71 Comments

Was anyone else unable to attend the last Lucid Zoom meeting because Zoom wouldn't load? I really enjoy those Zoom meetings and the chance to ask the Prof and her guests questions. I just wish we could get more young people involved. That will be my goal for 2025!

Expand full comment

The appointments of unqualified to lead the key departments is clear attempts to tear those down. All power ascends to dear leader.

This seems well constructucted and planned. This is outside of trump’s skill set. Yes, he’s the frontman; but the plan likely os for the oligarchs. Corruption is plain, with number 1 beneficiary - Musk; but the circle is much wider.

Expand full comment

Joy - Project 2025+ which I believe has the goal of creating White Gilead.

Expand full comment

The scene from hell to come is the fear, not only of mass shootings at demonstrations like Tiananmen Sq, it's the Stalin or Mao, or Pinochet knock on the door at night, the disappearances, the torture, the rape, the cold blooded murder or the remote drone murder at the push of a button, in the underground army of the lawless fundamentalist fanatics whose bestial mind and blind obedience has possessed their souls in some kind of sick S & M chamber with naked teenagers cavorting. And now as we contend with Q twisted minds into an alternate dimension...the thought police trolls and hackers and bots are mathematically attacking our boundaries. This is the pit these devious minds have dug. A black hole into the heart of America. Will they get to put the stake in for good? I don't think so, but prepare for the worst, believe in the best is what my grandmother's motto was.

Expand full comment

All the gop cowards in washington cannot even stand up to this nobody, and do not even have right to represent the people, ALL the people in their districts. They need to be called out relentlessly for the spineless people they are for selling this country out..they should be recalled. Why those who chose not to certify in 2020 are still allowed to be there is beyond me.. they are insurrectionists.

Expand full comment

I also recommend supporting alternative media outlets like Free Speech TV and the Pacifica network of radio stations. You might have to get satellite dish to pull in FSTV but that's one way to receive Amy Goodman's Democracy Now, Thom Hartmann's shows plus David Pakman, Randy Rhodes, and groups you never hear of in mainstream media like the Bioneers. Alternative media may preserve democratic values longer than MSM because it's less visible.

Expand full comment

Purification through violence—this is a great background theme here, which points to the religious dimension involved, fueling the passion, determination and commitment we can see. Yet the great irony is that it is to fill an empty, hollow narcissist, an angry, bottomless pit of a human being disconnected from soul, whose solace is in cruelty and domination over others. We Americans are being offered a very deep and valuable lesson in Abnormal Psychology here, if only we can learn it and act in time.

Expand full comment

Trump's proposed appointments are only an extension of Jan. 6th. It is obvious the goal is to tear down the government leaving only him, or whoever replaces him when his mental deterioration is complete.

Expand full comment

I find it interesting that the GOP has to destroy before it can create. They have no interest in real creating. All I've seen is a will to destroy our country. The one thing they might be trying to create is a white nationalist country, but IMO if they get that, they won't have a clue how to run it.

Expand full comment

Given their approach, they can’t possibly succeed in creating “the good aspects” at least some of them imagine might come about. Why? Their beliefs, plans and tools are all wrong for the job. But what they will succeed in creating is a huge mess and failure all around. The departure from reality they are buying into and wishing to implement, unlike Elon’s rockets and cars which do work technically but are in metaphorical and other ways also flights of fantasy, fuels and appeals to the empty narcissist’s need for a whacking big story, a gigantic cover story to justify and fuel him, a big con. It is a ride that seems attractive to lots, but its actual destination is “the end of the line”—i.e., ruination and hell.

Expand full comment

Very well said, Cecelia. Thank you.

Expand full comment

Watching the trailer, I thought I could not possibly watch the full video until Ruth said not to look away. I'll take another gulp...and view it soon.

Expand full comment

We have a tough fight ahead of us. We need to have each other's backs. I think that our professional military will step up.

Expand full comment

I have recently become personally aware of the vast and powerful resentment of White men of all ages about what they perceive as their "replacement" by women and minorities including LGBT folks. While I knew it was there, I had no idea how huge it was, to the point of believing that this is why Kamala lost, rather than anything to do with prices at the grocery store. It plays right in to DJT's world view. Because Minority majority won't actually occur until 2030-2035, I'm afraid it's going to be a long haul. And yes, given this, I fully expect January 6 to become a national holiday.

Expand full comment

I agree completely with this observation Jane. White, male supremacists are massively threatened and grabbed on to Trump's grandiose coattails in the hopes of preserving white, male dominance and look how quickly they are slamming women and "brown people."

Expand full comment

instead of learning from history (to choose an alternative course), it tragically feels like we are in the midst of an impending train wreck, the momentum cannot be stopped

Expand full comment

The ongoing failure of “legacy” (where does that definition come from?) media to offer factual reporting has made our lives more susceptible to fear.

I stopped a while ago to use the president elect’s name, I’m using TCF, the CONVICTED FELON because that defines him far more and may cause a reader to consider the ramifications of him in charge of OUR government.

The abysmal ignorance of the voters as to what exactly TCF plans to do is part of why we’re here now.

I keep telling myself to have hope, to not fear, to stay pledged to the US Constitution (I made my official pledge back in 2023) BUT I have moments of grave doubts about the integrity and sturdiness of our Judicial systems. And it always seems that politicians tend to cave in at the tiniest whiff of personal danger. We now need the integrity and courage of the many resistance groups of women and men from all the Nazi occupied countries 1940-45!

Thank you for your continued Lucid writing. Your columns and talks are a much appreciated source of fact based information.

Expand full comment

I like your name for the president elect, but I would personally refuse to capitalize it - that is too respectful, IMO.

Expand full comment

I agree!

Expand full comment

Excellent recommendation. Much more suitable tcf. Thanks

Expand full comment

You are welcome!

Expand full comment

The claim in MSM that the left "dominates culture" exemplifies how far right the Overton Window has shifted since the 1980's. Right wing propaganda platforms control much of MSM while the rest normalizes propaganda & authoritarianism with "journalistic” both siderism. Reagan could never win a primary in today's GOP; Rockefeller Republicans would be considered lefty socialists, & conservatives like Liz Cheney are threatened with Trump firing squads.

As Prof Noah Smith stated: "If you believe that individual human freedom and dignity are paramount, you’re now facing a world that wants to crush your ideals and enslave you to the will of various authoritarians. In America you’re watching powerlessly as Trump remakes the country’s institutions, while in Eurasia you’re warily eyeing the suddenly unchecked power of China and Russia.” https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/20/opinion/democrats-left-center-trump.html?smid=url-share

Comparing economic, health & educational stats in red vs blue states, I thought the choice was easy…

Expand full comment

For whatever it’s worth, there are rumblings about “weird things” that went on in the 2024 election, which include Trump boasting weeks before Nov 5th that he “doesn’t need votes, - he has enough votes”. Rachel Maddow pointed this out, so did Leigh McGowan (“politics girl”). The hasty concession speeches of Kamala Harris and Joe Biden, combined with these “red herring” cabinet picks from the Trump team are pushing the timeline forward awfully fast. Does anyone else think that THIS just might have been a stolen election?. I mean, who has more brains, money, man-power, and INCENTIVE than Elon Musk who is quoted : “anything can be hacked”. We already know that Russia was caught trying to thwart this election. Trump tried myriad ways to steal the 2020 election; THIS 2024 election is barely being looked at…as autocracy is quickly tightening its grip. This is all going down so fast,- and just like Merrick Garland’s absurdly slow pace to prosecute Trump,- no one seems to be entertaining this possibility.

Expand full comment

HET999 - This election was stolen via voter suppression! Voter suppression fueled by gerrymandering. Voter suppression fueled by laws and actions that targeted voting in Blue districts. Voter suppression by ads micro targeting specific groups often with opposite messages. Voter suppression by phoning in bomb threats to polling places in swing states.

I believe that the a number of around 300,000 votes cost Harris/Walz the election in a few of those swing states. I look forward to an analysis of how many votes the billionaires helped suppress so the Christofascists could steal this election. Only about a third of eligible voters elected Trump/Vance.

As Ds we are experiencing death by a thousand cuts. Until some billionaires like Mark Cuban start funding and helping the DNC with a disciplined comm strategy that reverses this voter suppression our country is screwed.

Expand full comment

When we read the book, The Devil's Chessboard", especially the chapter called The Big Event, we see just how powerful our elites are. Did they have the power to push Ross Perot out of the election? Or torpedo Bernie Sanders? Or stifle Merrick Garland about the insurrection? Absolutely! Do they have the power to install tRump via nefarious means? Well yes.

Expand full comment

I have been questioning this election since day one. Trump gave too many hints !

Expand full comment

Exactly! And I've read several things about how he did it, the latest being outsized numbers of bullet ballots in only the swing states.

Expand full comment

Yes, agreed Susan. I just don’t understand how this possibility isn’t being explored (at least, openly). Something seems afoul; are the Dems now too afraid to stir the pot? Are we already yielding to the “Right” by NOT pursuing this further? Are “they” the only ones who can question the integrity of an election? I just don’t get it. We’re not denialists, we’re asking for what Seth Myers’s would call: “A Closer Look”!

Expand full comment

Hopefully I'll live to see Elmo swinging at the end of a rope.

Expand full comment

Yes I don’t quite believe the integrity of this election. Mostly based on

UNFETTERED PROPAGANDA !

Expand full comment

“In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true. ... Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow. The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.”

― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism

Expand full comment