Reading your posts reminds me that I'm not crazy. Just brave enough to see the world as it is. Thank you for all you - and your colleagues - do to keep people informed.
Pro-tip: follow historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat for a realtime assessment of the fascists' tactics.
I hear you loud and clear here in South Carolina. Trump's letter to Norway, is par for his course. Mobilizing US military battalions in Alaska is how wars begin. I want to thank you for your honesty courage and compassion. We are in this together. No Kings. Peace.
Australia has just announced that a deal has been signed with Palantir for the same thing. Down under we are completely emeshed with increasing number of US troops, more US bases, Pine Gap, AUKUS and the list goes on. We have a timid govt intent on placating Trump, Murdoch media control of mainstream media, all of which supposedly aimed at defence against China, our largest trading partner.
Wow. What is with all these governments signing on with Palantir? (And I’m not criticizing you; I'm just shocked to be reading all these examples.). The UK, Denmark, Australia? I could have told them that was a bad idea…. And I’m just a person who follows what Palantir is up to. And the broligarchs. It’s all out there, in writing, in videos. (Like with Carol, but also other places.) How incredibly disturbing. Thanks for sharing. I’m an American and I feel like jumping off a bridge.
Unfortunatly several german federal states in germany actually using Palantir Software for police investigation. Bavaria for example. Critics are getting louder.
Um, yes, and as another Aussie, I’m happy to express my concern out the weak, governing Labor Party being too afraid to call out what a mess the US/AU “partnership" is.
Our PM can’t even decide to refuse #Idiot47’s invitation to sign up to his “Bored of Peace” (where Trump has ultimate veto!), let alone look at AUKUS with clear eyes.
It must be said: Trump is seriously mentally ill and all his decisions and actions derive from that. It will only get worse. Someone has to put him away.
The entire Republican party, oligarchs, corporations, almost every major law firms, the Supreme Court, the broad right-wing media ecosystem all back Trump without reservation.
Democratic leadership snd the centrist Democratic caucus are burying their heads in the sand rather than champion massive reforms.
Eliminating Trump won't solve the structural rot and rampant corruption at the heart of US government.
Far too many still believe that removing 1 person, winning the midterms, focusing on 2028, will enable us to move back to "normalcy".
I agree with you that Trump is in a steep mental/behavioral decline that will result in more extreme violence. The structural rot and obliterated normalcy,as you say, of the body politic have allowed this sick and deeply flawed person to be in this position of great power. The Congress and Courts are the only institutions in a position to check him and they do nothing. They are fully aware of their abdication of duty.
Things are becoming desperate. I feel like I’m watching a suicidal teenager locked in a soundproof room with a box of razor blades. Won’t the fire brigade please come break down the door before it’s too late?
I am thinking of the American government as the metaphorical teenager doing itself in and we are helpless to do little more than watch it happen. Perhaps the regime are the razor blades.
Corporate media likes the money Trump generates for them so they will never call him out on the front page. Quarterly profits is all these people think of.
I hadn’t heard of The Nerve yet, but I immediately subscribed just now. Thank you for being a brave defender of what still remains of our REALITY-based, liberal world.
The Tesla analogy hits even closer to home. These F35s that we've been buying depend on software and codes supplied by the US, that can't be reverse engineered, and can be shut off. Within a matter of weeks they wouldn't be fit to defend a lettuce. And we've got two absurdly expensive aircraft carriers designed around the F35.
During the Indyref campaign in Scotland in 2014, one defence observer described US aircraft carriers as 'star-spangled cock-extenders' .. a great description of HMS Prince of Wales and Queen Elizabeth. It's the USA's cock, not ours, that they're extending.
Seems like an incredibly stupid way to add aircraft to our air force if an outside player can make them unusable. I suppose they just assumed America would always be our friends, I don't know why anyone thought trump wouldn't do what he's doing.
Normalcy bias, I guess, probably worse in the military since anyone at any upper rank will have worked with and alongside US forces for years, and anyone senior will have worked with US arms companies. Then there's the well-trodden path from senior military posts into arms lobbying.
Yep. Nobody, among the politicians, seems to have clocked that when you buy this stuff, it's partly about hardware, but just as much about software. They'll let you buy the hardware but you only ever get to rent the software.
yes, entertainment is sometimes funny, and usually if something is funny, it's not completely true, unless of course, you're talkin' about life, a tragic-comedy made for the ages!
Great piece Carole. Jolting, frightening, and maddening all at once. Thanks to our crop of genuinely pathetic western leaders, we’re in for the ride of our lives now….literally. Buckle up.
Please, please, UK and Europe, and Canada - please help us! Trump is deeply unpopular but he is supported by complicit fascists who egg him on. The armed forces have been purged of anyone who might resist his orders, and the members of Congress who told the military that they did not have to obey illegal orders are all under investigation. American citizens are being killed in the streets in Minneapolis, and soon elsewhere. No one in America wants to control Greenland except that demented Caligula. We hate him, but we can’t do this on our own. Please stop appeasing him and pretending he can be controlled!
I do take your point, and I wish we could. But I also want to stress that a majority of American voters never voted for trump, not in any election. In 2024 he won with less than 50% of the popular vote, but in both 2016 and 2020 he didn’t even get more votes than his opponent. But because it’s the Electoral College that determines the winner, it is possible, and has happened a number of times, that a candidate can lose the popular vote but still win the election. Most of us never voted for Trump even once. But the Republicans hold all 3 branches of government, and there may not be another real election again, so we are stuck.
It makes no difference : he was allowed to stand and was elected by popular vote despite leading an insurrection in front of the whole world. He’s broken the constitution since the first day, as has his cabinet. If the US Congress or Supreme Court won’t restrain him, it’ll be up to the US citizens. And believe me, I don’t envy you that task 😞. But if the South Koreans can do it, so can the Americans.
I followed Timothy Snyder since 2019 and the 1st Trump impeachment. I tried to understand the implications to Ukraine and Russia relationship. Back then I understood that the Trump admins were executing a shadow foreign policy circumventing the career diplomats and Trump himself dispatched his private lawyer Rudy Giuliani to cut deals for finding 'dirt on Biden'. The Russia collusion of the Trump campaign is a real thing, Paul Manafort was convicted and jailed for it. After that I understood that Trump and his circle of disciples are corrupt to the core, unheard of in a western style democracy. The whole ruling class of US-oligarchs has the same characteristics as the Russia-oligarchs. I couldn't put the finger on it back then. It needed Timothy Snyder's 'On Tyranny' for me to understand, that the US experiencing pre-stages of fascism.
When I read the report of Masha Gessen in the New Yorker of Trump trying an autocratic breakthrough on Election night 2020 when he proclaimed 'Frankly, we did win this election' and incited violence on January 6th, it was crystalclear that violence is part of his approach. 5 people died on this day and still he was pushing the 'Stop the steal' claim and refused an orderly transition of power. The 'Big Lie' permeated the following years without any meaningful repercussions. The Biden-Administration failed to persecute and convict, because either the establishment in media and politics nor the public acknowledged the fascist tendency. The blind-deaf-mute behavior of the civil society brought the whole world to this point, because it refused to see the obvious. Greetings from Germany.
I'm going to say it: Starmer has betrayed GB (as has Tony Blair). The Brits need to remove him because he is Trump lite. The Brits seem unable to recognize this just as 30% of Americans can't recognize how evil Trump is. The world is fecked and this indifference to the existential crisis we are experiencing has to be broken.
I do'nt think he's trump lite, but Farage certainly is. Starmer is a weak man and is also in a position where we are tied to America in SO many ways that he dares not stand up to them because of the backlash if he did. We don't have any bargaining chips and Starmer knows this so is trying appeasement in the hopes that it won't get too bad. I honestly think this is his stance. I wish we had a PM with a backbone who could go and make deals with Canada, India, China etc and leave the USA alone. But maybe trump will come for the UK next (as in want to own it). I dunno, I'm not educated in politics, this is just my feeling having followed it closely for a while.
Spot on. The UK is not only in a pincer movement between Russia and the US - but significantly easier to target having reduced its soft power in Europe - a mere self selected third nation vis-a-vis the EU - as planned and exploited by Russia and dark US nationalist efforts. We might as well take our hats off to the facts. The US is no longer an ally while Trump and the MAGA movement hold power.
Reading your posts reminds me that I'm not crazy. Just brave enough to see the world as it is. Thank you for all you - and your colleagues - do to keep people informed.
Pro-tip: follow historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat for a realtime assessment of the fascists' tactics.
Also, Timothy Snyder is another wise voice.
Yes, I've been a follower of Snyder since 2016 and his On Tyranny
Bollocks
"Gone in West Ukraine" means what? What is sounds like is a mangled tankie slander against the Ukrainians fighting off tRump's fascist ally Putin.
Yes, she is excellent. As is Jason Stanley & Anne Applebaum, too.
Masha Gessen's "Surviving Autocracy" also very good. Of course, very important to study Robert O. Paxton's "The Anatomy of Fascism."
Carole,
I hear you loud and clear here in South Carolina. Trump's letter to Norway, is par for his course. Mobilizing US military battalions in Alaska is how wars begin. I want to thank you for your honesty courage and compassion. We are in this together. No Kings. Peace.
Christopher and family
Australia has just announced that a deal has been signed with Palantir for the same thing. Down under we are completely emeshed with increasing number of US troops, more US bases, Pine Gap, AUKUS and the list goes on. We have a timid govt intent on placating Trump, Murdoch media control of mainstream media, all of which supposedly aimed at defence against China, our largest trading partner.
Wow. What is with all these governments signing on with Palantir? (And I’m not criticizing you; I'm just shocked to be reading all these examples.). The UK, Denmark, Australia? I could have told them that was a bad idea…. And I’m just a person who follows what Palantir is up to. And the broligarchs. It’s all out there, in writing, in videos. (Like with Carol, but also other places.) How incredibly disturbing. Thanks for sharing. I’m an American and I feel like jumping off a bridge.
Unfortunatly several german federal states in germany actually using Palantir Software for police investigation. Bavaria for example. Critics are getting louder.
Oh yes, I did hear about Germany too. Glad critics are getting louder.
AoNZ also has defence ties with Palantir, apparently.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/nz-defence-force-links-to-peter-thiels-software-company-revealed/CQERZL63SUPMXSYB47NHFOS4HQ/
Um, yes, and as another Aussie, I’m happy to express my concern out the weak, governing Labor Party being too afraid to call out what a mess the US/AU “partnership" is.
Our PM can’t even decide to refuse #Idiot47’s invitation to sign up to his “Bored of Peace” (where Trump has ultimate veto!), let alone look at AUKUS with clear eyes.
It must be said: Trump is seriously mentally ill and all his decisions and actions derive from that. It will only get worse. Someone has to put him away.
The entire Republican party, oligarchs, corporations, almost every major law firms, the Supreme Court, the broad right-wing media ecosystem all back Trump without reservation.
Democratic leadership snd the centrist Democratic caucus are burying their heads in the sand rather than champion massive reforms.
Eliminating Trump won't solve the structural rot and rampant corruption at the heart of US government.
Far too many still believe that removing 1 person, winning the midterms, focusing on 2028, will enable us to move back to "normalcy".
Normalcy has been obliterated.
I've given up pleading for people to wake up.
I agree with you that Trump is in a steep mental/behavioral decline that will result in more extreme violence. The structural rot and obliterated normalcy,as you say, of the body politic have allowed this sick and deeply flawed person to be in this position of great power. The Congress and Courts are the only institutions in a position to check him and they do nothing. They are fully aware of their abdication of duty.
Things are becoming desperate. I feel like I’m watching a suicidal teenager locked in a soundproof room with a box of razor blades. Won’t the fire brigade please come break down the door before it’s too late?
But we are in the room with him.
I am thinking of the American government as the metaphorical teenager doing itself in and we are helpless to do little more than watch it happen. Perhaps the regime are the razor blades.
im convinced trump is a narcissist at this point :/ he's highkey giving mussolini or smth
Thank you for your hard work.
Corporate media likes the money Trump generates for them so they will never call him out on the front page. Quarterly profits is all these people think of.
I’m soooo looking forward to their quarterly profits taking a nose-dive.
Trump can also make all kinds of trouble for their businesses, not least of all with SLAPP suits.
Most judge it best to keep their heads down and just provide "Person said thing" coverage.
I hadn’t heard of The Nerve yet, but I immediately subscribed just now. Thank you for being a brave defender of what still remains of our REALITY-based, liberal world.
The Tesla analogy hits even closer to home. These F35s that we've been buying depend on software and codes supplied by the US, that can't be reverse engineered, and can be shut off. Within a matter of weeks they wouldn't be fit to defend a lettuce. And we've got two absurdly expensive aircraft carriers designed around the F35.
During the Indyref campaign in Scotland in 2014, one defence observer described US aircraft carriers as 'star-spangled cock-extenders' .. a great description of HMS Prince of Wales and Queen Elizabeth. It's the USA's cock, not ours, that they're extending.
Seems like an incredibly stupid way to add aircraft to our air force if an outside player can make them unusable. I suppose they just assumed America would always be our friends, I don't know why anyone thought trump wouldn't do what he's doing.
Normalcy bias, I guess, probably worse in the military since anyone at any upper rank will have worked with and alongside US forces for years, and anyone senior will have worked with US arms companies. Then there's the well-trodden path from senior military posts into arms lobbying.
Yeah very good point.
Australia has based its Defence on F35s, F18s, Abrams tanks, etc. etc.
Let’s hope the dumpster doesn’t decide to hit the “off” switch...
Yep. Nobody, among the politicians, seems to have clocked that when you buy this stuff, it's partly about hardware, but just as much about software. They'll let you buy the hardware but you only ever get to rent the software.
Bathtub Viking is AI Fake. https://twitchy.com/warren-squire/2026/01/19/neera-tanden-deleted-retweet-of-ai-viking-bathtub-chased-by-ice-thought-it-was-real-n2424090
Aw, that was my best laugh of the day
yes, entertainment is sometimes funny, and usually if something is funny, it's not completely true, unless of course, you're talkin' about life, a tragic-comedy made for the ages!
oh but we can make it real
Yes, indeed, we should, but I'm 35 miles from the nearest town and the forest doesn't care.
I’ve shared that NYer podcast with so many friends in the past 48hours. And your work too! Keep it up, we need you!
I'm a fan. Don't ever let them silence you.
Great piece Carole. Jolting, frightening, and maddening all at once. Thanks to our crop of genuinely pathetic western leaders, we’re in for the ride of our lives now….literally. Buckle up.
Please, please, UK and Europe, and Canada - please help us! Trump is deeply unpopular but he is supported by complicit fascists who egg him on. The armed forces have been purged of anyone who might resist his orders, and the members of Congress who told the military that they did not have to obey illegal orders are all under investigation. American citizens are being killed in the streets in Minneapolis, and soon elsewhere. No one in America wants to control Greenland except that demented Caligula. We hate him, but we can’t do this on our own. Please stop appeasing him and pretending he can be controlled!
Having imposed this plague of a president on the world, you must help yourselves and recapture the spirit of 1776.
Europe is busy fending off two bullies: one from the East and the other from the West.
I do take your point, and I wish we could. But I also want to stress that a majority of American voters never voted for trump, not in any election. In 2024 he won with less than 50% of the popular vote, but in both 2016 and 2020 he didn’t even get more votes than his opponent. But because it’s the Electoral College that determines the winner, it is possible, and has happened a number of times, that a candidate can lose the popular vote but still win the election. Most of us never voted for Trump even once. But the Republicans hold all 3 branches of government, and there may not be another real election again, so we are stuck.
It makes no difference : he was allowed to stand and was elected by popular vote despite leading an insurrection in front of the whole world. He’s broken the constitution since the first day, as has his cabinet. If the US Congress or Supreme Court won’t restrain him, it’ll be up to the US citizens. And believe me, I don’t envy you that task 😞. But if the South Koreans can do it, so can the Americans.
I followed Timothy Snyder since 2019 and the 1st Trump impeachment. I tried to understand the implications to Ukraine and Russia relationship. Back then I understood that the Trump admins were executing a shadow foreign policy circumventing the career diplomats and Trump himself dispatched his private lawyer Rudy Giuliani to cut deals for finding 'dirt on Biden'. The Russia collusion of the Trump campaign is a real thing, Paul Manafort was convicted and jailed for it. After that I understood that Trump and his circle of disciples are corrupt to the core, unheard of in a western style democracy. The whole ruling class of US-oligarchs has the same characteristics as the Russia-oligarchs. I couldn't put the finger on it back then. It needed Timothy Snyder's 'On Tyranny' for me to understand, that the US experiencing pre-stages of fascism.
When I read the report of Masha Gessen in the New Yorker of Trump trying an autocratic breakthrough on Election night 2020 when he proclaimed 'Frankly, we did win this election' and incited violence on January 6th, it was crystalclear that violence is part of his approach. 5 people died on this day and still he was pushing the 'Stop the steal' claim and refused an orderly transition of power. The 'Big Lie' permeated the following years without any meaningful repercussions. The Biden-Administration failed to persecute and convict, because either the establishment in media and politics nor the public acknowledged the fascist tendency. The blind-deaf-mute behavior of the civil society brought the whole world to this point, because it refused to see the obvious. Greetings from Germany.
I'm going to say it: Starmer has betrayed GB (as has Tony Blair). The Brits need to remove him because he is Trump lite. The Brits seem unable to recognize this just as 30% of Americans can't recognize how evil Trump is. The world is fecked and this indifference to the existential crisis we are experiencing has to be broken.
I do'nt think he's trump lite, but Farage certainly is. Starmer is a weak man and is also in a position where we are tied to America in SO many ways that he dares not stand up to them because of the backlash if he did. We don't have any bargaining chips and Starmer knows this so is trying appeasement in the hopes that it won't get too bad. I honestly think this is his stance. I wish we had a PM with a backbone who could go and make deals with Canada, India, China etc and leave the USA alone. But maybe trump will come for the UK next (as in want to own it). I dunno, I'm not educated in politics, this is just my feeling having followed it closely for a while.
Spot on. The UK is not only in a pincer movement between Russia and the US - but significantly easier to target having reduced its soft power in Europe - a mere self selected third nation vis-a-vis the EU - as planned and exploited by Russia and dark US nationalist efforts. We might as well take our hats off to the facts. The US is no longer an ally while Trump and the MAGA movement hold power.