Certainty About Uncertainty
March We Must, the World Is Watching
It’s Friday morning, and I’m supposed to be writing a column on the day before what I expect will be one of the largest and most widespread protests in US history. It’s sorta like opening day in baseball: lots of spring training leading up to the real deal.
Will we the people step up to the plate –like our 7-0 Padres have– or will we fold into a bickering bunch of simps suitable only for exploitation, like the Chicago White Sox? We do have to remember that no single appearance will determine the final outcome, and, for now, it looks like the playoffs start in November 2026 and the World Series is in 2028.
FYI- There are 117 Hands Off! Protests scheduled for California locations on Saturday, April 5. San Diegans are asked to come to Civic Center Plaza starting at Noon. Take transit if you can!
Via Indivisible:
The crackdown on peaceful protest is coming. We all know Trump, Musk, and their MAGA enablers will come after peaceful protesters if they can carry on unopposed much longer. And when that crackdown comes, it needs to be alien, inexcusable, indefensible, and untenable.
We’re showing up on April 5 because, if we don’t, it will be so much harder to do so on May 5, June 5, or beyond. Tomorrow is when we set the tone that peaceful protests against this administration are widespread, unstoppable, and only getting bigger.
Today is also Day 2 of the reimagined world order emerging after the Trump administration apparently used artificial intelligence to impose varying levels of sales taxes on imports. I think the best way to make sense of this is to picture the US (that includes all of us at the moment) as a mob boss setting the stage for takeover by his organization. (I realize this isn’t an original example, but it has been made by more than one observer and I agree.)
Nice little country you got there... Be a shame if something happened to it.
The likely outcome of this scenario (aside from its impacts domestically) will be that some countries will become neighborhood bosses, collecting tribute and sending it up the chain of command, some countries will become targets, used as examples in whatever fear mongering is in fashion, and some will simply be acquired, like Canada and Greenland as expansion opportunities.
This is the same process going on domestically, with academia, science, justice, media, and commerce. Waaayyy too many entities have already thrown up their hands, giving credence to a fascist remnant of government (Resistance is futile!). The currency in these areas goes beyond money and direct power; it’s also to be valued as shaping the values of the electorate.
So, I’m left with uncertainty, which for now is the coin of the realm. And I am powerless as an individual to change my perceptions.
The way out, short of the Canadians nuking DC, is the belief that our fates will be best served through collective action. There are many parts to working together to produce positive social and political outcomes, but the certainty of collaboration being the cure for our nation’s ailment must be the glue that binds us together.
I think that our collective expectations need to be tempered. The outcome of this conflict won’t be what is easiest to believe–that we’ll return to past ways of governance and economics. If Chuck Schumer is still in office down the road, then the bad guys will have won.
Aside from having a North Star of Unity (which doesn’t mean uniformity), it needs to be understood that what enabled the era of mob rule was/is the possession of unimaginable wealth by a few people. Call it what you will, but what we are experiencing is class war, initiated by people who believe they’ve become entitled to rule. Techno-feudalism is the best descriptor I can think of to describe the world sought by these would-be rulers.
Please, please, please become active. Each of us who wish to remain free must play a part. These paths can and should be different. Diversity in our work is as important as diversity in our being. Tolerance should be a strength, not a weakness.
I’ll see you on the streets if you are able. A great part of success is dictated by just showing up. Let’s do this thing.
Letters From An American - April 3, 2025 by Heather Cox Richardson
The problem for Republicans is that while the sort of inflammatory language Rollins used has been a staple of the party for decades, the MAGA agenda itself is not popular. Only about 4% of voters who knew about Project 2025 wanted to see it enacted, and billionaire Elon Musk, who runs the “Department of Government Efficiency” that is slashing through government programs, is so unpopular that his support for a candidate in Tuesday’s Wisconsin Supreme Court election actually appeared to have hurt, rather than helped, that candidate.
Now party members have to deal with the fact their president has tanked the economy by enacting what the National Review says is likely the largest peacetime tax hike in U.S. history. Now countries around the globe are imposing reciprocal tariffs on the U.S. while also negotiating their own trade agreements that cut out the U.S. Those agreements are not only for products like soybeans, but also for weapons, a development the administration is protesting.
Republican members of Congress could stop Trump at any time. In the case of tariffs, they could simply reassert their constitutional power to manage tariffs. If they choose not to and the economy doesn’t recover and thrive as Trump keeps promising, voters can be expected to hold them, as well as him, to account.
NOTE: Heather Cox Richardson’s posts are being suppressed on Facebook; she can post her thoughts on that social media platform, but they are “disappeared” shortly thereafter so others won’t see them. Please subscribe and share her valuable work.
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A Lawyer’s Crusade Against “Copaganda” by Aaron Gell at The New Republic
Karakatsanis’s holy war against the Times began in 2022, when the paper printed a series of articles suggesting that the Covid-era rise in homicides was in part attributable to the protests against police violence, either because cops “pulled back,” as the paper put it, or because disrespect for police “prompted more people to try to take the law into their own hands.” The paper presented no evidence for such claims, nor did its sources, who were often lumped together under phrases like “experts say” and “analysts noted.” Perhaps more problematic, Karakatsanis pointed out in Twitter threads viewed millions of times, was the omission of any experts who might have offered a contrary view.
As it happens, such researchers do in fact exist. For instance, Karakatsanis cites a 2017 meta-analysis conducted by three criminal justice scholars at the University of Cincinnati, which found, as the authors wrote, that “the effect on crime of adding or subtracting police is miniscule [sic] and not statistically significant.” Another 2017 study determined that when the NYPD chose, in late 2014, to engage in a work stoppage (a so-called blue flu) amid a beef with Mayor Bill De Blasio, reports of major crimes substantially decreased. And then there was the 2021 meta-review of 116 studies demonstrating that jailing people has “no effect on reoffending or slightly increase[s] it when compared with the effects of ... sanctions such as probation.”
On the other hand, researchers in 2022 identified an across-the-board 20 to 32 percent drop in arrest rates, attributable not to aggressive policing, pretrial detention, or increased respect for law enforcement but to … Medicaid expansion.
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"If the United States no Longer Wants to Lead, Canada Will" by Dean Blundell
The world has changed.
The United States is unstable. Just ask terrified investors and 300 million Americans who watched 4.2 Trillion of their hard earned wealth evaporate today.
And Canada is strong enough, smart enough, and united enough to not just survive—but thrive—by building new alliances, expanding new markets, and protecting Canadian jobs, industries, and values from Trump’s impending economic disaster.
While the MAGA crowd is busy simping for billionaires and falling for Dogecoin economics, Carney is out here stabilizing the markets, announcing real trade deals with Germany, and promising a new vision of Canadian leadership built on competence, credibility, and collaboration.
