Musk and Thiel and Trump pulled off a heinous heist of astounding proportions while we all watched. “Staying together” — me showing up on overpasses and marches and Tesla Takedowns is fine. But without strategic tactics and some kind of logical plan that can come to fruition when 12 million people finally show up on the streets nationwide, we will have no change. All I hear daily are alarm bells from all the smart people. Ok, we are alarmed. And the solution is 12 million on the streets.
This reaches it's awful climax when MAGA people lose their jobs and homes and hope in the coming economic collapse and swell the daily street demonstrations to 10x BLM size frightening Trump into calling out the military and ordering them to shoot. At that point the generals will either obey Trump's illegal orders or honor their oaths to the Constitution and defy him. If they choose to obey, then all we can hope is for soldiers to refuse to shoot fellow citizens. Ukraine drove their dictator into exile after less than 100 demonstrators died. May we be as fortunate.
I agree with you wholeheartedly, Lulu. We’re, basically, screwed. I guess the uninformed part of America will wake up eventually. However, it appears that apathy knows no bounds in America.
Yes, I too “am informed” but feel “I can do nothing.” After reading this about the embedded DOGE and Vought, an important part of me has collapsed inward to a very dark place.”
It may be possible, some day, to regain democracy - though I admit it seems increasingly unlikely. What I do know for sure is that I will not be alive to see it. I have spent a good share of my 73 years being grateful that I live in a time and place where women, BIPOC, LGBTQ + and others have federally-protected rights, where our environmental awareness is growing…. Now I can’t help picturing everything we achieved since WW2 being scrapped and plundered. The only thing I do know is that I won’t be alive to see a rebirth of kindness, generosity, and common good. I’m nauseous.
Well said, and my sentiments exactly. From the moment you open your eyes in the morning it’s 24/7 video after video released on Substack explaining what is taking place in our country. No one has told us how to get the Democratic Party unified, how to develop a mechanism for messaging every day to the people, and a strategic plan/playbook for retaking our democracy.
This totally reflects my feelings. It is so hard to stay hopeful. Where are our representatives? Mine are all immoral republicans who don’t care apparently.
Watch the national Indivisible “What’s the Plan” zoom calls every Thursday at 3:00 pm Eastern time. There’s no easy solution; there **is** resolve, however, and a great number of people who are gathering, committed, and joining in strength. No one gets to choose the particular challenge of their time on earth; the only choice we have is how we respond to that challenge. No generation has ever been able to opt out of an unfair, stupid, or unnecessary situation. I am finding that there is strength for our hearts and souls, for our inner resolution and energy to resist—but it takes a conscious effort as an individual AND with a group as well. We can and must become hardened to our national reality by facing it honestly. Yet hardening our resistance also requires nourishing our individual wellsprings of energy. I think it will take each of us some time to “gird our loins” and develop the necessary calluses and emo
tional muscles; the fellowship of mutually supportive peers helps foster this inner balance—it’s like an immune system booster against the hopelessness which is the poison gas of this regime.
I agree. My despair has been overwhelming. I have cancelled, unsubscribed, tried to read only international news (fail, trump is everywhere), tried to stop reading the news entirely (became too afraid of not knowing what was going on). I’ve heard it said that the only way to get rid of the autocracy Inc dictators is through foreign intervention really. The 3.5% is lovely except it doesn’t always work, and it doesn’t happen unless the majority of the population no longer supports the dictator at all. Trump’s supporters are still happy enough, but by the time they are not, it will be too late.
But what is the most upsetting is the depth of the problems we had that allowed Trump in - we weren’t admitting how bad things had become, how corrupt, how broken, how normalized. We didn’t act when we should have, and now, the problems are so deep elections won’t make any difference at all, even if they were real. Our problem is societal now. So I have decided I must expatriate. and it makes me so angry and upset- I am in the middle of things! I have a house and a garden and a city I love and I am 54- I can’t go be a digital nomad, or find a new job somewhere else or get a student visa. But I also will become impoverished here as well as anywhere else- and if social security still exists, I’ll get farther on that elsewhere than here.
Worse, this country is now doing horrific things to us - from kidnapping us off the streets and sending them to concentration camps or war torn random country, to forcing a brain dead woman to carry a fetus. And I feel complicit staying here. I’m actually paying criminals to continue to make these decisions, take these actions, and to steal our money. We are paying the rate of taxes we paid when we had government agencies doing things for us- besides Medicare and SS out of our paychecks, our income taxes paid for all the other things that made a society. Prior to the new deal, we paid a max of 15%. What are our taxes for now? It’s now used for destruction for all and profit for the few. I don’t want to pay for this. Screw them. They are using all of us.
You are fortunate to have somewhere to repatriate to. Agreed, I don’t want to pay taxes to a kleptocracy nor do I want the additional tax of tariffs to pay to oligarchs.
I don’t have a place! I’m looking into Mexico and Portugal and Spain because they will still take us and have stable governments and health care! But the doors are closing to us quickly because the ones who see the writing on the wall, and can leave, are. It’s the 1st wave of emigration that occurs when a govt falls to autocracy. By the time the 3rd waves rolls around there is no where to go.
I do not know how I will survive or what I will do. I’ll have to hustle somehow, find work online, work under the table and hopefully not get caught. But better safe than sorry.
Thanks for the clarity (I should say lucidity), which is terrifying but not surprising to people who’ve been following you closely. Do you think Elon’s recent calling out of the Big Bad Bill is posturing, so that people will really believe he’s out?
This info will be used to target folks who have contributed to Democratic candidates, patronized cannabis dispensaries, (pay with CASH, folks), live in Blue counties/states, own a non-Tesla EV, attended a ‘woke’ university/college, identify as anything else but a white cisgender human … you name it. This list is just off the top of my head, and I’m sure there’s lots of data points the regime can compile against you.
Do. Not. Be. Afraid. The regime will end eventually, either peacefully, or if we drop our vigilance, in a cataclysm of violence and pain.
Thanks Ruth for this piece. What I continue to not understand is where is the resistance in the government? Isn’t this a coup? Why aren’t our leaders (cough) writing a Project 2026 to counter this BS? Don’t we hope there are people at top layers in the military & intelligence who are making counter moves? What gives? Elizabeth Warren said the financial system is rigged. Does it go further into other levels, agencies, & layers. WTF? Earth to America.
Since so much of this hostile take over is tech-AI infiltration, are there techies and former intelligence folks who could counter this by finding their way into the DOGE technological systems to stop what is happening?
For all of us who feel helpless and powerless, I think of Ukraine and their brilliant 18 month plan to use mostly homemade, inexpensive drones to take down the weapons of their aggressor. Their ingenuity is also morally acceptable. But look at the cost of their suffering.
So many in our vast country don't yet feel the pain. Yet when ICE or whomever strikes near home, they may take down a person or two, but they also ignite hundreds if not thousands with moral outrage who then have the courage to act out.
We must stand up. As far as I know, our little protest of seniors outside our retirement community--now going on 11 weeks--is the only regular weekly protest in Fort Myers. I started by inviting 5 friends and every week, despite the departure of snowbirds, 20-40 people show up. The local paper has published 4 of my letters to the editor and that has encouraged others outside our little area to join us.
Pick a time and place and show up. Buy a stool to sit on. Paint signs. Give the peace sign to those who only hold up one finger. Action Alleviates Anxiety.
To all of those who feel helpless and hopeless, organize. Join a group like Indivisible, 50501 or Third Act and get to work. We the people are the saviors.
Thank you for that link to a fascinating, proactive and well-documented piece! Another proactive approach can be found in "How to Break the Blueprint: A Tactical Guide to Russ Vought’s 180-Day Power Grab," on the anonymous substack titled Critical Resistance. I admire these writers who can keep their wits well enough during this insanity to come up with constructive suggestions.
The sad part of all this is that there are those in society who purposely trigger the authoritarian personalities among us, for their own personal gain. tRump has done this so masterfully that he is seen as an infallible savior. They are so perfectly fused with him that they believe his sociopathic unreality. He has taught them to hate virtues and accept vices.
Ruth, I’m in Europe now and while I had every intention to ‘disconnect’ from this stuff during my so-called ‘vacation’, I can’t. I’m a news-junkie and I must stay tuned, especially now. Two quick things: 1) there’s a woman on THREADS who downloaded the entire Big Beautiful Bill to ChatGBT and she reads back the analysis. This BBB SEEMS TO BE nothing short of the ‘legitimization’ of PROJECT 2025. Project 2025 was the blueprint, this bill “solidifies” it all. Try to find: Robin Gibson Mazenko’s post on “Threads” ….ALSO, Marc Elias is a GEM, a national hero, and I hope I can tune into your next Q and A from my travels here abroad. I subscribe to his Democracy Docket and for all of your subscribers on LUCID, - Marc’s Democracy Docket IS “REQUIRED READING”! Thank goodness for both of you during these critical times.
Project 2025 is fascist in nature, so that makes the Big Beautiful Bill fascist in nature also.
The part about injunctions and contempt of court actions, gives tRump immunity from Judicial Branch checks and balances. The Senate has got to stop this bill!
If 100s more people than usual are calling a maga rep who’s running for office next year, the Congressperson will be more afraid of the people that they are of Trump.
Democrats are fighting their own fight, trying to keep each other from being bought off i’m responding to a huge uptick of calls from constituents
So our chance at democracy is all up to us.
We have the numbers. We have the moral upper hand. Question is if we can build the loyalty & unity to hold together for a long haul
The maga court owes us big time. Citizens United, so-called, opened the door to all of this
Inasmuch as this essay reads ‘doom and gloom’, I still have hope that our courts will prevail. The masses are only increasing in their protests. As prices sky-rocket and more people suffer, more people will wake-up, show-up, and speak-up. Our democratic leaders MUST emerge, (and pretty damn soon) - and lead us out of this mess. I remain hopeful and WRITING LETTERS to our Congressional reps and attending protests must continue!
It is about creating a social surveillance state like China with social credits or debits depending on compliance or failure to comply with Government (kleptocratic/ Authoritarian) requirements. Credits are needed for services and the ability to function in society. Life on a leash.
Thankyou for the truth...hard as it is to hear, it is vital to have.Thankyou also for your courage and strength!!! You continue to be so appreciated.Sent with Light and Love,Sandrs
I totally get what you’re saying. But don’t you agree that it’s also more important now than ever to stay together?
Musk and Thiel and Trump pulled off a heinous heist of astounding proportions while we all watched. “Staying together” — me showing up on overpasses and marches and Tesla Takedowns is fine. But without strategic tactics and some kind of logical plan that can come to fruition when 12 million people finally show up on the streets nationwide, we will have no change. All I hear daily are alarm bells from all the smart people. Ok, we are alarmed. And the solution is 12 million on the streets.
This reaches it's awful climax when MAGA people lose their jobs and homes and hope in the coming economic collapse and swell the daily street demonstrations to 10x BLM size frightening Trump into calling out the military and ordering them to shoot. At that point the generals will either obey Trump's illegal orders or honor their oaths to the Constitution and defy him. If they choose to obey, then all we can hope is for soldiers to refuse to shoot fellow citizens. Ukraine drove their dictator into exile after less than 100 demonstrators died. May we be as fortunate.
I agree with you wholeheartedly, Lulu. We’re, basically, screwed. I guess the uninformed part of America will wake up eventually. However, it appears that apathy knows no bounds in America.
Yes, I too “am informed” but feel “I can do nothing.” After reading this about the embedded DOGE and Vought, an important part of me has collapsed inward to a very dark place.”
It may be possible, some day, to regain democracy - though I admit it seems increasingly unlikely. What I do know for sure is that I will not be alive to see it. I have spent a good share of my 73 years being grateful that I live in a time and place where women, BIPOC, LGBTQ + and others have federally-protected rights, where our environmental awareness is growing…. Now I can’t help picturing everything we achieved since WW2 being scrapped and plundered. The only thing I do know is that I won’t be alive to see a rebirth of kindness, generosity, and common good. I’m nauseous.
I am 71, Marge, and I agree with you. It breaks my heart that my children and grandchildren will have to live under a fascist regime. Tears me apart.
Well said, and my sentiments exactly. From the moment you open your eyes in the morning it’s 24/7 video after video released on Substack explaining what is taking place in our country. No one has told us how to get the Democratic Party unified, how to develop a mechanism for messaging every day to the people, and a strategic plan/playbook for retaking our democracy.
This totally reflects my feelings. It is so hard to stay hopeful. Where are our representatives? Mine are all immoral republicans who don’t care apparently.
Watch the national Indivisible “What’s the Plan” zoom calls every Thursday at 3:00 pm Eastern time. There’s no easy solution; there **is** resolve, however, and a great number of people who are gathering, committed, and joining in strength. No one gets to choose the particular challenge of their time on earth; the only choice we have is how we respond to that challenge. No generation has ever been able to opt out of an unfair, stupid, or unnecessary situation. I am finding that there is strength for our hearts and souls, for our inner resolution and energy to resist—but it takes a conscious effort as an individual AND with a group as well. We can and must become hardened to our national reality by facing it honestly. Yet hardening our resistance also requires nourishing our individual wellsprings of energy. I think it will take each of us some time to “gird our loins” and develop the necessary calluses and emo
tional muscles; the fellowship of mutually supportive peers helps foster this inner balance—it’s like an immune system booster against the hopelessness which is the poison gas of this regime.
I agree. My despair has been overwhelming. I have cancelled, unsubscribed, tried to read only international news (fail, trump is everywhere), tried to stop reading the news entirely (became too afraid of not knowing what was going on). I’ve heard it said that the only way to get rid of the autocracy Inc dictators is through foreign intervention really. The 3.5% is lovely except it doesn’t always work, and it doesn’t happen unless the majority of the population no longer supports the dictator at all. Trump’s supporters are still happy enough, but by the time they are not, it will be too late.
But what is the most upsetting is the depth of the problems we had that allowed Trump in - we weren’t admitting how bad things had become, how corrupt, how broken, how normalized. We didn’t act when we should have, and now, the problems are so deep elections won’t make any difference at all, even if they were real. Our problem is societal now. So I have decided I must expatriate. and it makes me so angry and upset- I am in the middle of things! I have a house and a garden and a city I love and I am 54- I can’t go be a digital nomad, or find a new job somewhere else or get a student visa. But I also will become impoverished here as well as anywhere else- and if social security still exists, I’ll get farther on that elsewhere than here.
Worse, this country is now doing horrific things to us - from kidnapping us off the streets and sending them to concentration camps or war torn random country, to forcing a brain dead woman to carry a fetus. And I feel complicit staying here. I’m actually paying criminals to continue to make these decisions, take these actions, and to steal our money. We are paying the rate of taxes we paid when we had government agencies doing things for us- besides Medicare and SS out of our paychecks, our income taxes paid for all the other things that made a society. Prior to the new deal, we paid a max of 15%. What are our taxes for now? It’s now used for destruction for all and profit for the few. I don’t want to pay for this. Screw them. They are using all of us.
You are fortunate to have somewhere to repatriate to. Agreed, I don’t want to pay taxes to a kleptocracy nor do I want the additional tax of tariffs to pay to oligarchs.
I don’t have a place! I’m looking into Mexico and Portugal and Spain because they will still take us and have stable governments and health care! But the doors are closing to us quickly because the ones who see the writing on the wall, and can leave, are. It’s the 1st wave of emigration that occurs when a govt falls to autocracy. By the time the 3rd waves rolls around there is no where to go.
I do not know how I will survive or what I will do. I’ll have to hustle somehow, find work online, work under the table and hopefully not get caught. But better safe than sorry.
Action is the antidote for despair. Stand up. Fight back. It is a target rich environment!
Thanks for the clarity (I should say lucidity), which is terrifying but not surprising to people who’ve been following you closely. Do you think Elon’s recent calling out of the Big Bad Bill is posturing, so that people will really believe he’s out?
This info will be used to target folks who have contributed to Democratic candidates, patronized cannabis dispensaries, (pay with CASH, folks), live in Blue counties/states, own a non-Tesla EV, attended a ‘woke’ university/college, identify as anything else but a white cisgender human … you name it. This list is just off the top of my head, and I’m sure there’s lots of data points the regime can compile against you.
Do. Not. Be. Afraid. The regime will end eventually, either peacefully, or if we drop our vigilance, in a cataclysm of violence and pain.
Thanks Ruth for this piece. What I continue to not understand is where is the resistance in the government? Isn’t this a coup? Why aren’t our leaders (cough) writing a Project 2026 to counter this BS? Don’t we hope there are people at top layers in the military & intelligence who are making counter moves? What gives? Elizabeth Warren said the financial system is rigged. Does it go further into other levels, agencies, & layers. WTF? Earth to America.
Ruth, there is no "videos" tab anywhere on your Substack
I can't find the videos tab either.
You have to be on a computer. It's not on the app
Since so much of this hostile take over is tech-AI infiltration, are there techies and former intelligence folks who could counter this by finding their way into the DOGE technological systems to stop what is happening?
No single person has the answer - just like no single person can fix this.
Next leaders have a lot of clean up to do.
Resist where you can. Hold onto hope. Talk it out with compatriots. We will find a way.
For all of us who feel helpless and powerless, I think of Ukraine and their brilliant 18 month plan to use mostly homemade, inexpensive drones to take down the weapons of their aggressor. Their ingenuity is also morally acceptable. But look at the cost of their suffering.
So many in our vast country don't yet feel the pain. Yet when ICE or whomever strikes near home, they may take down a person or two, but they also ignite hundreds if not thousands with moral outrage who then have the courage to act out.
We must stand up. As far as I know, our little protest of seniors outside our retirement community--now going on 11 weeks--is the only regular weekly protest in Fort Myers. I started by inviting 5 friends and every week, despite the departure of snowbirds, 20-40 people show up. The local paper has published 4 of my letters to the editor and that has encouraged others outside our little area to join us.
Pick a time and place and show up. Buy a stool to sit on. Paint signs. Give the peace sign to those who only hold up one finger. Action Alleviates Anxiety.
Thank you for this encouragement!
To all of those who feel helpless and hopeless, organize. Join a group like Indivisible, 50501 or Third Act and get to work. We the people are the saviors.
What if the very things that led them down the authoritarian path, fear, identity confusion, cognitive rigidity, could also light the way back?
https://open.substack.com/pub/therationalleague/p/escaping-maga-the-psychology-of-undoing?r=kxzps&utm_medium=ios
THE RATIONAL LEAGUE
Undoing the Damage: The Quiet Art of Deprogramming the MAGA Mind
JUN 2 2025
Thank you for that link to a fascinating, proactive and well-documented piece! Another proactive approach can be found in "How to Break the Blueprint: A Tactical Guide to Russ Vought’s 180-Day Power Grab," on the anonymous substack titled Critical Resistance. I admire these writers who can keep their wits well enough during this insanity to come up with constructive suggestions.
Outstanding article.
The sad part of all this is that there are those in society who purposely trigger the authoritarian personalities among us, for their own personal gain. tRump has done this so masterfully that he is seen as an infallible savior. They are so perfectly fused with him that they believe his sociopathic unreality. He has taught them to hate virtues and accept vices.
Thanks, that's a great essay!
Ruth, I’m in Europe now and while I had every intention to ‘disconnect’ from this stuff during my so-called ‘vacation’, I can’t. I’m a news-junkie and I must stay tuned, especially now. Two quick things: 1) there’s a woman on THREADS who downloaded the entire Big Beautiful Bill to ChatGBT and she reads back the analysis. This BBB SEEMS TO BE nothing short of the ‘legitimization’ of PROJECT 2025. Project 2025 was the blueprint, this bill “solidifies” it all. Try to find: Robin Gibson Mazenko’s post on “Threads” ….ALSO, Marc Elias is a GEM, a national hero, and I hope I can tune into your next Q and A from my travels here abroad. I subscribe to his Democracy Docket and for all of your subscribers on LUCID, - Marc’s Democracy Docket IS “REQUIRED READING”! Thank goodness for both of you during these critical times.
Project 2025 is fascist in nature, so that makes the Big Beautiful Bill fascist in nature also.
The part about injunctions and contempt of court actions, gives tRump immunity from Judicial Branch checks and balances. The Senate has got to stop this bill!
Actually, we the people have to stop this bill.
If 100s more people than usual are calling a maga rep who’s running for office next year, the Congressperson will be more afraid of the people that they are of Trump.
Democrats are fighting their own fight, trying to keep each other from being bought off i’m responding to a huge uptick of calls from constituents
So our chance at democracy is all up to us.
We have the numbers. We have the moral upper hand. Question is if we can build the loyalty & unity to hold together for a long haul
The maga court owes us big time. Citizens United, so-called, opened the door to all of this
I’m 79. I joined indivisible.org.
I work my ass off for the future we—especially those who may live to see it—deserve.
the alternative is despair.
And despair is contagious, just as hope and courage are contagious.
You want to see ‘citizens united?’
WE’LL SHOW YOU F’ing CITIZENS UNITED.
Totally right…this bill, if passed, essentially makes him “king”….and we can say good-bye to our Democracy. This really is “crunch time”.
Inasmuch as this essay reads ‘doom and gloom’, I still have hope that our courts will prevail. The masses are only increasing in their protests. As prices sky-rocket and more people suffer, more people will wake-up, show-up, and speak-up. Our democratic leaders MUST emerge, (and pretty damn soon) - and lead us out of this mess. I remain hopeful and WRITING LETTERS to our Congressional reps and attending protests must continue!
It is about creating a social surveillance state like China with social credits or debits depending on compliance or failure to comply with Government (kleptocratic/ Authoritarian) requirements. Credits are needed for services and the ability to function in society. Life on a leash.
I agree, that’s what I see coming also. Not sure how you fight that.
Thankyou for the truth...hard as it is to hear, it is vital to have.Thankyou also for your courage and strength!!! You continue to be so appreciated.Sent with Light and Love,Sandrs
Can't read the Wired article, it is behind a paywall.
This is so disheartening. . . I know there's going to be a reckoning, but will it be too late? I hope June 14th is a huge day of protest. . . 🤦♀️