New Progressive Muckraker

07/08/2025

From Matt Kerbel of Wolves and Sheep, published July 28:

"Costs and Benefits: Trump's fate ultimately will be in the hands of his party.

"On August 7, 1974, House Republican Leader John Rhodes, Senate Republican Leader Hugh Scott, and Republican elder statesman Barry Goldwater paid a visit to Richard Nixon at the Old Executive Office Building next to the White House. The Watergate scandal had reached a fever pitch and Nixon’s presidency was embattled.

"But the three senior Republicans were not there to encourage Nixon to resign. They were there to inform him that his support in Congress had cratered. They told him that while some House and Senate Republicans were still with him, many more had reached the conclusion that they could not stand by him any longer. He did not have the votes to withstand impeachment and conviction.

"Nixon resigned the next day.

"This is how it works.

"Elected officials who share a party label with the president are the ones who determine how much latitude he has to operate. They are in a position to green light his worst behavior, as they are doing with Trump, or to restrain him if they think he went too far. They can rally behind his domestic agenda or stubbornly refuse to pass it. In extreme instances, like in August 1974, they can determine his fate.

"In what feels like a different lifetime, Joe Biden found himself hamstrung by two senators who for their own reasons would not embrace the full measure of his plan to Build Back Better, and Biden was forced to curtail his domestic policy ambitions. Later, he was at the mercy of prominent Democrats who believed they were about to lose the 2024 election if he didn’t step aside.

"And in the lifetime before that, Republicans for a brief moment flirted with convicting Donald Trump in an impeachment trial held days after his supporters stormed and occupied the Capitol, temporarily halting the certification of the 2020 electoral votes.

"Every member who has ever faced the prospect of defying or abandoning a president of his or her party at some point pondered a simple question: do the benefits of opposing the president outweigh the costs?

"With Donald Trump, the answer to this question has always been no.

"Even in the dark days following the January 6 attack, defying Trump meant defying his base, and defying his base meant risking their wrath in the next election.

"Will that ever change?

"The explosion of the Epstein scandal like a bomb cyclone engulfing Washington has led me to wonder whether something as damaging as this story could actually bring down Trump’s presidency. My speculation begins and ends with the future political decisions of House and Senate Republicans—decisions which right now remain unknown.

"Trump’s fate will turn on his ability to maintain an iron grip on his party. He needs Republican officials to perceive the cost of abandoning him as too high, or at least higher than the cost of defending him.

"They have only teetered twice. Once was in the days following Trump’s exit from the presidency, after the events of January 6. The other was in the days before he was first elected.

"That moment most resembles today. For a brief time back in 2016, it looked like Trump’s political career was about to end. The notorious Access Hollywood tape had been released to the public and every high profile Republican official had to make a quick decision about whether it was going to be more costly to defend Trump or to abandon him and, if the choice was abandonment, whether to go so far as to call for his withdrawal from the presidential contest. Some did.

"Casting aside your standard bearer weeks before Election Day essentially means conceding defeat, so the political cost of sticking with him had to be enormous, as it was for some Republicans in this case. Like today, Trump was the (guilty) party at the heart of a blossoming scandal he could not control. But that was before Trump’s public support stabilized, Wikileaks began publishing hacked Clinton campaign emails, and James Comey announced he was re-opening his investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server.

"The calculus changed.

"Right now, Trump is confronting his greatest political threat since that autumn—perhaps greater than the threat he faced in 2021—because he cannot automatically count on his MAGA base to bail him out of another unfolding scandal where his survival instincts preclude him from doing the one thing that could regain their trust. He will not release the Jeffrey Epstein files.

"At the moment, Trump has lost control of events. His usual moves aren’t working. An attempt to deflect attention by accusing Barack Obama of treason did nothing to stop the flow of damaging Epstein-related claims, like the Wall Street Journal report published the next day documenting that Trump’s name is all over the Epstein materials, and that he was briefed about it months ago.

"His party remains divided over how to respond. Congressional leadership is running for the hills.

"As more details surface, Republicans will be calculating how close they want to get to someone who could at any time face documented evidence of his involvement in Epstein’s crimes. A nexus of unknowns are currently clouding their calculations. What do the files say about Trump? What details will become public? How credible will they be? How will the base react? How will the rest of the country react?

"Trump has successfully dominated elected Republicans by
threatening to turn the wrath of his base against them, if not physically (although that is an ongoing fear), then politically in the form of primary challenges against those who stray too far from whatever he wants them to do. If the Epstein scandal splits the base, those risks may diminish in comparison to how it would look in a general election to defend Trump’s behavior—depending of course on what that behavior turns out to be.

"Even under the most extreme circumstances, it’s as difficult to visualize Trump accepting Nixon’s fate as it is to imagine a moment when Republican leadership confronts him truthfully about his weakened political state. But it is possible to imagine Trump losing the grip he is used to exercising over his party, and for some Republicans to start worrying more about how Trump plays in a general election than in primaries.

"That may not be enough to end Trump’s presidency. He may not be driven from office by the potential loss of Republican support, but he could face significant consequences should enough Republicans decide they want to move on from him because the benefits derived from defending him diminish in relation to the costs. With the 2028 election will be in full swing in just fifteen months, it could be an attractive off ramp for apprehensive Republicans to start looking past Trump to his successor.

"For Republicans on the ballot next year, this could be the best way to split the difference between a set of unknown costs and benefits—not to break with Trump entirely but to expedite the process of looking to the future.

"But for Trump, this would be a fate worse than resignation. It would be worse than impeachment and conviction. Because it would bring about the one thing he cannot countenance.

"It would make him irrelevant." (BR)

01/08/2025

From my personal page. Article originally published by Time magazine. (BR)

A network of small, often rural, public broadcasters have long depended on CPB funding for their survival.

24/07/2025

From today's New York Times "The Morning" briefing, by Jodi Rudoren:

"What's in a name?

"President Trump, perhaps seeking to divert attention from the Jeffrey Epstein saga, last weekend lobbed an out-of-nowhere demand: The Washington Commanders and the Cleveland Guardians must restore the racist team names and logos they discarded years ago. It was both an attempt to change the conversation and a rallying cry to the right.

"Trump loves to rename things — military bases and ships, a mountain, a body of water. It’s often part of his Great Unwokening quest. But it’s also a way he asserts power, an expression of his belief in the potency of branding and a nod to how nostalgia shapes his political project.

“'This is about turning back the clock,' said Paul Lukas, a journalist and author who writes about consumer culture and who for 25 years ran a website focused on sports uniforms and logos. 'He has this vision of a world and an America where things were the way they were supposed to be, and two of those things were these two team names.'

"Today’s newsletter is about how Trump reopens seemingly settled questions, including ones about team names, years after the controversy around them has ended.

"Brand Trump

"The president’s record as a businessman is checkered, but his knack for brand-building is beyond doubt. He started renaming things in his real estate days, plastering his own name on buildings he bought. And in politics, it’s all about MAGA, always with the red hat. The spinoff brands — Make America Healthy Again, Make America Beautiful Again — only highlight the ubiquity of the original.

"Upon Trump’s second inauguration, he changed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America and restored the name of President William McKinley to the tallest mountain in Alaska. He also ordered the U.S. Board of Geographic Names to rechristen 'our national treasures' to 'honor the contributions of visionary and patriotic Americans in our nation’s rich past.'

"That past is a particular fixation. In June, Trump said he would restore the names of Confederate generals to seven military bases that had dropped them. Meanwhile, his Navy is reviewing ships named for civil rights heroes including Harvey Milk, Thurgood Marshall, Harriet Tubman and Cesar Chavez.

"Brand attention

"Amid all this, Representative Jared Huffman, a California Democrat, tried sarcasm, introducing an amendment this past spring to rename Earth as Planet Trump. And this week, Stephen Colbert sardonically suggested the capital’s football team be called the Washington Epsteins.

"Trump threatened to block the team’s bid to build a new stadium in Washington unless it brings back the Redskins name, which the team dropped in 2020. He has no formal role in the stadium decision; in December, Congress gave Washington, D.C., full control of the land. There is a federal commission, half of its members appointed by Trump, that will review the design.

"The president said people were clamoring for a return to the Redskins. In fact, a Washington Post poll in May showed that half of Washington-area adults liked or loved the team’s new name, up from 34 percent a year ago. Nine percent said they hated it.

"As usual with the president, the demand was not so much about the Washington football brand as his own brand.

”'All these stunts are promotions, if you will, to get attention, which is part of his brand,' says Jim Stengel, the former chief marketing officer of Procter & Gamble. 'And to get attention about something that is part of his brand, which is contrarian.'

"‘Frame warfare’

"The power to rename things is the power to define reality, argues Jennifer Mercieca, a Texas A&M communications professor who wrote a book about Trump’s rhetorical style. It goes hand in hand with Trump’s assertions that are not backed by evidence or fly in the face of it. Remember 'alternative facts'? Redefinitions of reality have been central to his success.

Mercieca calls it 'frame warfare.' What you call a thing determines the contours of the debate around it — or precludes debate altogether. Did you borrow a car without permission, or did you steal it? Was the crush of migrants at the Mexican border an invasion or a humanitarian crisis?

"All politicians try to play the frame game. Trump is a master at it." (BR)

24/07/2025

From Matt Kerbel of Wolves and Sheep, published yesterday:

"The Promise and Limits of Hope and Change: What Obama could and could not accomplish and what it may tell us about where we're going.

"On November 4, 2008, flanked by his young family and surrounded by almost a quarter-million emotional supporters in Chicago’s Grant Park, 47-year-old Barack Obama told the nation that 'change has come to America.'

"In one respect this was obviously true. A country where slavery was enshrined in its original Constitution had chosen a Black man to lead it out of the Great Recession.

"At the time, Obama’s election appeared to validate the theory that a changing electorate was destined to usher in a new progressive era. In Washington circles, perhaps the most celebrated version of this demography-is-destiny argument appeared in the 2004 book The Emerging Democratic Majority by John Judis and Ruy Teixeira, which made a compelling case for why population growth among groups with progressive leanings would eventually put an end to what at the time had been a quarter-century of right-leaning governance.

"Obama’s eight years may have marked the sunset of the Reagan-Bush-Bush era, but they were followed by a decade of political churning characterized by three consecutive change elections set against the backdrop of Donald Trump’s reactionary politics. The coalition that twice elevated Obama to the White House did not endure beyond his administration like it had for Reagan, FDR, McKinley, Lincoln, Jackson and Washington—presidents who birthed a new regime.

"Years later, in repudiating the argument he had made in his book, Judis noted the Democratic majority he had predicted was unraveling from the abandonment of white working-class and middle-class voters who are distrustful of government and dislike spending and high taxes. When Democrats struggle to win these voters they struggle to win elections. And in 2024, Democrats also experienced erosion with young male and Latino voters, some of which was attributable to a drop-off in interest from 2020.

"Why did these voters abandon or lose interest in Democrats?

"We can look for answers in what Obama did not change—in what he could not change, given the time in which he served.

"Obama took office in the midst of a generational economic crisis. He inherited the controversial and unpopular Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008—widely known as the Wall Street bailout—which had passed a skeptical Congress under emergency conditions in the waning days of the Bush administration. Over time, the economy gradually improved, and while a Democratic Congress passed high-profile financial regulations and consumer protections, Obama’s administration was not unfriendly to Wall Street (and Wall Street was not unfriendly to his re-election campaign).

"Perhaps this wouldn’t have mattered so much if the recovery had been swift and robust, or if the administration had criminally prosecuted Wall Street CEOs who engaged in fraudulent acts, or if the casino mentality that precipitated the crisis hadn’t endured beyond the bailout.

"Maybe that would have felt more like change.

"But Obama faced resistance from status quo forces. We saw this in his devotion to an elusive bipartisanship that for years had been idealized in Washington groupthink to the detriment of liberal policymaking, leading Obama to seek quixotic partnerships with Republicans who had sworn to make him a one-term president.

"We saw it in the pressure he faced from Republicans to balance the budget without raising taxes, a ploy they used effectively during the Reagan era to box in Democrats who hoped to expand social programs.

"And we saw it in the sausage-making machinations of Obama’s heaviest lift—his effort to reform the healthcare system. Obamacare was a historic piece of legislation that extended health insurance to tens of millions of Americans, but it also revealed the enduring strength of industry forces that precluded Obama from delivering on his promise of universal coverage despite the Democratic party at one point holding a filibuster-proof Senate majority.

"The process that produced the Affordable Care Act didn’t resemble the swift lawmaking of the first months of the New Deal. Obama didn’t have the latitude to remake the economy like FDR did after years of depression had discredited economic elites.

"Yes, there was change. But people were telling pollsters they were unhappy.

"Gallup’s measure of satisfaction with the way things were going in the United States hovered in the twenty to thirty percent range for much of Obama’s presidency, and never rose above 38%. It was a period marked by discontentment more than hope.

"This chronic disaffection surfaced in unexpected ways during the 2016 presidential campaign, when Hillary Clinton found herself in a tense nomination battle with Bernie Sanders while Donald Trump was trampling the Bush dynasty and dispatching with a host of traditional Republican candidates on his way to a presidential nomination so unlikely that the Huffington Post initially dismissed his candidacy as a sideshow and exiled coverage of it to the entertainment section.

"Sanders, the Democratic Socialist who caucused with Democrats but hadn’t identified with the party prior to seeking its presidential nomination, focused on economic inequality—on the millionaires and billionaires (as he is fond of saying) who benefit from a system that was decimating those working class and middle class voters that Judis would later acknowledge were deserting Democrats. He tellingly won primaries in Rust Belt states like Michigan and Wisconsin.

"Clinton, of course, was a historic candidate in her own right, promising to smash the highest glass ceiling in the world. And her campaign platform, bearing the inclusive title Stronger Together, addressed income inequality as well, while embracing the changing demography that twice propelled Obama. But she was also the candidate of continuity, Obama’s hand-picked successor who was associated with the policies of the status quo.

"Meanwhile, Donald Trump was waging a right-wing reactionary campaign that may be best remembered for his nativist Build a Wall sloganeering but also advocated for populist measures like universal health care and massive infrastructure spending while opposing trade agreements.

"Of course, Trump was never interested in policies that might have benefitted the middle class at the expense of the rich, and now in his second presidency voters are figuring that out. Trump’s preferences are authoritarian. He spent the first months of his second term establishing a kleptocracy.

"So much for populism.

"In his embrace of autocracy, Trump has foreclosed the possibility of a right-wing populist realignment, just like Hillary Clinton’s defeat eight years ago appears to have closed the door on the economic policies of the 80s, 90s and aughts. Joe Biden’s presidency suggested as much. Biden’s approach to the economic dislocation he inherited was bolder than that of his former boss, as Biden advanced a much larger stimulus than Obama (with narrower congressional margins), then didn’t get to stick around long enough to see his policies fully take root. Trump returned and upended Bidenomics, but it stands as a possible harbinger of what could follow.

"If we think about the economic and cultural drivers of our politics over the past decade, the fault lines have been between those who want to resolutely address economic inequality and those who do not, and between those who would empower groups who have historically been denied a seat at the table and those seeking to protect the privilege of the white, male, Christian and straight populations.

"Those who embrace a changing America but are associated with the economic policies of the past era, like Hillary Clinton, have been rejected at the polls. The prospect of right wing populism that promotes reactionary nativism but tackles economic inequality was rejected by Donald Trump in favor of a reactionary nativism paired with economic policies that advance the wildest dreams of the privileged few at the expense of everyone else.

"If Trump is successful in making his regime permanent, this is where we will land.

"And if he isn’t?

"It would leave space for some version of the one approach that remains untried, the approach that was impossible politically in the old regime—attacking economic disparities while embracing the emerging majority minority America.

"To make this possible requires an earthquake strong enough to propel a new era of nation building—an earthquake of the sort that followed the country’s most disruptive moments.

"Barack Obama didn’t have an earthquake. The Great Recession was dislocating, but it didn't dislodge the forces of the prevailing political era.

"It is why Barack Obama was not FDR.

"And now? What happens next will depend on how much damage Donald Trump leaves in his wake.

"Damage.

"Damage has always figured prominently into how much latitude the electorate gives the individual they choose to pull the country out of a debilitating crisis. And it’s going to figure prominently into the politics of renewal after Donald Trump.

"No, Barack Obama didn’t get to be FDR. But depending on how the Trump administration plays out, the next president might. (BR)

22/07/2025

So...after almost 10 years since the 2016 election, Epstein is the story that finally starts turning MAGA against Trump, huh?

Well, we New Progressive Muckrakers all know that if Trump were not still the public face of the MAGA movement, then the MAGA movement would be little more than the Tea Party on steroids.
From Matt Kerbel of Wolves and Sheep, published yesterday:

"Would Richard Nixon have resigned the presidency if there had been a right-wing media universe in 1974?

"We’ll never know, of course, but given the events of the last decade it isn’t a stretch to imagine that he could have convinced 40% of the country that the Watergate break-in was a hoax staged by Democrats to bring him down, which would have given cover to the Republican senators who were prepared to convict him in an impeachment trial. Without the threat of being removed from office, Nixon would have had the latitude to stick around, attack his enemies, and complete his term.

"But in 1974, everyone got their information from the same small set of sources, which reported the same news from essentially the same perspective. There was no credible way for Nixon—or any political figure—to escape the consensus framing of media gatekeepers who set the political agenda. Through a frame of reference that was tethered to reality, the entire country learned that the break-in was part of a political espionage ring operating out of the White House and that Nixon himself was behind an effort to cover it up.

"The lack of agreement over basic facts like these is the hallmark of our time, perpetuated by a fragmented media environment that allows us to operate within information bubbles of our own liking. If some number of people are willing to believe that a sinister deep state operated by Democrats is covering up a child s*x trafficking ring that Donald Trump has promised to expose, well, it isn’t difficult for them to find the reinforcement they’ll need to confirm it.

"Which is what makes the trajectory of events over the past week so noteworthy.

"The Jeffrey Epstein story is not following the pattern of every other scandalous outrage Donald Trump has faced. Trump has tried his usual tactics but he has been unable to get the story to disappear. He has been dismissive of its importance, called elements of the story fake, berated people who think it matters and filed a lawsuit against a (usually friendly) media outlet that published an incriminating story about him.

"Still, the weekend began with CNN’s website hosting a banner headline raising 'Five Big Questions about Trump’s Ties to Epstein.' The Sunday New York Times prominently featured five stories grouped under the heading 'Jeffrey Epstein Fallout,' with the most prominent headlined, 'Parties, Young Women, and a Private Jet: Inside the Trump-Epstein Friendship.'

"This story isn’t going away. And here are the two datapoints that explain why.

"Most people think Trump is hiding something in the Epstein matter. And almost everyone wants Trump to release all documents related to the case.

"Literally. Almost everyone.

"A YouGov poll conducted last week finds that by a 74-point margin, Americans want to see the Epstein files. That’s 79% of respondents who say they do, to only 5% who do not.

"The same poll shows that 64% of Americans think the administration is covering something up. Only 8% do not.

"You just don’t see lopsided results like that in opinion surveys. And you certainly don’t see results like that in our polarized political world.

"The Epstein matter has cut through our usual divisions because both MAGA and not-MAGA are—for different reasons—appalled by what’s happening.

"Trump dismissing the Epstein evidence undermines one of the core promises he made to his base about being an anti-deep state superhero, so the more Trump equivocates on releasing the Epstein files, the more he implicates himself in the thing he promised to expose. Add MAGA’s rejection of Trump’s defenses to the rest of us who already assume that he is complicit in Epstein’s crimes and you get numbers like these.

"You also get an unfolding pattern of scandal coverage that bears a resemblance to the feeding frenzies of the pre-social media days.

"Absent two competing universes of facts to confound the truth, the Epstein scandal is playing out in a manner not unlike what we saw fairly frequently in the 70s, 80s and 90s.

"At the heart of these scandals was a candidate or official who gets caught doing something indefensible politically. In each case they actually did the thing or some facsimile of the thing they are accused of doing. They calculate that they would sacrifice their political viability if they own up to it, so they issue a denial. Reporters do not accept the denial, and dig for evidence that contradicts it. As that evidence surfaces—sometimes in drips and sometimes in bombshell revelations—the pressure mounts for the official to admit to the accusations, but now with the country paying close attention the cost of doing so has escalated. With each subsequent denial, their position looks more tenuous and unbelievable. They try to change the narrative but the story won’t go away. It usually doesn’t end well for them.

"This is the trajectory of the Watergate scandal in the 70s, the marital infidelity scandal that ended Gary Hart’s presidential bid in the 80s, and the Clinton extramarital affair story that led to his impeachment in the 90s, among others.

"The closest recent example of this pattern was last year’s frenzy about Biden’s age (which contained a scandal element about whether Biden was covering up infirmaries but was largely a story about his ability to serve a second term). The drumbeat of negative stories that led to Biden’s withdrawal from the race was fueled by Democrats who wanted him out aligning with Republicans who had no use for him. Similar conditions apply to the Epstein scandal so far. With the country on the same page, Donald Trump is experiencing a bout of pack journalism where social media isn’t bailing him out.

"There is no way to know how this will end. It is possible that MAGA anger at Trump will turn to reflexive support if his supporters perceive him as being under partisan attack. Or Trump could try to ride it out and hope people lose interest. He has wiggled out of scandals that would have consumed other politicians, and he has yet to pull his favorite move of deflecting and escalating. Still, I would note that none of his recent efforts to deflect from less damaging stories have been effective, and the structure of this scandal makes attempts to change the subject look like admissions of guilt.

"For the moment, as the Epstein story explodes across legacy and social media, we find ourselves in a place that feels like a throwback to an earlier time when we could all agree on basic facts. Donald Trump almost certainly cannot survive in an environment like this, so look for him to rekindle our divisions as swiftly as possible. His political survival may depend on it." (BR)

17/07/2025

(BR)

15/07/2025

(BR)

🛎 If You're New Subscribe ► https://bit.ly/CKOSubscribeTRUMP'S BASE ATTACKS HIM OVER HIS EPSTEIN COVER-UP - 7.14.25 | Countdown with Keith OlbermannSEASON...

15/07/2025

From today's New York Times "The Morning" briefing, by Shawn McCreesh:

"A revolt

"After years spent spreading spidery conspiracy theories for his own political gain, President Trump has found himself wrapped up in the stickiest one of them of all. For more than a week, the political movement he created has convulsed with righteous fury over Jeffrey Epstein and the things the administration has said and done — or rather not done — about his death.

"Trump’s supporters simply cannot swallow the anticlimactic conclusion that the Justice Department reached eight days ago when it said: There’s nothing to see here, folks. No secret client list, no ties to foreign governments, no clique of Washington protectors who shielded the financier and his friends from justice for preying on girls. Over the weekend, a rabble of conspiracists who’ve been hand-fed for years by Trump broke into open revolt.

"The fallout is testing the power that the president holds over his most loyal followers, the ones who’ve trusted him all along and who believed they would learn a whole lot more about the Epstein saga if they returned Trump to office.

"The unconvinced

"Maybe the revolt will sputter out, but it has been stunning to behold. It is a Möbius strip of paranoia and distrust: A political movement that began with a conspiracy theory — lies about Barack Obama’s birthplace were central to Trump’s rise — is cannibalizing itself over another conspiracy theory.

"And in a novel twist, Trump’s usual playbook for getting himself out of trouble didn’t work. In a social media post on Saturday, he blamed Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden for unresolved Epstein mysteries.

"But the base wasn’t buying it. 'People are really upset at the outright dismissal of it,' said Natalie Winters, a 24-year-old protégé of Stephen Bannon. As Mike Cernovich, the prolific pro-Trump social media commentator, wrote online, 'Trump’s persuasive power over his base, especially during his first term, was almost magical. … The reaction on Epstein should thus be startling to him.'

"One person close to Trump conceded that the president didn’t grasp how deep and wide the discontent was because he doesn’t spend all that much time on the internet, where Epstein conspiracies breed. The 79-year-old president’s media diet consists primarily of cable news and print newspapers. But by Monday, news networks like CNN were devoting much more airtime to the uproar.

"A test of loyalty

"This is not the first time Trump’s base has bristled at him. The faithful grumbled when he encouraged Americans to take Covid vaccines or dropped bombs on Iranian nuclear facilities.

"But the conjecture around Epstein’s crimes and death is a many-layered mania that can’t really be compared to anything else. The shadowy concepts that undergird the whole thing go to the 'very foundation of MAGA,' as Winters put it, because 'it gets to the heart of who is in control of the country.'

"She lamented that Trump and the people who work for him now had campaigned against the deep state and failed to deliver. 'Finally, you have the power to expose it, and either you’re not, because there’s nothing there, in which case it makes you a liar — and I don’t believe that — or you’re ineffective, or you’re compromised.'

"The fallout is fundamentally about whether Trump can corral the conspiracy-driven forces that he weaponized. He sprang to power at a time of deep mistrust in this country after two wars and a financial crisis, selling himself as the only one who would tell the truth about a corrupt uniparty cabal that sold out the United States.

"But now that he is the one in control of the government, he is telling his supporters to move on from all of that. It has left many of them mystified." (BR)