Trump’s Gilded Ballroom and the Fall of the American Republic Tackiness and tyranny go hand in hand .............. Donald Trump is in the process of destroying a large part of the White House so he can construct a 90,000 square foot gold-encrusted ballroom. And this is being done without any historical or architectural review, treating a national treasure that belongs to the people as if it were his own personal property. In true Trumpian style, this act of vandalism is being paid for by large corporate donors — mostly tech and crypto companies — seeking to buy Trump’s favor. ........... Masked government agents are snatching people off the street. The National Guard has been sent into major cities on the obviously false pretext that these cities are in chaos. The U.S. military is essentially murdering people on the high seas. Huge tariffs are, in addition to their economic costs, undermining a system of alliances former presidents spent generations building. Green energy is being eviscerated, vindictive prosecutions are the norm, and many millions are on course to lose their health insurance. ..............
The Mamdani Moment And the Future of the Democratic Party ...... the current Democratic Party is dysfunctional if not dead. .......
The brightest light in the Democratic Party is Zohran Mamdani, the 34-year-old member of the New York State Assembly who has a good chance of being elected the next mayor of New York City when New Yorkers go to the polls a week from Tuesday.
.......... He’s proposing a few easy-to-understand things — free buses, free childcare, a four-year rent freeze for some two million residents, and a $30 minimum wage. He’s aiming to do what Franklin D. Roosevelt did in the 1930s — fix it. ......... (My seventeen-year-old granddaughter is spending her weekends knocking on doors for him, as are her friends.) ............. Nonetheless, Mamdani is horrifying the leaders of the Democratic Party. Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries haven’t endorsed him. Hillary Clinton has endorsed Andrew Cuomo, who’s spending what are likely to be the last days of his political career indulging in the kind of racist, Islamophobic attacks we’d expect from Trump. ........... Tell me: Where’s the center between democracy and fascism ......... the Times’s so-called “moderate center” is code for corporate Democrats using gobs of money to pursue culturally-conservative “swing” voters — which is what the Democratic Party has been doing for decades. ......... Corporate Democrats took the Party’s away from its real mission — to lift up the working class and lower middle class, and help the poor. Instead, they pushed for globalization, privatization, and the deregulation of Wall Street. They became Republican-Lite. ......... In 2016 and again in 2024, working and lower-middle class voters saw this and opted for a squalid real estate developer who at least sounded like he was on their side. He wasn’t and still isn’t — he’s on the side of the billionaires to whom he gave two whopping tax cuts. ............ Trump also fed voters red-meat cultural populism — blaming their problems on immigrants, Latinos, Black people, transgender people, bureaucrats, and “coastal elites.” Democrats gave voters incomprehensible 10-point plans. ......... He aims to generate $9 billion in new tax revenue by raising taxes on the city’s wealthiest residents and businesses. He’s calling for a 2% tax on incomes over $1 million, which would produce $4 billion in tax revenue. He wants to increase the state’s corporate tax rate to 11.5 percent to match New Jersey’s, generating about $5 billion annually. ..............
The wealthy have never been as wealthy as they are now, while the tax rate they pay hasn’t been as low in living memory.
.......... Inequalities of income and wealth are at record levels. A handful of billionaires now control almost every facet of the United States government and the U.S. economy. .......... Wages are nearly stagnant, prices are rising. Monopolies control food processing, housing, technology, oil and gas. ........... The time is made for the Democrats. If the Party stands for anything, it should be the growing needs of bottom 90 percent — for affordable groceries, housing, and childcare. For higher wages and better working conditions. For paid family leave. For busting up monopolies that keep prices high. For making it easier to form and join labor unions.
