News and commentary for understanding and coping with the years ahead...
Preparing for Trump regime: Don't lose hope
Trump’s return to power certainly poses challenges to U.S. democracy. But he will make mistakes and overplay his hand — at home and abroad. America will survive the next four years if Democrats pick themselves up and start learning from the successes of opponents of autocracy across the globe.
There's a lot of good advice in this bullet-list-plus-amplification piece from a Turkish former journalist who's now a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution. There are some bloopers, including the preposterous notion that the Democrats could have run a full slate of presidential primaries in the few weeks between Biden's withdrawal and the convention, but for the most part this is solid stuff – and it's informed with the kind of context we rarely see from U.S.-based coverage. I highlighted the most essential item in my headline: Don't lose hope. We all have to say this again and again and again, and mean it.
The bad-faith style of engagement, the endangering of workers who have .00005% the wealth of the richest man on earth, the ignoring of obvious waste in defense spending... all of these signs show us that DOGE isn't about what it pretends to be. Instead, we need to look no further than the simple corrupt backroom deals of strong men dictators around the world to see how the friends of leaders get sweetheart deals to sell their stuff at inflated prices (and, usually, inferior quality) while everyone else foots the bill. It used to be the kind of thing that Americans would point at sadly as an example of how other countries were struggling. Now we're failing to see the same playbook being used against us.
This is the kind of explainer we've been needing about the nearly pure corruption at the heart of some blatantly obvious scheming to corrupt government. Our journalism organizations have mostly parroted the regime-in-waiting's bullshit without going to the core of the matter, namely that a) the kind of cuts the new bosses are talking about are impossible without pretty much destroying Social Security and Medicare; and b) the jury-rigged – and entirely bogus – "department" Musk and his billionaire tech-bro pal claim to be running looks more like a stalking horse for graft that will be unparalleled in American history. If you remember that Trump's central goal is self-enrichment, and that he'll work with – and reward – people who help him do that, activities like this will be much more understandable. Do read this for some clarity on what's going on.
Posing as an ideological compatriot, Williams had penetrated the top ranks of two of the most prominent right-wing militias in the country. He’d slept in the home of the man who claims to be the new head of the Oath Keepers, rifling through his files in the middle of the night. He’d devised elaborate ruses to gather evidence of militias’ ties to high-ranking law enforcement officials. He’d uncovered secret operations like the surveillance of a young journalist, then improvised ways to sabotage the militants’ schemes. In one group, his ploys were so successful that he became the militia’s top commander in the state of Utah. Now he was a fugitive. He drove south toward a desert four hours from the city, where he could disappear.
I recommend that you read this ProPublica story for two reasons. First, it is the saga of a man who went under cover into American fever swamps where so-called "militias" made up of right-wing extremists are plotting, and sometimes acting, to destroy our democracy. They are vicious, and violent, and they are making inroads into professions like law enforcement, which makes their goals more scary, not to mention possible. Second, it is a story about journalism in service of the public. The reporter here has taken some risks of his own to help this brave whistleblower bring to light the growing danger posed by these groups. The combination of whistleblowing and journalism is a traditional and powerful one, and we'll be needing as much of it as we can get in coming years.
Surveillance Self-Defense (SSD) is a guide to protecting yourself from electronic surveillance for people all over the world. Some aspects of this guide will be useful to people with very little technical knowledge, while others are aimed at an audience with considerable technical expertise and privacy/security trainers. We believe that everyone's threat modelis unique—from activists in China to journalists in Europe to the LGBTQ community in Uganda. We believe that everyone has something to protect, whether it's from the government or parents or prying employers, stalkers, data-mining corporations, or an abusive partner.
One of my goals here is to help you live better and more securely in a world where enemies of freedom and human rights are capturing more governments and imposing their will on everyday people. Moving forward, we are all going to need to practice better data hygiene and safety. When you hear someone claim, "I have nothing to fear because I have nothing to hide," you are being misinformed by a deeply naive person who fails to recognize basic reality. The Electronic Frontier Foundation's "Surveillance Self-Defense" site is a great way to get started on protecting yourself. The guide, with its detailed sections on various technology platforms and everyday practices, isn't designed to help you thwart a targeted nation-state attack, but if you follow its guidelines you'll likely be better off – quite possibly a lot better off – than you are today.
How I put this together
This newsletter is a compendium of the reporting and commentary that best explains the America's political, economic, and social conditions – and, most important, how we can find a way back from the dark days ahead. You will rarely find anything here from the New York Times or Washington Post or any of the other Big Journalism companies that failed us so completely during the 2024 elections and are now sucking up – even more than usual – to Donald Trump, his cult, and corporate oligarchs. My focus will be on smaller, more honorable outlets (and individuals). I hope you'll support them with your attention and your money. For more details, please read my About page.
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I spend a lot of time looking for essential coverage, and hope you'll help me by letting me know about the good stuff you find. Let me know.
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Anil Dash
Dave Altimari
