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Friday, 1 November 2024:
Trump Assails Liz Cheney and Imagines Guns ‘Shooting at Her.’ Vice President Kamala Harris said that anyone who uses ‘that kind of violent rhetoric is clearly disqualified, and unqualified, to be president. The New York Times, Michael Gold and Adam Nagourney, Friday, 1 November 2024: “Former President Donald J. Trump assailed Liz Cheney, one of his most prominent Republican critics, in an end-of-campaign burst of vitriol on Thursday, saying she should be put on a battlefield ‘with nine barrels shooting at her.’ Mr. Trump’s invoking of violence intensified his dispute with one of the most prominent political families in the nation and drew criticism from leaders of both parties. Mr. Trump criticized and insulted Ms. Cheney — a former congresswoman and the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney — during an onstage interview with Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host. ‘She’s a radical war hawk,’ Mr. Trump said during the event Thursday night at the Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, Ariz. ‘Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK? Let’s see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face.'” See also, Kamala Harris assails Trump for saying Liz Cheney should have rifles ‘shooting at her,’ Associated Press, Adriana Gomez Licon and Aamer Madhani, Friday, 1 November 2024: “Kamala Harris said Friday it was ‘disqualifying’ for Donald Trump to say former Rep. Liz Cheney, one of the former president’s most prominent Republican critics, should have rifles ‘shooting at her’ to see how she feels about sending troops to fight. The Democratic vice president has campaigned extensively with Cheney, especially in the ‘blue wall’ battleground states that make up her strongest path to victory on Tuesday, while Trump has been going after the former Wyoming congresswoman and her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, over the Iraq war and U.S. military interventions abroad. Speaking to reporters after arriving in Madison, Wisconsin, Harris asked voters to consider who they’d prefer sitting in the Oval Office, driving the message she’s been emphasizing in the campaign’s closing week. Harris called Cheney ‘a true patriot’ and said Trump “has increased his violent rhetoric.” See also, Trump says ‘war hawk’ Liz Cheney should be fired upon in escalation of violent rhetoric against his opponents, CNN Politics, Eric Bradner, Friday, 1 November 2024: “Donald Trump said former Rep. Liz Cheney is a ‘war hawk’ who should be fired upon, as he raged against one of his most prominent intra-party critics while campaigning Thursday night in Arizona. ‘She’s a radical war hawk. Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK?” the former president said at a campaign event in Glendale with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson. ‘Let’s see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face.’ Trump also hurled insults at Cheney, once the third-ranking Republican in House leadership, calling her ‘very dumb,’ a ‘stupid person’ and ‘the moron.’ Trump’s suggestion that Cheney should face gunfire represents an escalation of the violent language he has used to target his political foes. And it comes days before an election in which the former president — who never accepted his 2020 loss — has already undermined public confidence. In recent weeks, he has also suggested a military crackdown on political opponents he has described as ‘the enemy within.’ Cheney is perhaps the most vocal Republican critic of Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, and his role in his supporters’ January 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol. She played a leading role on the House select committee that investigated the attack, and later was ousted from her deep-red Wyoming House seat by a Trump-backed primary opponent in 2022. Cheney responded to Trump’s comments overnight, saying: ‘This is how dictators destroy free nations…. They threaten those who speak against them with death. We cannot entrust our country and our freedom to a petty, vindictive, cruel, unstable man who wants to be a tyrant.'”
Jeffrey Epstein details close relationship with Trump in newly released tapes. Recordings from 2017 reveal Epstein talking for some ‘100 hours’ about Trump, journalist Michael Wolff says. The Guardian, Edward Helmore, Friday, 1 November 2024: “A New York author and journalist has released audio tapes that appear to detail how Donald Trump had a close social relationship with the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein that he has long denied. The tapes, released as part of the Fire and Fury podcast series by Michael Wolff, author of three books about Trump’s first term and 2020 bid for a second, and James Truman, former NME journalist and Condé Nast editorial director, include Epstein’s thoughts about the inner workings of the former US president’s inner circle. Wolff says the recordings were made during a 2017 discussion with Epstein about writing his biography. Epstein died by suicide while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges two years later. Despite his crimes, the wealthy financier was at the heart of a social circle of the rich and powerful in the US and overseas that contained many famous names. Wolff claims the excerpt tape is a mere fraction of some ‘100 hours of Epstein talking about the inner workings of the Trump White House and about his longstanding, deep relationship with Donald Trump.'”
Saturday, 2 November 2024:
Trump appears to emulate ‘sex act’ on microphone after he melts down over technical difficulties, Independent, Rhian Lubin, Saturday, 2 November 2024: “Donald Trump appeared to emulate performing a ‘sex act’ on a microphone stand during a campaign rally after experiencing technical difficulties. Viewers were stunned at the former president’s apparent gesture during his Milwaukee rally on Friday night in Wisconsin…. At one point, as the problems appeared to continue, the former president said: ‘You’ve gotta be kidding. Do you want to see me knock the hell out of people backstage?'” See also, Trump Needs Help. Last night he simulated oral sex in public. The Atlantic, Tom Nichols, Saturday, 2 November 2024: “I do not know how to put this gently or tastefully, so I will factually describe what happened last night in Milwaukee: A former president of the United States held a rally, during which he used a microphone holder on his podium to pantomime the act of giving fellatio. I could have put it differently. I might have said that ‘a cognitively impaired man, who has long been showing signs of serious emotional instability and has a history of sexism and racism, engaged in crude behavior in front of a large audience.’ But that wouldn’t capture an important reality: This deeply impaired man is tied in the race to become the next president and could be holding the codes to the U.S. nuclear arsenal in less than three months.”
Continue reading Aftermath of the Trump Administration, November 2024:
Sunday, 3 November 2024:
Trump, in Increasingly Dark and dour Tones, Says He ‘Shouldn’t Have Left’ the White House. Donald Trump, who sought to overturn his loss of the 2020 election, also suggested that he didn’t mind if reporters were shot. The New York Times, Michael Gold, Maggie Haberman, and Shane Goldmacher, Sunday, 3 November 2024: “With two days left in his third presidential campaign, former President Donald J. Trump told supporters at a Pennsylvania rally on Sunday that he ‘shouldn’t have left’ the White House at the end of his term, escalated his unfounded claims of voter fraud and said ‘I don’t mind’ if reporters are shot at. With the remarks, Mr. Trump used the final days of his campaign to offer voters a stark reminder of the violence that came at the end of his term when, after weeks of his false claims that he had won an election he had lost, a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol to try to prevent the certification of President Biden’s victory. Mr. Trump has not committed to accepting the 2024 election results unless he believes they are fair, and he has repeatedly suggested in recent weeks that the only plausible explanation for him losing in 2024 would be if Democrats ‘cheat.'” See also, Trump says he ‘shouldn’t have left’ the White House as he closes campaign with increasingly dark message, CNN Politics, Gregory Krieg and Kate Sullivan, Sunday, 3 November 2024: “Donald Trump, who said in Pennsylvania on Sunday that he regrets leaving the White House in 2021, is ending the 2024 campaign the way he began it — dishing out a stew of violent, disparaging rhetoric and repeated warnings that he will not accept defeat if it comes. At a rally in the must-win battleground state, the former president told supporters that he ‘shouldn’t have left’ office after losing the 2020 election; described Democrats as ‘demonic’; complained about a new poll that shows him no longer leading in Iowa, a state he twice carried; and said he wouldn’t mind if a gunman aiming at him also shot through ‘the fake news.’ Trump spent much of his speech pushing unfounded claims of cheating by Democrats in the 2024 election and sowing doubts about its integrity as polls show him and Vice President Kamala Harris deadlocked nationally. He ranted about alleged election interference this year and lamented his departure from office after losing to Joe Biden four years ago.” See also, Trump talks about reporters being shot and says he shouldn’t have left White House after his 2020 loss, Associated Press, Jill Colvin and Jonathan J. Cooper, Sunday, 3 November 2024: “Donald Trump delivered a profane and conspiracy-laden speech two days before Tuesday’s presidential election, talking about reporters being shot and suggesting he ‘shouldn’t have left’ the White House after his 2020 loss to Democrat Joe Biden. In remarks Sunday that bore little resemblance to the speech he’s been delivering at his recent rallies, the former president repeatedly cast doubt on the integrity of the vote and resurrected old grievances after trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat. Trump intensified his verbal attacks on what he cast as a ‘demonic’ Democratic Party and the American media, steering his rally in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, at one point to the topic of violence against members of the press. He noted the ballistic glass that is used to protect him at outdoor events after a gunman’s assassination attempt in July and pointed to openings between the panels.”
Trump’s Wild Claims, Conspiracies, and Falsehoods Redefine Presidential Bounds, The New York Times, Peter Baker, Sunday, 3 November 2024: “It took just two minutes for former President Donald J. Trump to utter his first lie of the evening, claiming once again that the 2020 election had been stolen. By four minutes into the televised interview on Thursday night, he was claiming that this time around ‘we’re leading by a lot’ in the polls, setting up another false claim of a stolen election should he lose on Tuesday. By five minutes into the program, he had turned to assailing his successor’s record in office and was claiming that in the last few years the country had experienced ‘the worst inflation we’ve ever had.’ None of that was true. And that was just the first 300 seconds. For the rest of the evening, Mr. Trump spouted one statement after another that was fanciful, misleading, distorted or wildly false. He rewrote history. He claimed accomplishments that he did not accomplish. He cited statistics at odds with the record. He described things that did not happen and denied things that did. Public appearances by Mr. Trump throughout this year’s campaign have been an Alice-in-Wonderland trip through the political looking glass, a journey into an alternate reality often belied by actual reality. At its most fundamental, it boils down to this: America was paradise on earth when he was in charge, and now it’s a dystopian hellscape. Nuance, subtlety, precision and ambiguity play no role in the version that Mr. Trump promotes with relentless repetition. And it is a version that has found traction with tens of millions of supporters. Truth is not always an abundant resource in the White House under any president, but never has the Oval Office been occupied by someone so detached from verifiable facts. Mr. Trump’s four years in power were a nonstop treadmill for fact-checkers trying to catch up with the latest. His four years since leaving arguably have posed an even bigger challenge as he descended further into conspiracy theories, particularly around election integrity. Since leaving the White House, Mr. Trump for the first time has been held accountable in court for deception. He was convicted of 34 felonies for falsifying business records to cover up hush money to an adult film actor. He was found liable in a civil lawsuit for lying to banks about the value of his properties. He was found liable in separate lawsuits for lying about a woman who accused him of sexually assaulting her. None of that, however, has moved his base of supporters, many of whom accept his argument that the indictments and impeachments and lawsuits and judgments and conviction are part of a wide-ranging plot by partisan Democrats, the ‘deep state’ and a supposedly corrupt news media who are out to get him.”
Trump doesn’t rule out banning vaccines if he becomes president: ‘I’ll make a decision.’ In an interview with NBC News, the former president also said a push by RFK Jr. to remove fluoride in water ‘sounds OK to me.’ NBC News, Dasha Burns and Alexandra Marquez, Sunday, 3 November 2024: “Former President Donald Trump said Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would have a ‘big role in the administration’ if he wins Tuesday, telling NBC News in a phone interview that he is open to some of his more controversial ideas. Kennedy, who ran for president as an independent this year before he dropped his bid and endorsed Trump, has long spread conspiracies and falsehoods about vaccines and other public health matters. He has, for example, frequently claimed that vaccines are linked to autism, even though studies have debunked that theory for decades.”
Wednesday, 6 November 2024, Trump Wins US Presidential Election: “Somehow the United States surrendered to the Russians, the nazis, and the confederacy all in one night.”
Barry Blitt’s “Back With a Vengeance,” The New Yorker, 18 November 2024
The US Hires a Strongman. This was a conquering of the nation not by force but with a permission slip. Not, the US stands on the precipice of an authoritarian style of governance never before seen in its 248-year history. The New York Times, Lisa Lerer, Wednesday, 6 November 2024: “Donald Trump told Americans exactly what he planned to do. He would use military force against his political opponents. He would fire thousands of career public servants. He would deport millions of immigrants in military-style roundups. He would crush the independence of the Department of Justice, use government to push public health conspiracies and abandon America’s allies abroad. He would turn the government into a tool of his own grievances, a way to punish his critics and richly reward his supporters. He would be a ‘dictator’ — if only on Day 1. And, when asked to give him the power to do all of that, the voters said yes…. After defeating Vice President Kamala Harris, who would have become the first female U.S. president, Mr. Trump will bring his own historic firsts into the White House: the only president convicted of dozens of crimes, accused of dozens more and twice impeached. Unlike in 2016, when he scored a surprise electoral victory but lost the popular vote, Mr. Trump will go to Washington able to claim a broad mandate. Over his four years out of power, he rebuilt the Republican Party in his image, creating a movement that only seemed to strengthen with every recrimination. He will begin his second term bound by few political norms, after a campaign in which he seemed to defy every one.” See also, Trump wins the White House in a political comeback rooted in appeals to frustrated voters, Associated Press, Zeke Miller, Michelle L. Price, Will Weissert, and Jill Colvin, Wednesday, 6 November 2024: “Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the United States on Wednesday, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who refused to accept defeat four years ago, sparked a violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts. With a win in Wisconsin, Trump cleared the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency. He won Michigan on Wednesday afternoon, sweeping the ‘blue wall’ along with Pennsylvania — the one-time Democrat-leaning, swing states that all went for Trump in 2016 before flipping to President Joe Biden in 2020. His Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, called Trump on Wednesday afternoon to concede the race and congratulate him. A short time later, Biden also called Trump to congratulate him and to invite the president-elect to the White House, formally kicking off the transition ahead of Inauguration Day, the White House said. Biden also called Harris. The victory validates Trump’s bare-knuckles approach to politics. He had attacked Harris in deeply personal – often misogynistic and racist – terms as he pushed an apocalyptic picture of a country overrun by violent migrants. The coarse rhetoric, paired with an image of hypermasculinity, resonated with angry voters – particularly men – in a deeply polarized nation.” See also, ‘Trump’s America’: Comeback Victory Signals a Different Kind of Country. In the end Donald Trump is not the historical aberration some thought he was, but instead a transformational force reshaping the modern United States in his own image. The New York Times, Peter Baker, Wednesday, 6 November 2024: “In her closing rally on the Ellipse last week, Kamala Harris scorned Donald J. Trump as an outlier who did not represent America. ‘That is not who we are,’ she declared. In fact, it turns out, that may be exactly who we are. At least most of us. The assumption that Mr. Trump represented an anomaly who would at last be consigned to the ash heap of history was washed away on Tuesday night by a red current that swept through battleground states — and swept away the understanding of America long nurtured by its ruling elite of both parties. No longer can the political establishment write off Mr. Trump as a temporary break from the long march of progress, a fluke who somehow sneaked into the White House in a quirky, one-off Electoral College win eight years ago. With his comeback victory to reclaim the presidency, Mr. Trump has now established himself as a transformational force reshaping the United States in his own image. Populist disenchantment with the nation’s direction and resentment against elites proved to be deeper and more profound than many in both parties had recognized. Mr. Trump’s testosterone-driven campaign capitalized on resistance to electing the first woman president. And while tens of millions of voters still cast ballots against Mr. Trump, he once again tapped into a sense among many others that the country they knew was slipping away, under siege economically, culturally and demographically. To counter that, those voters ratified the return of a brash 78-year-old champion willing to upend convention and take radical action even if it offends sensibilities or violates old standards. Any misgivings about their chosen leader were shoved to the side. As a result, for the first time in history, Americans have elected a convicted criminal as president. They handed power back to a leader who tried to overturn a previous election, called for the ‘termination’ of the Constitution to reclaim his office, aspired to be a dictator on Day 1 and vowed to exact ‘retribution’ against his adversaries.” See also, Stop Pretending Trump Is Not Who We [a majority of voters in 2024 presidential election] Are, The New York Times, Carlos Lozada, Wednesday, 6 November 2024: “There have been so many attempts to explain away Trump’s hold on the nation’s politics and cultural imagination, to reinterpret him as aberrant and temporary. ‘Normalizing’ Trump became an affront to good taste, to norms, to the American experiment. We can now let go of such illusions. Trump is very much part of who we are. Nearly 63 million Americans voted for him in 2016. Seventy-four million did in 2020. And now, once again, enough voters in enough places have cast their lot with him to return him to the White House. Trump is no fluke, and Trumpism is no fad…. In recent years, I’ve often wondered if Trump has changed America or revealed it. I decided that it was both — that he changed the country by revealing it. After Election Day 2024, I’m considering an addendum: Trump has changed us by revealing how normal, how truly American, he is…. The way to render Trump abnormal is not to insist that he is, or to find more excuses, or to indulge in the great and inevitable second-guessing of Democratic campaign strategy. It begins by recognizing that who we are is decided not only on Election Day — whether 2024 or 2016, or 2028 for that matter — but every day. Every day that we strive to be something other than what we’ve become.”
Thursday, 7 November 2024:
Democrats suffer a drubbing: 10 key takeaways from Trump’s election win. Kamala Harris fell way short as Trump’s bombastic style and extreme proposals appealed to more than 70m voters. The Guardian, Richard Luscombe, published on Thursday, 7 November 2024: “Donald Trump coasted back into the White House by a wide margin in Tuesday’s presidential election, with the Republican’s bombastic style and extreme policy proposals appealing to more than 70 million voters across all 50 states. His victory also meant misery for Democrats, and Kamala Harris, who was attempting to become the first woman to become president of the US, but who ultimately fell way short, crucially in the handful of swing states that decided the outcome. Here are 10 key takeaways from a historic election: 1. Racism and misogyny defeat joy and hope. Harris ran on a platform of joy and new beginnings, but the Democratic presidential nominee was soundly defeated by a convicted felon spouting racial hatred and sexism, including accusing immigrants of ‘poisoning the blood’ of America and calling his opponent a ‘bitch’ and ‘dumb as a rock.’ 2. Democracy at a crossroads. Trump’s return to the White House comes with the promise of vengeance on his perceived enemies, including political opponents and the media. 3. World order set on fire. 4. Climate deniers back at the controls. 5. Quackery to replace public health policy. 6. Mass deportation and immigration crackdowns. 7. Specter of national abortion ban appears. 8. Supreme court extremism sealed for a generation. 9. Billionaires’ bonanza as US edges closer to oligarchy. 10. Democrats down and out.” See also, How Trump Won, and How Harris Lost. He made one essential bet: that his grievances would become the grievances of the MAGA movement, and then the Republican Party, and then more than half the country. It paid off. The New York Times, Shane Goldmacher, Maggie Haberman, and Jonathan Swan, Thursday, 7 November 2024. See also, For Black Women, ‘America Has Revealed to Us Her True Self.’ Kamala Harris’s defeat affirmed the worst of what many Black women believed about their country, even as some looked to the future with a wary determination. The New York Times, Erica L. Green and Maya King, Thursday, 7 November 2024: “Across the country, [Black women] led an outpouring of Democratic elation when the vice president took over the top of the presidential ticket. But underneath their hope and determination was a persistent worry: Was America ready, they asked, to elect a Black woman? The painful answer arrived this week. It affirmed the worst of what many Black women believed about their country: that it would rather choose a man who was convicted of 34 felonies, has spewed lies and falsehoods, disparaged women and people of color, and pledged to use the powers of the federal government to punish his political opponents than send a woman of color to the White House. Many Democrats saw the brutal political environment for the party, peppered with anger about President Biden’s leadership, as more to blame for Ms. Harris’s crushing loss than the double-edged sword of racism and sexism. But others, reflecting on a campaign devoid of controversy or obvious missteps by a qualified candidate who almost never held out her race or gender as reasons to vote for her, found it difficult to ignore suspicions about why Mr. Trump won with such ease.”
Racist text messages target young African Americans post-election, NPR, Debbie Elliott, Thursday, 7 November 2024: “Black college and high school students report receiving racist texts about being ‘selected to pick cotton at the nearest plantation.’ Federal, state, and local authorities are investigating the offensive messages that have been sent over the last two days. ‘It’s sick and it’s wrong,’ says St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones. Her 17-year old son, a high school student, received the text Wednesday night. ‘This awful message that children around the country have been receiving about turning them into slaves and picking them up in an unmarked brown van,’ she says. ‘I was furious.’ Her father, the student’s grandfather, Virvus Jones, posted the message on social media. He says it is no joking matter to harken back to something as horrible as slavery. ‘I know they may think it’s funny, but I was born in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1947 when Jim Crow was legal, so it’s not funny to me.’ he says.”
Wave of Racist Texts After Election Prompts F.B.I.’s Scrutiny. Offensive messages were reported across the South and from New York to California. The New York Times, Tim Balk and Erica L. Green, Thursday, 7 November 2024: “A wave of racist text messages summoning Black people to report for slavery showed up on phones across the United States, prompting the scrutiny of the F.B.I. The N.A.A.C.P. said that messages were received in nine states, and attorneys general in two other states reported the same on Thursday. The F.B.I. said in a statement that it was ‘aware of the offensive and racist text messages’ and that it was coordinating with the Justice Department and other federal authorities. The White House also condemned the racist text messages and confirmed federal and state officials were investigating. Federal officials were trying to determine the origin of the messages, which continued to send shock waves through schools across the country on Friday. ‘Racism has no place in our country — period,’ Robyn Patterson, a White House spokeswoman, said in a statement. ‘We strongly condemn these hateful messages and anyone targeting Americans based on their ethnicity or background.’ The texts, which began as early as Wednesday morning, were reported across the South, and from New York to California. The office of the New York attorney general, Letitia James, said the messages had arrived in phones of middle school, high school and college students in New York City and its suburbs. In a statement, Ms. James called the messages ‘disgusting and unacceptable.’ Some examples of the messages were shared by recipients and reviewed by The New York Times. They followed a pattern: addressing recipients by name, telling them they had been selected to ‘pick cotton’ on a plantation and ordering them to show up at a specific time to be picked up by slave handlers. Some included a reference to the president-elect, Donald J. Trump.”
Donald Trump, Reprised. What his return to the Presidency reveals about the US. The New Yorker, Rachel Maddow on crooks and thieves, George Saunders on our poisoned wells, Jill Lepore on the condescension to women voters, Timothy Snyder on Trump’s fascism, Annette Gordon-Reed on lessons from when the Klan ruled Indiana, Jelani Cobb on the disappearance of guardrails, Jia Tolentino on womanhood, as defined by man, Adam Gopnik on how such nice and decent people support a cause so cruel and hate-filled, Jane Mayer, Dobbs was just the beginning, and more, published on Thursday, 8 November and updated several times.
Friday, 8 November 2024:
Why Trump won–9 takeaways from the 2024 election, NPR, Domenico Montanaro, Friday, 8 November 2024: “What happened in the 2024 election was a political earthquake. Former President Trump not only won in the Electoral College, but he won so big that he expanded his coalition with historic demographic shifts. For the first time in his three runs for president, he is on track to win the popular vote — and have full control of the levers of power in Washington. So how did it happen? Trump’s victory starts with the issues that led to a rightward lurch in this election — and was fueled by men.”
Saturday, 9 November 2024:
A Dark Reminder of What American Society Has Been and Could Be Again. How an obsessive hatred of immigrants and people of color and deep-seated fears about the empowerment of women led to the Klan’s rule in Indiana. The New Yorker, Annette Gordon-Reed, Saturday, 9 November 2024: “This year, I served as a judge for the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award. Timothy Egan’s ‘A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan’s Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them’ received an honorable mention in recognition of its over-all excellence and timeliness. Why is it especially timely? Because it tells the story of how an obsessive hatred of immigrants and people of color and deep-seated fears about the empowerment of women led to the rise of a form of fascism in Indiana. I knew this story from a class I took in college. Back then, I saw it as a fantastical tale from a never-to-be-repeated past. Now, at a moment when hostility toward immigrants has reached a fever pitch in some quarters—’A caravan from Mexico is coming,’ ‘They’re eating people’s pets’—and when disrespect for women’s bodily autonomy is driving policy proposals, what happened in Indiana back in the Jazz Age is a sobering reminder of just what American society has been and could be again. The book recounts the harrowing story of the Ku Klux Klan’s dominance of nineteen-twenties Indiana. The Klan controlled the entire state, largely through the machinations of one man: David C. (D. C.) Stephenson. A grifter originally from Texas, Stephenson became the Grand Dragon of the Indiana chapter. Although he never held an official government position, at the apex of his power he could proclaim, without irony, ‘I am the law.’ And many of the freeborn citizens of the American republic had no problem living under his dictates, even as he blighted the lives of their fellow-citizens.”
After Trump’s election in 2016, I and many others had a sense that the US was entering a new and somewhat unprecedented perilous period, so I started a daily chronicle of news about the Trump Administration, Republicans, Democrats, and the Supreme Court to keep track of developments. When Biden became president in January 2021, I had the feeling that this tragic and dangerous period was far from over, so I continued to post daily political news and major stories for another four years. My thinking was that future historians might find this chronicle useful. It turns out that Trump’s election in 2016 was not an aberration, and the worst-case scenario which I feared materialized early on the morning of Wednesday, 6 November 2024. Now the US is on a path to authoritarian rule and the end of democracy. Voters have knowingly elected a convicted felon, an inveterate liar, a racist, a misogynist, a rapist, a homophobe, a xenophobe, a fascist, a rampant narcissist, a conman. Now that it is clear to many that democracy is at stake, I know that many others will be carefully documenting developments, so I will no longer be compiling my daily chronicle. I am by no means giving up. Among other things, I intend to continue to participate in protests and to support investigative journalism and legal efforts to minimize the damage. I hope my chronicle will be useful to some and many thanks to those who have read it over the past eight years.
I created Muckraker Farm in 2014 as a place to post muckraking (investigative) journalism going back to the 19th century. I hope to return to this original project soon. You can find these muckraking pieces under the Home Page link at the top of this site. Thanks for reading!