This 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.
The in-your-face plot to end the American experiment
Imagine that you are a foreign leader who wishes to destroy the United States. How could you do so? The easiest way would be to get Americans to do the work themselves, to somehow induce Americans to undo their own health, law, administration, defense, and intelligence. From this perspective, Trump's proposed appointments – Kennedy, Jr.; Gaetz; Musk; Ramaswamy; Hegseth; Gabbard – are perfect instruments. They combine narcissism, incompetence, corruption, sexual incontinence, personal vulnerability, dangerous convictions, and foreign influence as no group before them has done. These proposed appointments look like a decapitation strike: destroying the American government from the top, leaving the body politic to rot, and the rest of us to suffer.
From one of our best historians – and an expert on totalitarianism – comes this stark warning about the intent of the Trump cabinet appointments. Snyder connects the dots, drawing from the past to inform the present. What he says may sound like hyperbole, and maybe if won't turn out the way he fears. But what if he's right? What if there's even a 30% chance that he's right? (I believe it's much higher.) The more that people rely on hoping that it won't turn out that badly, the more likely the worst will occur. Silence and wishful thinking amount to capitulation, and I see it all around at this point.
A president who goes out of his way to worsen climate change can do a lot of damage. But there are forces beyond his control that will continue to buoy the energy transition. For one, solar power is the least expensive source of electricity in most of the world. And the falling price of batteries means the global automotive market is approaching a point in which an EV will be less expensive than an equivalent gasoline vehicle. (My colleague Marianne Lavelle and I wrote last month about EV market dynamics, with an emphasis on how BYD, the Chinese automaker, is making inroads in Mexico.)
For a ray of sunlight in the existential issue of our lifetimes, check out this semi-optimistic take from an Inside Climate News journalist who is an expert in energy and the industry's technological evolution. The context is still grim. There's zero doubt that we are near a global tipping point, and we're witnessing more and more climate-related problems – including, for example, not just outright disasters but also regional clobbering of insurance affordability and even availability. Trump and his clique – and fossil fuel barons (and their pet politicians) around the world – are going to make things much worse at least in the near term. But maybe, just maybe, the economics of renewables will be so compelling that even the fossil fuel industry and the politicians who pray at its alter won't be able to hold back the tide. Even if renewables can save us, we lose nothing – and gain immensely – from accelerating our efforts to slow climate change. Wishful thinking is not a strategy here, either, but hope doesn't hurt.
Leaders of the nascent blue state resistance are pre-emptively “Trump-proofing” against a conservative governing agenda, which they have cast as a threat to the values and safety of their constituents. As a candidate, Trump promised to carry out the “largest deportation operation in American history”. In statements and public remarks, several Democrats say they fear the Trump administration will seek to limit access to medication abortion or seek to undermine efforts to provide reproductive care to women from states with abortion bans. They also anticipate actions by the Trump administration to roll back environmental regulations and expand gun rights. “To anyone who intends to come take away the freedom, opportunity and dignity of Illinoisans, I would remind you that a happy warrior is still a warrior. You come for my people – you come through me,” Pritzker said last week.
In recent times, Democrat presidents and members of Congress have been a timid bunch. When it comes to dealing with a ruthless Republican party, Democrats consistently bring handshakes to knife fights. Not so much, however, when it comes to Democrats who have high offices in the states. They were something of a guard rail in 2017-2021, during Trump's first administration, but they know it's going to be much harder this time. While these preparations should have been in the works long ago, some useful planning is going on now, as this Guardian survey shows. Will it be enough to matter? We'll know soon enough. But it would be dereliction of duty not to try. The time to resist the worst is before it happens.
This strategy of betting on the winners was partly to ensure loyal advocates in Congress, but it was also because the crypto industry’s spending was as much a show of force as it was about actually achieving their desired outcomes. They revealed this during the primaries, when they dumped $10 million in opposition spending against Katie Porter in California, $2 million against Jamaal Bowman in New York, and $1.4 million against Cori Bush in Missouri. Although none of these candidates were particularly outspoken against crypto, that wasn’t really the point. Instead, the crypto industry used those races to send a message: fall in line, or we might deploy our millions against you, too. It didn’t really matter if the industry spending directly caused their targets to lose their races, so long as there was a plausible argument that it played a role (in both Bowman and Bush’s races, crypto industry money made up only about 20% of the opposition spending).
Molly White, an independent journalist, is the only journalist (afaik) who has thoroughly covered the cryptocurrency industry's huge spending to elect politicians who will deregulate the most speculation-friendly cartel since the 2000s real-estate and banking crew stole countless billions from average folks and nearly killed the global economy. The "crypto" world went beserk a few years ago, inflating a massive bubble that predictably deflated and left countless suckers with uncountable losses. As White has explained again and again, they poured staggering sums into key races this year, and they got what they wanted – though, as she points out in her latest newsletter, many of the supported candidates were on track to win anyway. The fact is, we're in another crypto bubble that is only going to get worse, and given the Trump crowd's intention to deregulate this sleazy market, a lot of regular folks who come back into the "marketplace" to speculate with their hard-earned money are going to regret it. And this time, as the crypto barons intertwine their questionable currencies into the broader financial markets, the global depression we barely avoided last time is much more likely. All I know is I'm trying to figure out how to put my own money into financial instruments that won't be vulnerable to the crypto con artists. At the moment I don't know if that will even be possible.
Timothy Snyder
Dan Gearino
Lauren Gambino
Molly White
