Jun 24, 2022·edited Jun 24, 2022Liked by Tim Miller
The GA GOP machine did in early January what the American upper middle class (and all higher income brackets) have done for quite some time now: Look after their own team (family/tribe) and their team's power--even if it's at the expense of everyone else. Once the culture of economic winners in this country embraces the "fuck it, I've got mine" attitude of decadent indifference, you don't have a country anymore, you have a rigged competition.
The truth is, this kind of economic sentiment has long been in the national DNA since at least Reagan. Conservatives ignored the four decades of growing wealth inequality while focusing on limiting the scope of government and taxation--especially for the rich. As soon as it was okay to help the rich cling to power through unlimited collection of wealth and unlimited pass-down of inheritance for their family's next generation, we were destined for dynasty-building and an end to the true meritocracy. That's how you end up with people more concerned with power than the nation's wellbeing ending up in charge of things: it enters their bloodstream through the decadence of unregulated capitalism. Once you've made that deal with yourself that power and money and importance--and maintaining it at all costs--is more important than what's best for the country, you get your Trumps and Bezos' and Musks running the country because they're the ones with the most power in a system where wealth IS power. We gave it to them on a silver platter through low taxes on wealth, unlimited inheritance, and an end to the meritocracy as it existed in theory. The players can buy aces from the dealers now. The game is rigged, and those who rigged it only care about maintaining their economic supremacy over everyone else and keeping it that way for their kids in the next generation of Americans. The Chicago School of Economics gave us the Trumps of the world, and the Trumps of the world gave us the anocracy we deserved for licking their boots so clean. Conservatives today get more upset about a trans kid having an unfair athletic advantage over their kids in sports than they do about rich kids having an unfair advantage over their kids *at life*. The rich trained the bootlickers well. Focus them on culture war shit while robbing them blind. The rungs on the economic ladder are growing further and further apart, and when they get far enough apart, people toward the bottom of it will eventually just break the ladder to get to those top rungs rather than trying to climb it, impossibly. That's how you get anocracy. That's how you get clientelism. That's how you get civil conflict. It's the same story as Rome's decline.
All we need for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing. Or worse become passively complicit. Hackneyed but true. Perhaps whats most astonishing is for a significant number of people to believe patently untrue, bizarre spins on reality eg the Italian lasers rigging voting machines for Biden. As a psychiatrist I am saddened by humans accepting bizarre delusions as gospel. However, history reveals there is nothing unusual about this. The complicity of the political class in this Merde is also both despicable and unsurprising. Now if we just give McConnell the Sudetenland we can assure peace in our time.
What exactly is the socialism that's worse than Trump? The Democrats would be moderates in Europe, and the Republicans would be neo-nazis.
The Republicans literally demonized Obama as the anti-Christ because he thought that all Americans should be able to go to a doctor. That was pure evil to Republicans. There's no way Democrats can placate Republicans.
“It’s my hope that more can be nudged to do the same so we don’t catch the next threat to our democracy right in the chest.”
I hope so as well. Your efforts (and those of the rest of the Bulwark staff)contribute to turning the tide. Keep up the good work! You have this Centrist Democrat’s continuing support.
Thanks to Tim Miller's writing this week, I have been introduced to both the term "Fag Hag" and to the portmanteau "Manchinema". It has made a lousy week infinitely more amusing. That's all.
I'm going to be cracking up at Manchinema for at least another 72 hours.
OMG. Tim, why did you leave Clarence out of the book? That seems so important; I hope there are other stories like that. Have you spoken to him lately and if so, what did he have to say?
Great read, Tim. Crenshaw is just one more lying POS... who'll equivocate and outright lie to get the job he wants... so he can wield his power over others. I'm pretty much hating all of them. Especially this morning and this scotus.
Nevertheless, you did a wonderful job exposing crenshaw's untrustworthiness.
Cannot WAIT to receive my copy of "Why We Did It", and am hoping it helps me understand my fellow Americans. And perhaps offer me a way to speak with them. As it stands, I have trouble talking to tRump followers because I cannot drum up any respect for them. Which makes conversation difficult at best. But your book looks amazing. I eagerly await its arrival (plus the gift copy I ordered for my adult son.) Keep up the great work TM.
Good piece, Tim! I especially like the “normals” part. But….”Roe news”isn’t gonna last just a few days. Now the gates of hell are gonna open into retro mindset of criminalizing contraceptive use, all LGBTQ rights, equal protection under law, womens’ right to vote, Medicare, etc and the start of brown shirts asking for your papers at the grocery store….I’m hyperventilating? I hope so. I’m gonna read your book for sure! (At least I think I will….) Keep up the good work!
"People prefer to tell themselves stories that are convenient. We prefer stories in which the hardship was out of our hands. Where we did the best we could given the circumstances. Stories that center the trauma we overcame rather than the sacrifice we avoided."
And, sadly, those who suck at telling themselves self-serving narratives are likely to get steamrolled by life.
"Team Normal went about their business and convinced themselves that doing so was just the latest little sacrifice required by their career."
That way, the story gets to be about the sacrifice they made rather than the one they avoided.
Many people like to think of themselves as self-sacrificing, as if the choice were between making a sacrifice versus not making one, and often they're right in a sense. There was a sacrifice and they made it. See?!
That there's sacrifice either way, and making *a* sacrifice doesn't ensure you made the *right* sacrifice is a sadder, grimmer story. Not only harder to tell, but also harder for others to hear, even when it's more truthful.
Well. Tim, your piece is beautifully written, and I look forward to your book, which should arrive next week. I somehow found some hope and solace in your words , and those of the commenters. This is where I come when it all becomes too much to bear, and I find comfort knowing that there are still some “ fighting the good fight”. And yet…
I am currently sitting on the far southeast corner of a patio in a small cabin at 9000 feet in the mountains, hoping for enough service to finish this thought, while awaiting a huge thunderstorm late tonight. It seems appropriate to my mood. My little getaway got hijacked.
I keep thinking of words I heard a lot growing up- “America, love it or leave it!”. So, my husband and I are looking at leaving, and have been for awhile. There is little left to love, and the fight coming seems to be beyond my abilities. I can’t see myself shooting at my neighbors, although I do own a very nice 20 gauge shotgun, which I have enjoyed with clay pigeons and tin cans in the past. But against my rampaging neighbors? I think not. I am tired of driving past the “F … Biden “ banners and the rows of tattered , unlit , DISRESPECTED, American flags which used to stand for so much that was good and great in the world and in my heart. I am tired of “Boeberts in them thar hills” and Tina Peters in my local election office. And that is just local. Nationally…. I am so heartsick and weary beyond reason.
Can it get better? Are there enough of us to overcome the national frenzy toward self-destruction?
So, watching the lightning in the valley, the storm is getting closer. It’s been a long day. Time for bed. Maybe tomorrow will be rain washed, clean, and bright. Or maybe just more floods, mudslides, and forest fires. I guess we keep on keeping’ on, as my Mom used to say.
There is something wrong with part of the populace. They have to win, no matter what. There can be no compromise. JVL references this attitude when he talks about youth sports.
Today's court decision shows that even there, their side has to win. As noted in the dissent, the majority could have said "whether a State may prevent a woman from obtaining an abortion when she and her doctor have determined it is a needed medical treatment." There can be no compromise.
And decisions like that are what it's all about. It's why people voted for Trump: he will get us the judges we need to overturn RvW. It's why people put up with Mitch McConnell. He is willing to destroy the Senate to make sure he gets judges on the court who will overturn RvW. No compromise. The belief that a woman cannot be trusted with her body is absolute.
And this philosophy has worked...at least until yesterday with the modest action on gun safety. It only took another classroom of kids dying to break through.
Unfortunately, the commitment to the win has not broken through with supporters of former President Trump. I was asked this week by a wonderful, educated, thoughtful Trump-supporter if even after all the evidence presented over the last two years, if I REALLY believe Biden won.
What.the.fuuuuuuuuck.
In a WaPo article about the right rallying against Eric Greitens, they noted that a PAC was trying messaging against him. His wife beating, affair, and bribery doesn't move the needle with Missourians. What works? Mentioning that he went to the 2008 Dem National Convention.
Spousal abuse, infidelity, and bribery are not disqualifying positions for Republicans anymore.
At some point, Democrats will realize they have been in a knife fight for 15 years. At some point after that, they might even learn to knife fight. But it will probably be too late.
All this and there are still just two major political parties.
Stefanik is my rep. I’ve tried to figure for some time if she justifies her actions because she’s fighting incipient “socialism” or due to raw ambition or out of fear from people like those who threaten the lives of Kinzinger’s family.
It’s probably some combination of the three. I don’t care. I just want to see her burn in the history books next to Joe McCarthy.
The GA GOP machine did in early January what the American upper middle class (and all higher income brackets) have done for quite some time now: Look after their own team (family/tribe) and their team's power--even if it's at the expense of everyone else. Once the culture of economic winners in this country embraces the "fuck it, I've got mine" attitude of decadent indifference, you don't have a country anymore, you have a rigged competition.
The truth is, this kind of economic sentiment has long been in the national DNA since at least Reagan. Conservatives ignored the four decades of growing wealth inequality while focusing on limiting the scope of government and taxation--especially for the rich. As soon as it was okay to help the rich cling to power through unlimited collection of wealth and unlimited pass-down of inheritance for their family's next generation, we were destined for dynasty-building and an end to the true meritocracy. That's how you end up with people more concerned with power than the nation's wellbeing ending up in charge of things: it enters their bloodstream through the decadence of unregulated capitalism. Once you've made that deal with yourself that power and money and importance--and maintaining it at all costs--is more important than what's best for the country, you get your Trumps and Bezos' and Musks running the country because they're the ones with the most power in a system where wealth IS power. We gave it to them on a silver platter through low taxes on wealth, unlimited inheritance, and an end to the meritocracy as it existed in theory. The players can buy aces from the dealers now. The game is rigged, and those who rigged it only care about maintaining their economic supremacy over everyone else and keeping it that way for their kids in the next generation of Americans. The Chicago School of Economics gave us the Trumps of the world, and the Trumps of the world gave us the anocracy we deserved for licking their boots so clean. Conservatives today get more upset about a trans kid having an unfair athletic advantage over their kids in sports than they do about rich kids having an unfair advantage over their kids *at life*. The rich trained the bootlickers well. Focus them on culture war shit while robbing them blind. The rungs on the economic ladder are growing further and further apart, and when they get far enough apart, people toward the bottom of it will eventually just break the ladder to get to those top rungs rather than trying to climb it, impossibly. That's how you get anocracy. That's how you get clientelism. That's how you get civil conflict. It's the same story as Rome's decline.
All we need for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing. Or worse become passively complicit. Hackneyed but true. Perhaps whats most astonishing is for a significant number of people to believe patently untrue, bizarre spins on reality eg the Italian lasers rigging voting machines for Biden. As a psychiatrist I am saddened by humans accepting bizarre delusions as gospel. However, history reveals there is nothing unusual about this. The complicity of the political class in this Merde is also both despicable and unsurprising. Now if we just give McConnell the Sudetenland we can assure peace in our time.
"From their perspective, the violence that Sterling had warned about was hypothetical—merely empty threats."
Man, these people are naive as fuck
What exactly is the socialism that's worse than Trump? The Democrats would be moderates in Europe, and the Republicans would be neo-nazis.
The Republicans literally demonized Obama as the anti-Christ because he thought that all Americans should be able to go to a doctor. That was pure evil to Republicans. There's no way Democrats can placate Republicans.
“It’s my hope that more can be nudged to do the same so we don’t catch the next threat to our democracy right in the chest.”
I hope so as well. Your efforts (and those of the rest of the Bulwark staff)contribute to turning the tide. Keep up the good work! You have this Centrist Democrat’s continuing support.
Thanks to Tim Miller's writing this week, I have been introduced to both the term "Fag Hag" and to the portmanteau "Manchinema". It has made a lousy week infinitely more amusing. That's all.
I'm going to be cracking up at Manchinema for at least another 72 hours.
OMG. Tim, why did you leave Clarence out of the book? That seems so important; I hope there are other stories like that. Have you spoken to him lately and if so, what did he have to say?
Congrats, that's a huge accomplishment.
Great read, Tim. Crenshaw is just one more lying POS... who'll equivocate and outright lie to get the job he wants... so he can wield his power over others. I'm pretty much hating all of them. Especially this morning and this scotus.
Nevertheless, you did a wonderful job exposing crenshaw's untrustworthiness.
Cannot WAIT to receive my copy of "Why We Did It", and am hoping it helps me understand my fellow Americans. And perhaps offer me a way to speak with them. As it stands, I have trouble talking to tRump followers because I cannot drum up any respect for them. Which makes conversation difficult at best. But your book looks amazing. I eagerly await its arrival (plus the gift copy I ordered for my adult son.) Keep up the great work TM.
Also, congrats on next week Tim! Can't wait to read the pre-order!
Good piece, Tim! I especially like the “normals” part. But….”Roe news”isn’t gonna last just a few days. Now the gates of hell are gonna open into retro mindset of criminalizing contraceptive use, all LGBTQ rights, equal protection under law, womens’ right to vote, Medicare, etc and the start of brown shirts asking for your papers at the grocery store….I’m hyperventilating? I hope so. I’m gonna read your book for sure! (At least I think I will….) Keep up the good work!
"People prefer to tell themselves stories that are convenient. We prefer stories in which the hardship was out of our hands. Where we did the best we could given the circumstances. Stories that center the trauma we overcame rather than the sacrifice we avoided."
And, sadly, those who suck at telling themselves self-serving narratives are likely to get steamrolled by life.
"Team Normal went about their business and convinced themselves that doing so was just the latest little sacrifice required by their career."
That way, the story gets to be about the sacrifice they made rather than the one they avoided.
Many people like to think of themselves as self-sacrificing, as if the choice were between making a sacrifice versus not making one, and often they're right in a sense. There was a sacrifice and they made it. See?!
That there's sacrifice either way, and making *a* sacrifice doesn't ensure you made the *right* sacrifice is a sadder, grimmer story. Not only harder to tell, but also harder for others to hear, even when it's more truthful.
Well. Tim, your piece is beautifully written, and I look forward to your book, which should arrive next week. I somehow found some hope and solace in your words , and those of the commenters. This is where I come when it all becomes too much to bear, and I find comfort knowing that there are still some “ fighting the good fight”. And yet…
I am currently sitting on the far southeast corner of a patio in a small cabin at 9000 feet in the mountains, hoping for enough service to finish this thought, while awaiting a huge thunderstorm late tonight. It seems appropriate to my mood. My little getaway got hijacked.
I keep thinking of words I heard a lot growing up- “America, love it or leave it!”. So, my husband and I are looking at leaving, and have been for awhile. There is little left to love, and the fight coming seems to be beyond my abilities. I can’t see myself shooting at my neighbors, although I do own a very nice 20 gauge shotgun, which I have enjoyed with clay pigeons and tin cans in the past. But against my rampaging neighbors? I think not. I am tired of driving past the “F … Biden “ banners and the rows of tattered , unlit , DISRESPECTED, American flags which used to stand for so much that was good and great in the world and in my heart. I am tired of “Boeberts in them thar hills” and Tina Peters in my local election office. And that is just local. Nationally…. I am so heartsick and weary beyond reason.
Can it get better? Are there enough of us to overcome the national frenzy toward self-destruction?
So, watching the lightning in the valley, the storm is getting closer. It’s been a long day. Time for bed. Maybe tomorrow will be rain washed, clean, and bright. Or maybe just more floods, mudslides, and forest fires. I guess we keep on keeping’ on, as my Mom used to say.
There is something wrong with part of the populace. They have to win, no matter what. There can be no compromise. JVL references this attitude when he talks about youth sports.
Today's court decision shows that even there, their side has to win. As noted in the dissent, the majority could have said "whether a State may prevent a woman from obtaining an abortion when she and her doctor have determined it is a needed medical treatment." There can be no compromise.
And decisions like that are what it's all about. It's why people voted for Trump: he will get us the judges we need to overturn RvW. It's why people put up with Mitch McConnell. He is willing to destroy the Senate to make sure he gets judges on the court who will overturn RvW. No compromise. The belief that a woman cannot be trusted with her body is absolute.
And this philosophy has worked...at least until yesterday with the modest action on gun safety. It only took another classroom of kids dying to break through.
Unfortunately, the commitment to the win has not broken through with supporters of former President Trump. I was asked this week by a wonderful, educated, thoughtful Trump-supporter if even after all the evidence presented over the last two years, if I REALLY believe Biden won.
What.the.fuuuuuuuuck.
In a WaPo article about the right rallying against Eric Greitens, they noted that a PAC was trying messaging against him. His wife beating, affair, and bribery doesn't move the needle with Missourians. What works? Mentioning that he went to the 2008 Dem National Convention.
Spousal abuse, infidelity, and bribery are not disqualifying positions for Republicans anymore.
At some point, Democrats will realize they have been in a knife fight for 15 years. At some point after that, they might even learn to knife fight. But it will probably be too late.
All this and there are still just two major political parties.
Excellent.
You could roll a grenade through MAGA world and not worry about blowing up a single hero.
Tim, you are such a fabulous writer. Can't wait to read your book. Hope you're working on another one already!
Stefanik is my rep. I’ve tried to figure for some time if she justifies her actions because she’s fighting incipient “socialism” or due to raw ambition or out of fear from people like those who threaten the lives of Kinzinger’s family.
It’s probably some combination of the three. I don’t care. I just want to see her burn in the history books next to Joe McCarthy.