I Worked, I Slept, I Woke - MAGA Dreams

 This is how I have spent this Monday - working, taking the load off my feet, going to the grocery, fixing dinner and talking to DM and going through the email, going to sleep again, and then I woke without being able to get back to sleep. I washed up the dishes from dinner, walked down to the convenience store, and came back to work on this post.

The walk was not so painful as on Friday, so I guess the medicine is doing me good.

MAGA's tantrum over "woke" Superman is nastier than their usual whining - Salon.com

This is part of a larger and far more serious effort by Trump and the MAGA movement to rewrite history, and therefore, to rewrite what the story of America even is. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has been hyperfocused on erasing all acknowledgement that women, people of color and queer people have long served in the military, all to prop up his childish fantasy that the only real heroes are white men. Under the guise of stopping “DEI,” shorthand for “diversity, equity and inclusion,” Republicans are waging war on libraries and museums, censoring books and displays that reflect the basic truth that the U.S. has always been a multi-ethnic society. Republicans are getting increasingly aggressive about spreading Christian nationalist lies that the U.S. was founded as a functional theocracy, when it was intended to be a secular nation.

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Stories like “Superman” have helped build up the American immune system to demagogues like Trump, who cynically build their own power by exploiting the lizard-brain impulses to hate and fear difference. Trump got elected by stirring up irrational fears that darker-skinned immigrants are coming to rape women and eat pets. But in a hearteningly quick turnaround, polls already show that Americans don’t like Trump’s white nationalist politics when they see them enacted. A recent Gallup poll shows a shocking about-face in public opinion now that people are seeing horrific images of ICE raids and hearing stories of innocent people sent to concentration camps euphemistically described as “detention centers.” During the campaign, 55% of Americans said they wanted less immigration. That’s dropped to 30%. In 2024, 64% of Americans said immigration is a “good thing.” Now it’s up 15 points to 79% — the highest it’s ever been in Gallup polling.

Baby bonds economist says so-called Trump accounts ‘co-opted a good idea’ (Indiana Capital Chronicle)

With fertility rates declining in the United States, Republicans backed a policy tucked inside the megabill President Donald Trump signed earlier this month that they say will help save for children’s futures.

The $1,000 investment accounts established by the government have some passing similarities to baby bonds, a concept proposed by economist Darrick Hamilton more than 15 years ago as a way to reduce income inequality.

But Hamilton told States Newsroom the design of these so-called Trump accounts, which hinge on contributions from a child’s relatives instead of the government, will benefit those who come from wealthier families that have more money to chip in.

Of course....

The Working Class Is More Left Than You Think (The New Republic)

What does this mean in practice? On the one hand, you’ve got a working class that can’t stand being lectured to on social issues by the Brahmin left. But on the other hand, that lecturing is changing minds. More than 75 percent of working-class people think gay couples ought to be permitted to adopt, and 56 percent think there’s too much anti-trans discrimination. It’s quite possible that the Brahmin left’s perceived condescension so infuriates the working class that it pulls the lever for Trump—and that the Brahmin left’s arguments nonetheless persuade the working class to be more tolerant of gender difference. But that wouldn’t be true across the board. The gap between the working class and the middle and upper classes on guns, for instance, is unchanged (though the working class has always been more favorably disposed toward gun control than is generally supposed).

 Okay, I will leave you with something that might amuse, should be an educational experience, and has nothing to do with MAGA.

25 Wild ‘Don’t Pick a Fight You Can’t Win’ Moments from History (Cracked.com)

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