Don't Drown in a Flood of News

'Wait! Wait! Don’t Tell Me' Won’t Do

Image by Ciaran Ryan at The Useful Ideas Project

There you have it. Week one of Trump 2.0 is over. A ton of bad things have occurred, though many of them are performative and some are unconstitutional. Many of these presidential edicts have yet to play out with what I believe will be unintended consequences. (The one to watch is the firing of the Inspector Generals.)

As a reactionary Rasputin once predicted, the ‘zone’ has been ‘flooded with shit’, and opponents of the regime are (supposed) to be too stunned to put up resistance.

Fighting the administration on each individual repulsive thing that’s happened (or seemingly happened) is a formula for failure, either through burnout or dilution of the political energy necessary to last through the coming years.

The lens through what we view the Trump administration is an important step and, because progressives can chew gum and walk at the same time, let’s acknowledge that there are several broad strokes that must be reckoned with.

First up, the class nature of what’s occurring. The prominent row of billionaires at the inauguration struck a nerve; huge bipartisan majorities disapprove of a cabal of rich men openly running the country. (openly is the keyword)

There are two easily identifiable paths to resistance here, applying an anti one percent framing to what’s going on (with the inevitably criminal nature of monopolies/oligopolies) and understanding the moral basis for MAGA.

Antitrust lawyer Basel Musharbash, writing at Public Notice, revealed that the consolidation of fire truck manufacturers was a root cause of more than 100 of the LA Fire Department’s 183 fire trucks being sidelined during the recent fire disaster. Prices have skyrocketed and there is an $8.5 billion backlog on orders for new trucks, while no new manufacturing capabilities are in the works.

The Artificial Intelligence bubble is popping; Big Tech has bet the farm on AI with mighty mediocre results. What the public has seen so far amounts to an energized version of the paperclip Microsoft word once displayed as an assistant.

Our large tech companies - Meta, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Apple - are slothful bureaucracies, and no longer very good at developing and deploying terrific technology. And there are consequences coming down the pike.

A Chinese firm has revealed an open-source application (DeepSeek) that mostly matches what’s emerged in the U.S., built on simpler computers, at a fraction of the cost. The U.S. government’s protectionist actions regarding advanced computer chips were irrelevant. The insatiable desire for more energy of domestic AI developers isn’t necessary. And a lot of money has been raised for a questionable cause.

Via Bloomberg:

• The app distinguishes itself from other chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT by articulating its reasoning before delivering a response to a prompt. The company claims its R1 release offers performance on par with OpenAI’s latest and has granted license for individuals interested in developing chatbots using the technology to build on it.

This should be a teachable moment, as in the 1% don’t have your interests at heart. The more activists can focus on obscene wealth, the better. The phrase ‘billionaire agenda’ needs to be wrapped into critiques.

60% of Americans think “billionaires advising the President is bad. Just 12% say it’s good.

I should mention Crypto currency here. While the technology behind the concept is promising, its application in the real world has been dominated by scam artists.

A majority of Trump’s moves have been taken directly from the pages of Project 2025, and it’s wise to associate the Heritage Foundation document with the White House.

The document being used for many of the Trump administration’s initiatives, Project 2025, is a tangible thing the American people disliked and distrusted. Only 12% thought this was a good idea; opposition wasn’t just confined to Democrats, it was across the board.

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Secondly, America’s daddy issues, i.e., the underlying morality of electing a Trump-like leader. Some of our tech geniuses are openly advocating for a CEO/Monarchy system to replace democracy.

The presumption that some people are naturally better than others easily fits into a hierarchical vision for society.

Gil Duran’s analysis at Framelab is accompanied by a particularly evil picture of Mel Gibson:

• When Republicans call Trump “Daddy,” they're not kidding. Instead, they're powerfully reinforcing a moral architecture that exists in millions of American brains. It's a political worldview in which authority equals morality, punishment equals love, and the strict father's return promises the restoration of moral order.

• This moral framework matters – a lot – because it exposes the true nature of our political divide. We're not just arguing about personalities and policies. We're clashing over fundamental moral visions of family, authority, and nationhood. The "Daddy Trump" chorus isn't a quirk or a joke – it's a window into how millions of Americans process political reality.

• Republicans understand this. That's why they are openly using the strict father metaphor in 2025. Unfortunately, Democratic Party leaders still do not understand the moral nature of politics or why the family metaphor matters so much. They are still scratching their heads to figure out why so many Americans continue to support Trump, even as his supporters shout “Daddy!” from the rooftops.

Discipline is needed to fit citizens into the molds capitalism needs to generate and protect wealth. Pain is needed for conditioning needed behavior in the face of (pick a villain) overrunning civilization, who commit crimes which involve taking your personal property.

This is referred to by Dr. George Lakeoff as the strict father model in the updated version of Don’t Think of An Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate. Simply put, this point of view is a way of justifying patriarchy.

• The strict father model begins with a set of assumptions: The world is a dangerous place, and it always will be, because there is evil out there in the world. The world is also difficult because it is competitive. There will always be winners and losers. There is an absolute right and an absolute wrong.

• Children are born bad, in the sense that they just want to do what feels good, not what is right. Therefore, they have to be made good. What is needed in this kind of a world is a strong, strict father who can:

  • • Protect the family in the dangerous world,

  • • Support the family in the difficult world, and

  • • Teach his children right from wrong.

• What is required of the child is obedience, because the strict father is a moral authority who knows right from wrong. It is further assumed that the only way to teach kids obedience—that is, right from wrong—is through punishment, painful punishment, when they do wrong.

So when people of faith like Bishop Marianne Budde ask for mercy, it doesn’t resonate in MAGA-land. In fact, they see such language as a threat to their worldview.

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Here’s Christiane Amanpour, speaking to The Guardian's Tim Adams:

• "Unless we can agree that the sky outside is blue and the grass is green, we have no chance. What is overtaking the public square is that every single fact is now the subject of accusations of lies or bias. Zuckerberg enabling totally permissive commentary is another arrow in the heart of truth."

Not only do we opponents of the current regime have a message framing problem, there is also a huge delivery roadblock. Despite what well-meaning people say about turning off the media, the reality is that some news is going to seep through. So it’s helpful to have some guidance.

Benjamin Wittes at Lawfare has published The Situation: A User's Guide to Following the News, seven ideas that are as good as I’ve seen.

Taylor Lorenz is ahead of the pack, reporting on tactics being used on Tik Tok in anticipation of governmental content moderation, namely the phrase “cute winter boots” as a means of sidestepping the algorithms used by censors. This brings to mind the tactics used by resistance groups to mask meaning in communications likely to be intercepted.

Those of us who, for now, remain outside the legacy media cabal, may someday have to consider such language. For now, I’ll keep using Dear Leader for variations on a certain authoritarian name.

Despite our country having the capacity to produce abundance, we continue to perpetuate artificial scarcity. The unmet basic needs of food, housing, healthcare, and education create an ongoing level of fear, mistrust, and division, creating the perfect conditions for authoritarianism to emerge and grow.

In addition to opposing the dictates of the billionaire agenda, it’s vital to offer hope. The lumbering American bureaucracy could not match people’s expectations during the last administration.

Redoing the New Deal was and is a great idea; putting those concepts of inclusion and transparency into practice by pulling at individual binding strings applied in the past half century didn’t work. Lots of people didn’t feel better about their futures in November 2024, and a chorus of society’s (self-appointed) extraordinary citizens sent constantly disrupting messages built around race and gender.

Now Trump and the people around him are seeking to take out the entirety of our social safety net and remove barriers protecting citizens from the consequences of living in a post industrial society. And, of course, they’ll be lining their pockets along the way.

There are other possible futures that for now shouldn’t get bogged down in minutiae. Hope is the answer to despair, and offering a better country in both word and deed is a prescription for political success.

Billionaire good guy of the moment, Mark Cuban, had a decent suggestion for a slogan as we head into the next election cycle:

"If you FAFO* and are struggling because of Trump policies, we understand. The Dems are here for you. Tell us how we can help you "

(* FAFO = Fucked Around and Found Out)

You Are Invited to the Predators' Ball, as Food by Hamilton Nolan at In These Times

• Hundreds of thousands of his most loyal voters had come to this place at their own expense to applaud him as their hero. They were, all too literally, left out in the cold. He had used them all as a footstool to step back into the White House, where he could safely forget about them. Their fanatical devotion to this man — who didn’t even care enough about them to be chilly for an hour, but was happy to sentence them to stand in miserable, endless lines in the very same cold in order to secure the privilege of cheering him on — was as sad as it was revolting.

• On inauguration morning, one man with calloused hands and a flannel work shirt and a red MAGA hat stood off to the side of the Mall, by the empty benches. His son, who looked about five years old, was gleefully running and sliding across a patch of ice over and over again. The boy was wearing a Trump beanie. The man was watching his son with tremendous tenderness in his eyes. It was a scene of profound human love, placed in the setting of the dawn of an age of fascism and brutality that will create immense suffering. To understand the pit that America has dug for itself, you must be able to reconcile these things without spiraling into insanity.

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Rate of Return Equals Cost of Capital: A Simple, Fair Formula to Stop Investor-Owned Utilities From Overcharging the Public a policy study paper via the American Economic Liberties Project

I’ll spare you the wonkiness. But if you’d like a much lower bill from SDG&E, get your local elected officials to read this. It’s the chance of a lifetime for some smart person to be a hero to a lot of people.

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Automation in Retail Is Even Worse Than You Thought by Ann Larson at The Nation

• From self-checkout machines to payment by app, technology is rapidly changing the way we buy groceries. Progressive members of Congress are sounding the alarm: Representative Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and 13 colleagues wrote to the CEO of the supermarket behemoth Kroger in November about electronic price tags (often called electronic shelf labels or ESLs). These digital displays allow companies to change prices automatically from a mobile app. Tlaib warned that this so-called “dynamic pricing” permits retailers to adjust prices based on their whims. Just as Uber raises prices during storms or rush hour, retailers like Kroger use ESLs to adjust prices based on factors like time of day or the weather. Supermarkets could conceivably mine a shopper’s personal data to set prices as high as possible. “My concern is that these tools will be abused in the pursuit of profit, surging prices on essential goods in areas with fewer and fewer grocery stores,” Tlaib wrote.

• In August, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bob Casey wrote to Kroger raising similar concerns about price gouging. Noting that the company has already implemented the technology in hundreds of stores across the county, they warned that “ESLs may help Kroger extract maximum profits from consumers at a time when…high grocery prices are a leading concern among Americans who are concerned about inflation.”

• Warren and Casey also voiced concern about Kroger’s partnership with Microsoft to install facial-recognition technology in stores, which could be used to identify individual customers: When a shopper approaches the shelf, she would see a price calibrated specifically for her. The next shopper might pay a different amount based on their profile. Retailers could use shopper data to charge higher prices to those who can afford to pay more, but since stores do not have to disclose who is making pricing decisions or why, the senators worry that shoppers on a budget are particularly vulnerable. “It is outrageous that, as families continue to struggle to pay to put food on the table, grocery giants like Kroger continue to roll out surge pricing and other corporate profiteering schemes,” they wrote.