I remember Ruth Ben-Ghiat explaining that when she had Anat Shenker Osorio as a guest, I believe it was. I know which groups Hitler went after, and I see the same thing happening here. MAGAs are like the Nazis. I think there should be international trials in the end for Trump, Homan, Noem etc...
I am sick of using the term MAGA. More accurately they are CONNIES as in each one of them got conned by a con man. You can't con an honest man or woman, only a con gets conned. I am tired. Must rest. See you all on Flag Day.
Arther, I think they got conned by a con man. That is what this article in Journal of Democracy would say in backsliding democracies. Perception of how well people are doing drives them.
Historian Jefferson Cowie informed me that 2/3 of Americans do not have a college degree. He says that a populist is what they want because of the ideas that tell them they can return to better times. He also built me a picture of what they are thinking those better times are, and I can also picture how they might not be able to analyze how much things have changed to make this return unlikely.
I think they knew exactly wihat they were doing when they signed up with this current regime ~ gaining power and making themselves look so freakin' tough. Think of how Noem felt to be surrounded by all the body guards ~ she's in it for the power hook, line, and I hope/pray she sinks like heavy stone ~ she's one piece of work that one.
That is the people that are part of his Kakistocracy. I am talking about the people who voted for him. There is plenty of evidence that they have been so brainwashed by the American pull yourself up by the bootstraps, no government handouts ideology, which the super wealthy have spent decades spreading with their illiberal think tanks like the Heritage Foundation etc... Dark money paying off by spreading dark ages thinking.
I agree that Noem is disgusting and someone pointed out today that we are ripe for a terrorist attack. According to ProPublica the person in charge of terrorism is in his early 20s and has absolutely no qualifications for the job. Iran is very riled up. They might go for the "Big Devil" instead of the"Little Devil" that just attacked them.
Also, they said, over 2000 events are registered covering all 50 states. Also, there are 150 events registered in 17 different countries around the world.
No Tyrants and No Fascists in countries that have Kings, so we don't offend our home countries. A rule of Democrats Abroad. I am also in Indivisible Deutschland. It is a branch of Indivisible Abroad.
It ended with Representative Maxwell Frost speaking. He said that if one studies movements around the world, the ones that have been successful are peaceful, non-violent, and capture the hearts of the people.
Tactics used today are so very similar to Nazi SS. These folks have no reservation on taking down a sitting US Senator from California, arresting judges, harassing judges, doxing anyone who questions their actions and possibly arresting folks. I feel other communities will become targets, we are sliding down the slippery slope.. I may be incorrect but I feel our country has morphed into fascism, with Donald as leader..he did say he would be dictator on day 1. At 73 it’s not the country I grew up in.
I agree that at least the government has morphed into fascism and it has taken a lot of folks with it, including some big law firms, and a lot of the mainstream media.
Fascism is definitely their goal. It's obvious when we listen to the propaganda spewed by tRump since 2015. The long time goal of our Power Elite is to have fascism here.
Those last few sentences have me sitting here with chills, eyes filling with tears.
I was too afraid to read your book last year, but we're now here, in this point in history I so dreaded and feared, and I am learning so much in reading this Substack. I appreciate your voice at this time more than I can possibly say.
One thing I am finding challenging this week is that my training as a therapist has taught me how to read people. I'm not always correct, but reading people's faces is like reading a book to me. I can see the fear on leaders' faces (both political and other voices re: Substackers like the Bulwark etc), and their facial expressions have changed, especially re: Padilla. The fear is in the facial muscles around their eyes and all over their faces. It fills me with foreboding, but I remind myself, of course they're afraid. That is the normal reaction to have.
I am also finding it challenging in not feeling, triggered by the sheer number of sociopaths and narcissists (the two often go together) in this cabinet. How the average voter can't see it is just incredible to me...like hearing blaring sirens and seeing flashing lights every time I look at them and hear video clips where they are speaking. Oftentimes I can't bear to listen. I have no problem using the word "evil" to describe them. They glory in their evil and get off on it.
Thanks so much. My mom, sister, and one of my daughters have that gift (there's actually a term for it, being Highly Sensitive and research behind it from Dr. Elaine Aron--no surprise, many of us enter the mental health field). I really appreciate the encouragement to engage in self-care...something I haven't been doing enough currently, so thank you again.
Yes they are under tremendous direct pressure, some show fear, others, like Newsom, resolve. And since we can feel fear, too, it is easy to be affected - how can we not be? I think taking a break from news and being with friends or in nature or exercising or meditating to reground is key.
The current administration is a study in abnormal psychology, and unfortunately, so are the voters that support it. We know from a psychological study that those who support far right politics tend to have some or all of the Dark Tetrad characteristics of sadism, Machiavellianism, narcissism and ASPD. tRump of course has all four.
"Now, Senator Alex Padilla, also a member of the opposition party, was thrown to the ground, removed from a government press conference, and arrested." According to Sen. Padilla, he was not arrested or detained, but he was treated horribly and this was intentional.
He wasn't detained in the legal sense of the word, but in the everyday sense of the word he was. I forgot to mention that he was handcuffed; thank you for adding this.
If being forced to lie on your stomach and have your hands handcuffed behind your back, and then being marched somewhere you had no intention of going, isn’t the technical definition of being arrested, ie being booked, then he wasn’t arrested. What I saw sure looked like the beginning of an arrest, which was its intent, with these people it’s all theatre, it’s the optics that are paramount. Their ideas are dead in the political marketplace, polling shows just how far from having a majority they are. If you can’t get a majority of people to support your policies, and the rule of law doesn’t as well, the only thing left is force of arms, which is why we are seeing this abomination of our democratic republic. “No Kings” day is tomorrow, be there if you care about our nation, every voice counts. 🙏
Per Sen. Padilla, as reported by Heather Cox Richardson, 6 /12/25: “And so I came to the press conference to hear what she had to say, to see if I could learn any new additional information…. At one point, I had a question. And so I began to ask a question. I was almost immediately forcibly removed from the room. I was forced to the ground, and I was handcuffed. I was not arrested. I was not detained."
This is a question. The lies and spin of the Trump Administration are not backed up by live video. I watched so many people taking videos of what was the in LA.
Kristi Noem was flat out lying to the American people.
LA wasn’t being “Invaded”.
They didn’t need liberation.
What was happening is on thousands of people’s phones and has been broadcast worldwide.
This reminds me of the concept of the "Ongoing Revolution" that Lenin Stalin, Mao and Castro employed. This was the basis of terror. We must resolve not to be terrorized.
I don't think it's coincidence there is going to be military in Washington DC at the same time as california. Seems like he's setting up to occupy the country.
I find it interesting, as you pointed out, which is the battalion that served in Iraqi Freedom, sent to LA, the war-like notice of deployment, and who the warmongering loyalist, Sec DOD, represents, to put this deployment in such a framework as it states, is an intimidation of not only the US citizens but the troops themselves.
I understand that media narrative, government narrative and public perception greatly affects how veterans and active duty troops are treated and seen, through history's eyes, as well as their attitude for service.
The statement from Speaker Johnson, about Newsom needing "tarred and feathered", reminded me of the great effort to quash dissent in WWI and how inappropriate his comment truly was and calculated.
The apolitical nature has really changed and whether in this time or previously, the "warmongering" of a Hegseth, who can't keep his own house in order, yet has this immense responsibility is unnerving and unsettling, at the least, and simply incompetent leadership, or total lack thereof, of the Commander-in-Chief, at worst, who keeps demanding total deference.
It's obvious why a loyalist is required but could also be confusing as to why veterans are being hung out to dry, and yet support those who support the efforts to defund them, for benefit reductions, mental illness/suicide funding cuts, housing cuts, etc.
The dynamic is dynamic.
Those that serve, blindly, to another versus their duty, to their oath to our constitution, is something every American should recognize, call out, and defend the proper checks and balances and separations of power, whether it's a migrant not receiving proper due process, or it easily and readily becomes a US citizen next, if orders are orders, and political.
Some are just magnets for BS, creating BS, keeping BS alive, defending BS, and that's exactly what DJT needs. Sorry for that but I had no other word!
Noem was very inappropriate with her "socialist" and other policy agenda, BS, when speaking about the MILITARY TRO granted to Newsom.
It is always the same narrative. Different year. Same propaganda. Same photos from 2020 or prior. SAME. PLAYBOOK.
I lived in Ventura County for 15 years. I've seen the migrant workers in the strawberry fields. . . they work so hard because they don't get paid by the hour but by the piece . . for their family. I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the cruelty. How are they "criminals " ?
I too lived there for a decade, just up the road in Thousand Oaks, there is no way that the people laboring in those fields are part of a criminal conspiracy to rape and murder the good people of this nation, they are harvesting the food that we find in the market, if they don’t harvest it, it rots. I would say they are doing more for our benefit than the whole lot of them in the maladministration, pick any one of them at random and compare……..🤬
I have to hand it to the individual on Sen. Padilla's staff who was ready to film this the instant it began and then stuck with him until physically prevented from continuing.
Ruth, it's brilliant. The Republican President is making efficient use of resources. He no longer has to consider a war abroad and all the ancillary expenses involved. He now has a war at home. He can justify it simply because the cost (monetary, of course) will be much lower than a foreign war. How could it go wrong? /s
"Crisis time requires a permanent emergency with an enemy that is never defeated"
The enemy is the 47th president who will be defeated.
I remember Ruth Ben-Ghiat explaining that when she had Anat Shenker Osorio as a guest, I believe it was. I know which groups Hitler went after, and I see the same thing happening here. MAGAs are like the Nazis. I think there should be international trials in the end for Trump, Homan, Noem etc...
Especially for Noem.
And Stephan Miller!
I am sick of using the term MAGA. More accurately they are CONNIES as in each one of them got conned by a con man. You can't con an honest man or woman, only a con gets conned. I am tired. Must rest. See you all on Flag Day.
MAGGOTS is a nice term.
Meg M, Careful: dehumanizing language is falling into their language style.
Arther, I think they got conned by a con man. That is what this article in Journal of Democracy would say in backsliding democracies. Perception of how well people are doing drives them.
https://lindaweide.substack.com/p/backsliding-democracies-like-ours?r=f0qfn
Historian Jefferson Cowie informed me that 2/3 of Americans do not have a college degree. He says that a populist is what they want because of the ideas that tell them they can return to better times. He also built me a picture of what they are thinking those better times are, and I can also picture how they might not be able to analyze how much things have changed to make this return unlikely.
I think they knew exactly wihat they were doing when they signed up with this current regime ~ gaining power and making themselves look so freakin' tough. Think of how Noem felt to be surrounded by all the body guards ~ she's in it for the power hook, line, and I hope/pray she sinks like heavy stone ~ she's one piece of work that one.
That is the people that are part of his Kakistocracy. I am talking about the people who voted for him. There is plenty of evidence that they have been so brainwashed by the American pull yourself up by the bootstraps, no government handouts ideology, which the super wealthy have spent decades spreading with their illiberal think tanks like the Heritage Foundation etc... Dark money paying off by spreading dark ages thinking.
I agree that Noem is disgusting and someone pointed out today that we are ripe for a terrorist attack. According to ProPublica the person in charge of terrorism is in his early 20s and has absolutely no qualifications for the job. Iran is very riled up. They might go for the "Big Devil" instead of the"Little Devil" that just attacked them.
I'm sure that what you say is true for a lot of people, but honest people can also get conned.
Let's call them what they are. nazis. traitors. Nothing less.
Do you remember the date of Anat interview?
No. Sorry Renee. I know that Ruth archives her weekly Zoom meetings, but I think this was said in the part that was not recorded.
I think it was 3/30/2025.
maga ARE nazis. There is no difference. They will be defeated and punished. All of them.
I attended an Indivisible Training.
There were 20,000 people on the livestream.
Here are some links they shared.
No Kings Action Guidelines
https://docs.google.com/document/d/11VgIqaJpQkYjq8aIbqgulCQmEuA817ErJMjxmG3kw84/preview?tab=t.0#heading=h.6yzouu4cc96
Peacekeeper training Guide
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1E7SgJSd34Brdu3bX36x9OLKbDxotGCpM/view
Assertive Intervention and Deescalation Tips
https://docs.google.com/document/d/17RQ6x2lJ27_rJWNX6J5B3aj9gq-5-sOMoSGqVCH9v0A/preview?tab=t.0
No Kings Marshall Training
https://youtu.be/GJW9TEurIo8?si=EWpFVG47_s6X3KsS
And, from the ACLU, Know Your Rights Training
https://youtu.be/AvNnqbxG4bY?si=99kJSNNZRB0_4Jqh
Also, they said, over 2000 events are registered covering all 50 states. Also, there are 150 events registered in 17 different countries around the world.
No Tyrants and No Fascists in countries that have Kings, so we don't offend our home countries. A rule of Democrats Abroad. I am also in Indivisible Deutschland. It is a branch of Indivisible Abroad.
It ended with Representative Maxwell Frost speaking. He said that if one studies movements around the world, the ones that have been successful are peaceful, non-violent, and capture the hearts of the people.
In Solidarity! ✌🏽
Thanks for this ~ we all need to remain peaceful ~ non-violence is the only way.
Thank you, Linda!
Thank you LInda this is very helpful
Tactics used today are so very similar to Nazi SS. These folks have no reservation on taking down a sitting US Senator from California, arresting judges, harassing judges, doxing anyone who questions their actions and possibly arresting folks. I feel other communities will become targets, we are sliding down the slippery slope.. I may be incorrect but I feel our country has morphed into fascism, with Donald as leader..he did say he would be dictator on day 1. At 73 it’s not the country I grew up in.
I agree that at least the government has morphed into fascism and it has taken a lot of folks with it, including some big law firms, and a lot of the mainstream media.
Me either.
This is why every citizen needs to vote in every election every time.
Fascism is definitely their goal. It's obvious when we listen to the propaganda spewed by tRump since 2015. The long time goal of our Power Elite is to have fascism here.
Those last few sentences have me sitting here with chills, eyes filling with tears.
I was too afraid to read your book last year, but we're now here, in this point in history I so dreaded and feared, and I am learning so much in reading this Substack. I appreciate your voice at this time more than I can possibly say.
One thing I am finding challenging this week is that my training as a therapist has taught me how to read people. I'm not always correct, but reading people's faces is like reading a book to me. I can see the fear on leaders' faces (both political and other voices re: Substackers like the Bulwark etc), and their facial expressions have changed, especially re: Padilla. The fear is in the facial muscles around their eyes and all over their faces. It fills me with foreboding, but I remind myself, of course they're afraid. That is the normal reaction to have.
I am also finding it challenging in not feeling, triggered by the sheer number of sociopaths and narcissists (the two often go together) in this cabinet. How the average voter can't see it is just incredible to me...like hearing blaring sirens and seeing flashing lights every time I look at them and hear video clips where they are speaking. Oftentimes I can't bear to listen. I have no problem using the word "evil" to describe them. They glory in their evil and get off on it.
I imagine your gift is also troubling, to see the evil so clearly.
Call it out for others to do battle.
And practice self care.
Thanks so much. My mom, sister, and one of my daughters have that gift (there's actually a term for it, being Highly Sensitive and research behind it from Dr. Elaine Aron--no surprise, many of us enter the mental health field). I really appreciate the encouragement to engage in self-care...something I haven't been doing enough currently, so thank you again.
We need you to do everything you need to keep yourself (your brain) safe and getting plenty of sleep.
Thanks! <3. And to you as well.
Yes they are under tremendous direct pressure, some show fear, others, like Newsom, resolve. And since we can feel fear, too, it is easy to be affected - how can we not be? I think taking a break from news and being with friends or in nature or exercising or meditating to reground is key.
Thank you for that encouragement.
The current administration is a study in abnormal psychology, and unfortunately, so are the voters that support it. We know from a psychological study that those who support far right politics tend to have some or all of the Dark Tetrad characteristics of sadism, Machiavellianism, narcissism and ASPD. tRump of course has all four.
Thank you!
"Now, Senator Alex Padilla, also a member of the opposition party, was thrown to the ground, removed from a government press conference, and arrested." According to Sen. Padilla, he was not arrested or detained, but he was treated horribly and this was intentional.
Did you watch the
video? He was definitely
detained on the floor
and handcuffed!
He wasn't detained in the legal sense of the word, but in the everyday sense of the word he was. I forgot to mention that he was handcuffed; thank you for adding this.
If being forced to lie on your stomach and have your hands handcuffed behind your back, and then being marched somewhere you had no intention of going, isn’t the technical definition of being arrested, ie being booked, then he wasn’t arrested. What I saw sure looked like the beginning of an arrest, which was its intent, with these people it’s all theatre, it’s the optics that are paramount. Their ideas are dead in the political marketplace, polling shows just how far from having a majority they are. If you can’t get a majority of people to support your policies, and the rule of law doesn’t as well, the only thing left is force of arms, which is why we are seeing this abomination of our democratic republic. “No Kings” day is tomorrow, be there if you care about our nation, every voice counts. 🙏
Per Sen. Padilla, as reported by Heather Cox Richardson, 6 /12/25: “And so I came to the press conference to hear what she had to say, to see if I could learn any new additional information…. At one point, I had a question. And so I began to ask a question. I was almost immediately forcibly removed from the room. I was forced to the ground, and I was handcuffed. I was not arrested. I was not detained."
I have corrected I got that from early reporting now have updated on the site
Yes I have corrected and updated
I have been calling this correctly all along.
This is a question. The lies and spin of the Trump Administration are not backed up by live video. I watched so many people taking videos of what was the in LA.
Kristi Noem was flat out lying to the American people.
LA wasn’t being “Invaded”.
They didn’t need liberation.
What was happening is on thousands of people’s phones and has been broadcast worldwide.
Connie threatens with Army tanks,
We The People don't get angst.
Today we march for Redress.
Stand down Connie, this ain't Chess.
This reminds me of the concept of the "Ongoing Revolution" that Lenin Stalin, Mao and Castro employed. This was the basis of terror. We must resolve not to be terrorized.
There once was a king named Chump,
Whose wife was queen of the Hump,
The People declared,
I think he's quear!
Now he's a thing in the Rump.
Thank you Ruth. You are
a bulwark in this time. I
was terribly sorry to
learn your mom had
been cut off from her SS
benefits. It's a concern
for many of us who draw
this benefit and who
speak up and out, now
that Musk's henchmen
have access to all our
info in the SS system.
Thank you!
I don't think it's coincidence there is going to be military in Washington DC at the same time as california. Seems like he's setting up to occupy the country.
Yup.😑
I find it interesting, as you pointed out, which is the battalion that served in Iraqi Freedom, sent to LA, the war-like notice of deployment, and who the warmongering loyalist, Sec DOD, represents, to put this deployment in such a framework as it states, is an intimidation of not only the US citizens but the troops themselves.
I understand that media narrative, government narrative and public perception greatly affects how veterans and active duty troops are treated and seen, through history's eyes, as well as their attitude for service.
The statement from Speaker Johnson, about Newsom needing "tarred and feathered", reminded me of the great effort to quash dissent in WWI and how inappropriate his comment truly was and calculated.
The apolitical nature has really changed and whether in this time or previously, the "warmongering" of a Hegseth, who can't keep his own house in order, yet has this immense responsibility is unnerving and unsettling, at the least, and simply incompetent leadership, or total lack thereof, of the Commander-in-Chief, at worst, who keeps demanding total deference.
It's obvious why a loyalist is required but could also be confusing as to why veterans are being hung out to dry, and yet support those who support the efforts to defund them, for benefit reductions, mental illness/suicide funding cuts, housing cuts, etc.
The dynamic is dynamic.
Those that serve, blindly, to another versus their duty, to their oath to our constitution, is something every American should recognize, call out, and defend the proper checks and balances and separations of power, whether it's a migrant not receiving proper due process, or it easily and readily becomes a US citizen next, if orders are orders, and political.
Some are just magnets for BS, creating BS, keeping BS alive, defending BS, and that's exactly what DJT needs. Sorry for that but I had no other word!
Noem was very inappropriate with her "socialist" and other policy agenda, BS, when speaking about the MILITARY TRO granted to Newsom.
It is always the same narrative. Different year. Same propaganda. Same photos from 2020 or prior. SAME. PLAYBOOK.
Thanks for your insight, as always.
I lived in Ventura County for 15 years. I've seen the migrant workers in the strawberry fields. . . they work so hard because they don't get paid by the hour but by the piece . . for their family. I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the cruelty. How are they "criminals " ?
They absolutely are not. They're doing essential work Americans don't want to do.
I too lived there for a decade, just up the road in Thousand Oaks, there is no way that the people laboring in those fields are part of a criminal conspiracy to rape and murder the good people of this nation, they are harvesting the food that we find in the market, if they don’t harvest it, it rots. I would say they are doing more for our benefit than the whole lot of them in the maladministration, pick any one of them at random and compare……..🤬
Thank you for some hopeful ideas to consider.
I have to hand it to the individual on Sen. Padilla's staff who was ready to film this the instant it began and then stuck with him until physically prevented from continuing.
Ruth, it's brilliant. The Republican President is making efficient use of resources. He no longer has to consider a war abroad and all the ancillary expenses involved. He now has a war at home. He can justify it simply because the cost (monetary, of course) will be much lower than a foreign war. How could it go wrong? /s