All Things Trump: the story continues...

[Sean Hayden]

Looking back to when Tero suggested things were just as bad or worse reveals some potentially good and bad news. The good news is that Americans haven’t been convinced to side with the crooks. The bad news: more Americans than ever are being represented by people they probably don’t align with politically. –earth-shattering, I know. But seriously, when it feels like all of America is going crazy, it may help to recognize that actually, it’s only more Americans than ever are tuning out!

[Brian Peacock]

I think we're all feeling that about every party and politician everywhere at the mo. I spoke to a friend yesterday who's been an active member of their local Labour party since they were a student in the 80s.
...but I didn't have the heart to tell them that that process has been going on for 20 years and was completed about 5 years ago.

I go to the bookstore every week and leaf through nonfiction books. There is a steady flow of books from both sides explaining what happened and how the old world is gone and the evil people are now a threat of are winning.

Very few academic books reach the best seller list, though there are some journalists that give a balanced view.

I tend not to buy from Amazon, but they still have the best reviews and you can find the books fairly easily. This one explains the state level Republicans and the pwoer games.

State Capture: How Conservative Activists, Big Businesses, and Wealthy Donors Reshaped the American States and the Nation
by Alexander Hertel-Fernandez

Using a diverse array of original evidence, State Capture explains why and how conservatives developed cross-state political clout while progressives did not.

Most Americans pay little attention to the massive number of elections that occur at the state level every year. Yet cumulatively, a party's success in state-level races across the country can produce major shifts in policymaking and governance.

Drawing from an impressive evidence base, Hertel-Fernandez explains how, since the 1970s, conservative activists, wealthy donors, and big businesses constructed a right-wing "troika" of overlapping and influential lobbying groups.

But it is about more than this. It also teases out how conservative-corporate mobilization has fostered epochal shifts in the American political economy: the decline of unions, party polarization, and the skyrocketing concentration of wealth. State Capture will be essential reading for anyone interested in understanding contemporary American politics.

The year 2010 showed the significance of the capture of the states. Before, Democrats were in full control of 16 states and Republicans only 9. After the election, Republicans controlled 21 and the Democrats only 11. Afterward, we see many red states adopt the same or similar legislation, such as stand-your-ground, right-to-work, voter ID requirements, etc. Where did this similar legislation come from? The author discusses three main entities: American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), State Policy Network (SPN), and Americans for Prosperity (AFP).

Also the Dark Money book explains the trend. I have it somewhere, it was mostly on the Koch Brothers plan, now converted into Project 2025.

This isn't just a US thing - it's global in scope and fundamentally a structural matter. Some academic books around the issue:

Angrynomics - Eric Lonergan, Mark Blyth: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Angrynomics-Er ... 1788212797

Stolen: How to Save the World from Financialisation - Grace Blakeley: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stolen-How-Sav ... 1912248379

Keystroke Capitalism:
How Banks Create Money for the Few - Aaron Sahr: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Keystroke-Capi ... 1839761199

The Perfection Trap: The Power Of Good Enough In A World That Always Wants More - Thomas Curran: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Perfection-Tra ... 1847943845

[Tero]

The Curran book may be one to read.

Today, burnout and depression are at record levels, driven by a combination of intense workplace competition, oppressively ubiquitous social media encouraging comparisons with others, the quest for elite credentials, and helicopter parenting. Society continually broadcasts the need to want more, and to be perfect.

Gathering a wide range of contemporary evidence, Curran offers “a clear-eyed look at how perfectionism and its capitalistic ‘obsession with boundless growth’ has contributed to mass discontent and insecurity” (Publishers Weekly). He shows what we can do as individuals to resist the modern-day pressure to be perfect, and in so doing, win for ourselves a more purposeful and contented life.

Filled with “many useful lessons and valuable insights…This book offers an alternative path to a fulfilling, productive life” (Kirkus Reviews) and the relief of letting go to focus on what matters most.

I have the only Piketty book I have to read first. On wealth.

[Tero]

Trump the visionary:

Trump says he 'can't guarantee' tariffs won't raises prices, he won't restrict abortion pills: Top takeaways
Trump vows to pardon Jan. 6 rioters on his 'first day'
Plans to deport all people not legally in the country, ban birthright citizenship

Trump said he will again use threats of pulling the United States out of NATO, an international alliance between dozens of countries in Europe and North America, as leverage to convince other member countries to spend more on defense.
https://www.usatoday.com

[Tero]

That letter from the Trump run agency:

..ever get a letter in the mail from a bank, or the cable company — or any faceless corporation — and it starts with ‘in order to bring you better service…’?

you know exactly what’s coming next: you’re going to be told you’re getting a shittier deal, and it’s going to cost you more. well, welcome to Donny Convict’s US of A, if these rancid ratfuckers get their way.

https://www.jefftiedrich.com/p/the-ny-t ... ashing-the

[Brian Peacock]

The Curran book may be one to read.

Today, burnout and depression are at record levels, driven by a combination of intense workplace competition, oppressively ubiquitous social media encouraging comparisons with others, the quest for elite credentials, and helicopter parenting. Society continually broadcasts the need to want more, and to be perfect.

Gathering a wide range of contemporary evidence, Curran offers “a clear-eyed look at how perfectionism and its capitalistic ‘obsession with boundless growth’ has contributed to mass discontent and insecurity” (Publishers Weekly). He shows what we can do as individuals to resist the modern-day pressure to be perfect, and in so doing, win for ourselves a more purposeful and contented life.

Filled with “many useful lessons and valuable insights…This book offers an alternative path to a fulfilling, productive life” (Kirkus Reviews) and the relief of letting go to focus on what matters most.

I have the only Piketty book I have to read first. On wealth.

He's a psychologist by training, but he goes to some effort to repeat and make clear some very strong points around how our psychological and emotional states, and thus our relationships with others and society at large (and ultimately the values we adopt and express in our daily lives), are impacted by, and to a great extent guided by, the social, economic, political and environmental contexts of our everyday existence. In that regard it's also a stern critique of the prevailing ideology of social organisation we call Capitalism, and in that he draws a very similar conclusion to Piketty - that the operating premises of Capitalism do not (and probably cannot) create the material conditions under which we can truly be ourselves, let alone flourish, either as interconnected individuals or interconnected communities.

[pErvinalia]

Tell me Musk isn't flourishing.

[Sean Hayden]

Is the assumption that capitalism is bolted on, and once removed a healthier more natural state of affairs can be allowed to thrive? Because I suspect being human just ain’t all that conducive to thriving communities, at least not in the sense most people have in mind when they say that sort of thing. But maybe capitalism has just warped ma mind.

[Brian Peacock]

Tell me Musk isn't flourishing.

That's kind of the point of his analysis - but even then, does the Groyper-in-Chief strike you as a well adjusted or happy person? If you measure these things by the number of zeros on the end of your bank statement then Musk has to be the 2nd most happiest person in the world evah. Somehow I don't think he's even in the top 100, or anywhere near it!

[Brian Peacock]

Is the assumption that capitalism is bolted on, and once removed a healthier more natural state of affairs can be allowed to thrive? Because I suspect being human just ain’t all that conducive to thriving communities, at least not in the sense most people have in mind when they say that sort of thing. But maybe capitalism has just warped ma mind.

Perhaps

I think his thrust isn't so much that capitalism bad (tho that's my take!), but that Society is how we care for each other and ourselves, and Economy is just the material means by which we do that. When Economy doesn't allow us to do the care Society, and therefore us, start to break down. He uses the idea of perfection to examine what it is we really want and need to lead healthier more fulfilling lives.

[pErvinalia]

Tell me Musk isn't flourishing.

That's kind of the point of his analysis - but even then, does the Groyper-in-Chief strike you as a well adjusted or happy person? If you measure these things by the number of zeros on the end of your bank statement then Musk has to be the 2nd most happiest person in the world evah. Somehow I don't think he's even in the top 100, or anywhere near it!

I've seen him dancing and jumping around on stage. He's loving life. Capitalism is good.

[Brian Peacock]

Again, I think you're only strengthening the point rather than challenging it. Even if Musk inhabits a state of permanent bardoic bliss it doesn't mean that Capitalism is the best or only way to achieve Nirvana, or that 'our psychological and emotional states, and thus our relationships with others and society at large (and ultimately the values we adopt and express in our daily lives) are not impacted by, and to a great extent guided by, the social, economic, political and environmental contexts of our everyday existence'.

[pErvinalia]

Musk wouldn't have got that rich and happy under socialism. A survey of billionaires found that ten out ten prefer capitalism.

[Brian Peacock]

That's a groundbreaking idea! You should write a book about it.

Welcome to the dark side btw.

[pErvinalia]

Capitalism: A Love Story