from your daze. Please get some professional help. I can only do so much on this blog.

In a recent federal court filing, Trudeau asked for more time to obtain the answer to the burning question of how much he still owes the government. (In fairness, he did reportedly try to find this out back in early 2020, when he was still confined at Federal sleepaway camp, but I was never able to learn whether or not his efforts were successful.) And while U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman, who has been presiding over Trudeau's civil case for many years, could have thrown him back in the clink following his last court hearing, the judge chose to let Trudeau stay free-ish for now. I say free-ish because, darn it, Katie still isn't allowed to travel the world to help humanity the way he's longing to do; instead, he has to stay in the Chicago area on a pretty short leash, legally speaking. Oh, why do such bad things happen to such good people?

A foundational principle of Trudeau's decades-old scampire is his claim that the U.S. government is pure evil and that he is a long-suffering hero/martyr who is being punished merely for telling the truth about that evil. One of his current claims in this vein is that the government actually owes him money, according to the ABC7 report cited above (and here's that link again):

Trudeau actually thinks the government may owe him money, even though the FTC has just filed a 347 page report in court with a very detailed breakout and balance sheet. Trudeau gave his take during questioning in a deposition by government attorneys last Friday. At one point, he told government agents there's a possibility they owe him 400-thousand dollars in expense money.

Sure, Kev. Whatever you say.

I still don't have links to share to any of the relevant court documents regarding the most recent activities, but when/if I do obtain those links, I'll share them here. In any case, it appears that not knowing exactly how much he owes the government isn't the only obstacle standing in the way of Trudeau paying his fine. He claims that he still needs to actually raise the money to do so, and towards that end, he is poised to make his
BIGGEST Announcement...Ever!

Katie made the first big announcement of this Big Announcement via his December 21, 2022 Telegram message on The Official Kevin Trudeau Fan Club Channel. He claimed that he actually hadn't planned to make this Big Announcement until many, many years in the future, if at all, his original idea being to make the information accessible only to the very highest ranking members of his mega-scam GIN (the Global Information Network).

The reason for the exclusivity, he splained, is that the information is just too powerful, and potentially too dangerous, to be released to the general public. So incredibly powerful is the info, Kevin claimed, that even though it was known to Think and Grow Rich author Napoleon Hill -- an old-school scammer who's still worshiped and mythologized by scammers in the modern era -- Hill never released it to the public. According to Kevin, Hill testified about these principles at a Chamber of Commerce meeting way back when, and although Hill's testimony was supposedly recorded, it was never transferred to audiocassette because the audio was of such horrendous quality.

Which means, apparently, that we will all have to take lying liar Kevin Trudeau's word that the audio even exists.

The explosive information in question is something that Katie calls the Money Processes, of which there are thirty. In his Telegram message, Trudeau claimed that the Processes were part of the "training" that he went through back in the early 1970s and the 1980s. Now, since he was born in 1963, he would have been, at most, 11 years old in the early 1970s. Then again, he has often bragged about what a prodigy he was. I guess you'll just have to take that on faith too.

At any rate, the bottom line is that these Money Processes are much too mighty for the average schlub. Nevertheless, Kevin is now going to make them available to every one of those schlubs, including you and me, simply because the FTC wants the money that they claim Kevin owes them, and if he doesn't pony up, he'll be thrown back into the clink. So really, he has no choice.

Trudeau also claimed in his Telegram message that numerous elite, mega-successful business tycoons around the world have offered him millions and millions and millions of dollars to form an exclusive company with them, meaning that he could have easily earned the money to pay the fine that way. But, goodness, if he signed an exclusive deal with any of them, he would be restricted from doing all of his books and trainings and one-on-one consulting and Zoom calls and frauduct peddling and stuff like that, so he just cannot do it, because he wants to stay true to his mission of helping the world by teaching all of us schlubs how to achieve the life of our dreams.

And because he now needs to raise a bunch of money quick, we're in luck. If you tune into his Zoom call at 1:00 EST on December 31, 2022, you will get to listen to his Big Announcement, which will not only offer you information about the Money Processes, but about other "opportunities" (or flopportunities, as my pal Salty Droid used to say) as well. The Big Announcement will last an hour to an hour and a half, but presumably it will not actually include the training itself, which will cost money, which, as Katie has explained, he needs in order to pay the FTC and remain a free-ish man.

At one point towards the end of his Telegram spiel, Trudeau said that his teaching about the Money Processes will remove all of your blocks against money -- that it will be like removing a dark cloud from your brain. I wonder if this dark cloud is anything at all like the brain cloud that Joe Banks was supposedly suffering in one of my favorite movies, Joe Versus The Volcano. Be that as it may, we have Katie's solemn assurance about his Big Announcement: "This is a wonderful blessing for you."

Bless his grifting little heart.

Several folks who are ex-Trudeau loyalists/insiders, and who in their former lives put an enormous amount of time, effort, and emotional energy into supporting his scampire, have contacted me about this Big Announcement. Fortunately, they've learned their lessons about Katie's endless capacity for bullshit, and not one of them was even mildly tempted to get sucked back into the grift funnel, despite having given over a major part of their lives to Trudeau in the past. In their own way, they all said they are profoundly relieved to be away from the cult, and that it's painfully obvious to them that this latest Big Announcement is just more of the same old same old. I applaud these folks for finally seeing the light.

Unfortunately there are vast numbers of other marks and potential marks who are still vulnerable, and I know that nothing I write here will change the minds of those who are truly determined to be led by the nose into the Katie cult. But I'll keep on trying.

Meanwhile, I'm taking the rest of the year off from blogging -- that is, unless something really big comes up tomorrow, the last day of 2022. I hope all of you have a safe and happy New Year's Eve/Day, and I'll see you next year.

 

Serial scammer Kevin Trudeau is in trouble again (or still)

This post has been updated.

Well, that sure didn't take long.

I know this will come as no big surprise to anyone who has been even marginally keeping up with the saga of serial scammer Kevin Trudeau, who was recently released from federal prison after serving about eight years of a ten-year sentence, but... he's in trouble again. Or rather, he's still in trouble over a matter that never actually went away: the millions of dollars that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) says he still owes on a nearly $40 million judgment from years ago; and the FTC's belief -- which I happen to share -- that he has untold wealth hidden offshore.

On Thursday, November 17, Trudeau (aka KT, aka Katie on this Whirled) appeared in court before Judge Robert Gettleman, as reported in various Chicago-area media, such as ABC-TV Channel 7 (reporting by investigative reporter Chuck Goudie), and the Chicago Sun-Times (by CST wire reporter David Struett). He's due back in court on November 30, and has an FTC deposition on December 9. I'll try to retrieve some documents from PACER and share them with you.

Apart from the big question about possible (probable) hidden wealth, both the ABC7 and Chicago Sun-Times piece report that Trudeau appeared to have violated his order to notify the court when he was released from prison. From the Sun-Times:

Prosecutors said Trudeau had ignored the order. “I think they wanted this to go away,” FTC lawyer Jonathan Cohen told the judge.

Trudeau’s lawyer, Giel Stein, said it was a “misunderstanding” and apologized. “He’s deeply regretful he did not show up at the end of his home confinement,” Stein said.

But I'm not buying it, especially since Katie took the time and trouble to actually write a letter to Judge Gettleman back in January of 2020, seeking clarification about what he needed to do, and what would be allowed to do, once he was released. I wrote about that here; that post also contains screen shots of the original judgment/sentencing document that outlined the restrictions Trudeau would face upon release. Even if he never received a direct answer from the judge, the matter would still have to have been on his mind. My guess is that he just blew it off, figuring he could get away with it.

As for the issue of hidden wealth, apparently there's new evidence. From the Chicago Sun-Times again:

At issue are two boxes of new evidence provided to the FTC by Trudeau’s now-ex-wife. The government wants to use those documents in Trudeau’s upcoming deposition, but the defense lawyers asked to review them for possible violations of attorney-client privilege. The judge ordered that attorneys on both sides review the documents and report back to him.

Prosecutors also allege Trudeau hid millions of dollars overseas and plans to flee there. The new evidence comes from information from Trudeau’s ex-wife’s testimony in their divorce proceedings, prosecutors said.

I imagine those divorce proceedings were... very interesting. From what I've heard, Katie's ex is well rid of him.

According to the news reports, Kevin really wants to start traveling the world for "business." But for now, he's grounded in the Chicago area. Oh, dear, if only he could just jump on that big luxury cruise ship he's been dreaming about, and sail away... Except, of course, the ship doesn't exist yet.

Kevin bites back
Naturally, Katie had something to say about his latest troubles, and he said it on the Kevin Trudeau Fan Club Telegram Channel on November 18, the day after his court appearance. Here's the direct link, if you have 15-plus minutes to waste.

If you'd rather not waste your time, I'll recap it for you here. Kevin spends the first part of his message 'splaining why it makes no logical sense for him not to have paid that $37 million years ago if he'd had the dough, thus avoiding a prison sentence. He repeatedly says that he didn't then and doesn't now have the money, and laments that it is impossible to prove a negative, so what's a poor boy to do?

Now, if you were just listening to this without the benefit of knowing Trudeau's past history, that would all sound quite reasonable. But in the years prior to his trial and conviction, he had a notorious history of claiming to be poor, while he still continued to spend lavishly on himself. It's not unreasonable for the government to believe he still has money somewhere, since he repeatedly lied about it before. While it's true that the government seized as many of his assets as they could manage to get, the question that they asked back in 2013 and 2014 has never gone away: was there more? Investigators believed then and still believe that there is more, and I think they are right.

What also sounds more than reasonable, on the surface, is Trudeau's claim that it "makes no logical sense" for him to have not paid the big fine when first ordered to do so, or at least when the threats to lock him up began, thus avoiding what ultimately turned out to be a years-long prison sentence. Again, however, you have to look at the past, and here I don't have specific links because so many of them have apparently been wiped from the Web. You'll just have to trust my long-term memory.

For I do recall the defiance that Trudeau expressed on many occasions, starting back when the fine was considerably smaller than nearly 40 mil. Even as he was telling authorities that he didn't have the money to pay up, he was also telling his followers, via videos and on his radio show and more than likely at live events too, that he was refusing to pay on principle, mostly having to do with fighting government tyranny and so forth. He was, he repeatedly assured his followers, being a brave fighter not only for his own First Amendment rights, but for the 1Arights of all of us. Meanwhile, he continued to enrich himself from his various scams and schemes.

As well, he repeatedly violated consent orders that he had signed with the FTC, which only increased penalties and his own legal jeopardy. Subsequently, when called by the gov on one violation or another, he would always claim innocence, saying that he absolutely, positively had no intention of violating anything, and that he was doing his level best to cooperate fully. That was his losing argument in his criminal trial, in fact. Yet all the while he was playing the innocent, he continued with his defiance act, using it to burnish his hero/martyr narrative. He kept this up until there was no turning back. As they like to say on social media these days, FAAFO.

As the Telegram spiel continues he spends some time in motivational master mode, offering advice on how to handle adversity and gabbing about how the special training he offers can help anyone do just that. He also, as per usual, takes a few moments to peddle some of the overpriced frauducts that he sells through the Kevin Trudeau Fan Club website and Facebook page.

But the main purpose of the message -- and once again, this will probably come as no shock -- is to beg for money, and he mentions the link to the donation site a couple of times. Katie warns that his lawyer bills could possibly rack up to millions of dollars. Frankly, I'm surprised any lawyer took on his case, after he reportedly stiffed so many previous attorneys, but perhaps it's possible that the attorney named in the news stories, Giel Stein, is working pro bono, which, if that's the case, would negate the claim about millions of bucks in legal fees.

If you follow the embedded link in the previous sentence, you'll notice that some of Mr. Stein's listed accomplishments include defending big pharmaceutical companies, big insurance companies, and government agencies, so... maybe not the best choice for a lawyer for a defendant who's been loudly speaking out against all of the above for decades? That should be interesting.

In any case, legal fees are pretty far down on the list of the Official Kevin Trudeau Fan Club's list of what your donations will be used for.

Your Contributions made to The Official Kevin Trudeau Fan Club (ContributeToKevin.com) therefore will be used to pay for these things and more (this is just a partial list of possible uses):

• a place for Kevin to live and all his living expenses (utilities etc)
• furnishings for Kevin’s residence
• food
• nutritional supplements
• computers; cell phones; internet services; mobile phone service
• personal care items
• medical and all other insurances
• dental care, haircuts, eye care (contacts and glasses)
• car; insurance; petrol (gas); parking; maintenance
• clothes
• travel: transportation, hotels, meals 
• lawyers and other professional services
• subscriptions
• secretaries, assistants, transcribers, researchers, social media managers, booking agents, drivers, security, etc.
• and many other possible uses of the funds donated

Trudeau wraps up his Telegram message with his usual spiel about bad things happening to good people, and assures his fans, "Suffering is an option I choose not to take."

Of course. His go-to option is grifting, though over the years he has proven time and time again that he's not above playing the suffering victim in efforts to get leniency from the courts or to manipulate people into giving him money.

They've heard it all before
I think the prosecutors and Judge Gettleman are too smart to fall for Kevin Trudeau's excuses. And good for the ex for handing over that evidence. But if I were the investigators, I would also be scrutinizing the "success club" that Kevin founded back in 2009, the Global Information Network, or GIN. Back when Trudeau was officially running it, GIN was a huge scam that sucked millions of dollars out of thousands of rubes (see the link in the previous sentence for a capsule history of the scam), but technically GIN was not the reason he was charged, tried, convicted, and locked up. Even so, to this day a number of former GIN members would love to see Kevin Trudeau be held accountable for GIN; absent charges/trial/conviction/incarceration, they would simply like have their money back. That will almost certain never happen.

By the way, I've made this point and shared this link several times previously, but it bears repeating that Jason "Salty Droid" Jones strongly disagreed with the prosecutors' assertion back in 2014 that a ten-year sentence was sufficient because, according to them, no one who bought Trudeau's weight loss book was financially ruined. They may not have been ruined by the purchase alone, but for many that book, like Trudeau's numerous other loss leaders, was a gateway drug that did lead to financial and/or emotional ruin. But that's a whole other story.

Under court order, GIN was sold in May 2014 to a group of Trudeau's close buddies, and though ownership has shifted since then, to my knowledge it is still owned by pals of his, chiropractors Dr. Tom and Dr. Ted Morter, and career huckster Blaine Athorn. Reportedly Kevin is not legally allowed to be benefiting financially at all from that enterprise. My understanding is that he's not even supposed to be calling the shots, though I suspect that he's been "shadow running" it for some time now, perhaps in violation of the terms of his probation.

At any rate I think it would be wise for the investigators to look into GIN's finances -- if that's possible -- to find out if, for instance, the proceeds from the club's live events, and from some of their other income sources, are being funneled to Kevin through the official donation site or other more hidden outlets.

The inevitable recap of the larger issues
I've discussed these issues at some length in previous posts, so this is mainly for the benefit of new visitors. First off, whether Kevin Trudeau should be locked up again, if he fails to satisfy the government's and the court's demands, is a larger question that I do actually believe is pertinent, and some who are new here may be surprised that I'm not firmly in the lock-him-up camp. I've said many times before that in general, I don't believe nonviolent criminals should be locked up (those who incite violence, such as Donald Trump and numerous other republican politicians who are directly responsible for the violent January 6, 2021 insurrection, are another story, however).

Regarding Trudeau, the blunt truth is that being imprisoned never stopped him from scamming. Moreover, locking him up now almost certainly won't lead to the recovery of hidden assets. It would be punitive, and perhaps would be poetic justice or karma, if you believe in such things. And locking him up could limit his huckstering activities, but again... it won't keep him from grifting, either directly or through his loyal proxies. The bottom line is that the government would probably be no closer to reaching its stated goals of retrieving the money still owed, presumably so the remaining refunds to those who bought Trudeau's wacko diet book, The Weight Loss Cure "They" Don't Want You To Know About, can be issued. I discuss the incarceration issue in a January 2022 post, under the subhead, "Did prison change Kevin Trudeau?"

In other words, I recognize that there are nuances to this story, as there are to most stories. But the gist of it is that Kevin Trudeau is, has always been, and almost certainly always will be a scammer -- and my opinion on that issue is anything but nuanced.

Secondly, some may be asking why this obvious crook is even still important in the larger scheme of things. Isn't he so... yesterday? Rather than re-invent the wheel, I'll just direct you to the aforementioned January 2022 post again (under the subhead, "Why this still matters, after all these years"). Here's a snippet:

...one major reason that I think Kevin Trudeau is still important, apart from my concern that he has spent decades cheating people out of their hard-earned money, is that he is flagrantly symptomatic of a nearly out-of-control trend of misinformation/conspiranoia crapitalism.

Of course Trudeau was in many respects far ahead of the curve, since he has been trading in "information that 'They' don't want you to know" for decades. Most of that "information" has consisted of misinformation, distortions, exaggerations, lies, repackaged selfish-help/McSpirituality content, or, in some cases, cherry-picked data about issues that have been addressed by far more responsible consumer advocates, whistleblowers, and muckrakers. But the nebulously evil "They" were the perfect scapegoat for Trudeau's marketing strategies...

And as I wrote at the end of that post, "Caveat emptor."

Stay tuned for further reports.

Update, December 6, 2022: Jason Meisner at the Chicago Tribune reported on Trudeau's November 30 hearing. The government is still considering "coercive incarceration" (which has never worked in the past to get Trudeau to cough up the dough, but whatever).

At a hearing Wednesday, [FTC attorney] Cohen revealed newly discovered emails that he said show Trudeau was seeking to ship and store 300 pounds of gold bars and other precious metals in Switzerland in 2013, the same time he was crying poor to the court.

The FTC has also learned that around the same time, Trudeau hired two law firms in Switzerland to research what impact pending lawsuits in the U.S. would have in Switzerland as well as the logistics of legally changing your name in that country, Cohen said.

Of course, Trudeau is once again stalling for time.

Trudeau’s attorney, Giel Stein, accused the FTC of jumping the gun, saying Trudeau “is acutely aware of the consequences here” and only wants to know how much he still owes so he can figure out how to begin repaying it.

Stein also said it made no sense to put Trudeau in jail before he’s given the chance to answer questions under oath about his assets at a deposition, which is scheduled for Dec. 9.

Judge Robert Gettleman, though clearly fed up with Trudeau's lies and his stall tactics, declined to incarcerate Trudeau immediately, setting a December 15 hearing to sort things out. Meanwhile, Trudeau's lawyer, Giel Stein, says he wants to question Trudeau's ex-wife under oath about “eight suitcases of materials that (she) absconded with” from Trudeau’s storage facility in Zurich, Switzerland. Sounds like the defense is trying to blame the ex for Trudeau's crimes.

More updates to come.

Vote. Just vote.

Tomorrow, November 8, is the big day when US voters who haven't voted early make their trek to the polls for the midterm elections. At stake is nothing less than the future of American democracy. I'm nervous to the point of losing sleep about that future, as, I suspect, are millions of other folks, not least among them former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, who, in a November 6 opinion piece in The Guardian, wrote:

Today I’m not particularly worried about Republicans’ policy preferences. Today I’m worried about the survival of our democracy.

I’m worried that a majority of Republican candidates are telling voters, without any basis in fact, that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump.

I’m worried that if elected, many of these Republicans will make it harder to conduct elections in the future, allow or encourage endless audits of election results, and even refuse to sign off on them.

I’m worried that Republicans have been spending millions to recruit partisan poll workers and watchers in the upcoming election, who could disrupt the counting process or raise false claims about it. (Michigan Republican secretary of state candidate Kristina Karamo rose to prominence as a Detroit poll watcher who made false claims about election fraud.)

I’m worried that thousands of Trump supporters have been calling their local election offices requesting all kinds of public records, often using suspiciously similar wording, leading officials to believe this is a coordinated effort to prevent them from holding an election.

I’m worried that violent thugs are on the prowl, and that Republican leaders – starting with Trump – have been quietly encouraging them.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that republican policies and platforms aren't concerning. To the contrary, there's plenty to worry about, including but certainly not limited to the republicans' determination to annihilate health care coverage, benefits, and protections for millions of Americans; the reckless and dangerous forced-birth movement that is pushing the country towards an all-out abortion ban; the party's stubborn climate change denialism; and a relentless culture-war mentality that threatens to reverse important and hard-gained civil rights.

But overshadowing all of these issues is the GQP's fundamental threat to democracy.

The new owner of Twitter, Moscow Musk, has a take on the midterms that, to put it mildly, differs from Dr. Reich's and mine. Despite a previous declaration that Twitter should be politically neutral (a tweet for which he was roundly and soundly trolled, mostly for his hypocrisy), today he tweeted that he wants all of you "independent-minded voters" out there to vote for a republican Congress. Why? Well, it's because, according to his expert political analysis, "shared power curbs the worst excesses of both parties" -- and since "the Presidency is Democratic," rethuglicans will provide a much-needed balance.

As absurd as Musk's advice is in light of American politix in the age of Trump, it's hardly shocking, and it's certainly nothing new for him. Nikki McCann Ramirez wrote today in a piece for Rolling Stone:

Musk’s overtures to right-wingers are not a new development. He announced that he had voted Republican for the first time earlier this year, tweeting that he had “voted for Mayra Flores – first time I ever voted Republican,” and predicting a “Massive red wave in 2022.” Musk also recently moved from California to Texas, posturing the change as the “last straw” regarding California’s Covid restrictions.

Flores has aligned herself with the QAnon conspiracy theory, and scores of the Republican candidates Musk wants his followers to vote for on Tuesday have peddled lies about the 2020 election. His push to put the party in control of Congress seems to be at odds with his vision for the future of the platform he now owns. “Twitter needs to become by far the most accurate source of information about the world,” he tweeted Sunday night. “That’s our mission.”

Even though Musk has felt compelled to 'splain on Twitter that he is an independent, mind you, and that until recently he always voted Democratic, you have to wonder what took him so long to find his new home, politically speaking. After all, it's the republicans who famously hate regulations and laws that rein in big businesses. It's the repubs whose primary mission is to help billionaires and big corporations avoid paying taxes (which is why Elon picked up his toys and moved to Texas). In addition, repubs overall seem to be pretty tolerant of grifters and scammers (professional courtesy, perhaps?), and they're the party of greed. No doubt about it: Elon and the Red Menace are a match made in purgatory.

Musk or no Musk, the rethuglican party is rapidly becoming the new American Fascist party, fueled by "The Big Lie" about the 2020 election. Here is voting rights expert Marc Elias, writing for the Democracy Docket site in October:

Republican election deniers, vote suppressors, “Big Lie” advocates and their political and legal enablers spread misinformation about elections because they believe that without public confidence, elections are easier to overturn and the results are easier to ignore. Denying the truth about the 2020 election does not just allow past grievances to fester. It lays the groundwork for Republicans to seize power in the future...

...The GOP no longer presents voter suppression and election subversion with a wink and a nod. It enthusiastically embraces these anti-democratic tactics. There are no dog whistles left in the GOP; they have been replaced by blaring sirens of authoritarianism.

No matter which party prevails tomorrow, we're in for a rough ride leading up to, and beyond, 2024. This November 4 piece in the Harvard Gazette -- in which three scholars of government and politics share their views about the future of American politics and democracy -- is worth a read. One of the interviewees, Professor of Government and Sociology Theda Skocpol, summed up what many of us are feeling:

We’re in a very serious crisis, in my opinion, the most serious since the coming of the Civil War. The reason for that is there are a lot of levers that, if pulled together and combined with violence and threats of violence, make it possible for minority authoritarians who feel threatened to change the regime — really change the system — in de facto and quasi-legal ways. I point to the fact that a minority of the country — particularly those living outside of metropolitan and more racially and ethnically diverse areas — do feel profoundly threatened by the changes that have occurred in American society. They can obstruct things or even control court appointments through the Senate with a third or less of the American population. Gerrymandering is now an art and, combined with the Republican sweeps of state legislatures in 2010, allows anti-majoritarianism there, and the federal courts have really bowed out of defending any kind of voting rights and access, and, probably worse than that, may be on the verge of strengthening the hand of minority authoritarians. Combine all that with the fact that people are now threatening violence at the local election workers that most Americans take for granted and that most Americans, I think, choose between two parties according to current economic conditions. They don’t perceive the threat, and they won’t perceive it until it’s too late.

That's exactly right. Candidates from both major political parties have been gabbing nonstop about "kitchen table issues," purported to be the matters that voters really care about. Generally these are the issues that affect them directly on a day to day basis, and, yes, they usually are economic issues. It would appear that in this election cycle, the republicans are scoring the most points by pounding their fists on that proverbial kitchen table as they scream about record-breaking inflation and high gas prices and soaring food prices and, for good measure, rising crime and shaky border security. It's all framed in a spurious blame-the-Dems narrative, of course, with inflation and high gas prices being the most popular bogus GQP talking points.

But you want to know what my husband Ron Kaye and I talk about the most at our actual kitchen table? Sure, we're concerned about higher costs, as is nearly everyone we know, but what we talk about the most at our table is the growing threat to democracy in America, courtesy of the GQP's love affair with right-wing authoritarianism (as demonstrated by, among other things, their yuuuge crush on Hungary's Viktor Orban). We're also worried about the global expansion of authoritarianism. And I seriously doubt that we are the only ones who are deeply concerned about these matters, and who feel that President Biden was spot-on in his warnings about MAGApublicans.

Ron and I voted last week -- not that our votes will do a lot of good in our deeply toxic red state of Texas, aka Gilead. Texas, unfortunately, has become a leader in the headlong race to an illiberal dystopia. But we continue to vote anyway, because we still have hopes for the future of our state and the country.

And if you're eligible (and registered), I hope you vote too.