On a lark, I just recently picked up a copy of the book of political reporting, A Very Stable Genius (2020), by Pulitzer Prize Washington Post Reporters Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig. Even without a read, it is well known for its reportage chronology of the chaos, dysfunction, and incompetence of the first Trump administration.

The litany of controversies and abuses chronicled are well known – from the attempted coverup of investigative links of Russian interference and influence in the 2016 election on behalf of a Trump win (a fact, regardless of the inconclusiveness of a link to actual campaign collusion [and see https://thedisquisitor.substack.com/p/when-i-wake-up-in-the-morning-and regarding how Trump’s Russian advocacy actually proves the fact of Russia’s return on investment in backing him during Russian covert election interference operations]); the overt political attempts to interfere with and obstruct the independent Special Counsel for the Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation of Robert Mueller into the same; the abuse of office through nepotism in the appointment of family members – son-in-law Jared Kushner and daughter Ivanka Trump – and the manipulation of the security clearance process on their behalf; racist overtones favoring white supremacists in Trump’s remarks made in favor of the “Unite the Right” rally of August 2017 in Charlottesville, VA; the shameless fawning over Putin and Kim Jong Un at the compromised expense of historic allies, alliances, and national self-interest (from which bromances led to Putin’s emboldened invasion of sovereign Ukraine, launching the largest European ground war since WWII, and today’s hyper-exponential development of N Korea’s nuclear weapons-grade material refinement, warhead construction, and ballistic missile development); hush money payments made by disgraced Trump fixer Michael Cohen to silence porn stars and models; the embattled Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination imbroglio of sex, drugs, and hard-right rolling; “putting kids in cages” as a heart-wrenching and callous policy of migrant children immigrant family separation at the border; to the incessant screaming, rages, verbal abuse of subordinates (with evident glee in so inflicting), bouts of pique; and other spicy gems of how not to lead and run a government, no less country.

And the book’s roll call of malfeasance doesn’t even count against the other controversies of Trump I, great and small, among them, inflating inauguration crowd size; Sharpiegate, the ignorantly manipulated public misdirection of Hurricane Dorian’s path of potential destruction; emolument clause violations of steering official government business and visitors to Trump-owned interests and properties; suggesting the injection of bleach-infused disinfectants as a potential amelioration against COVID-19; extorting Ukraine for political advantage, the subject of Trump’s first impeachment; and that of his second, on his way out of office, incitement of insurrection on Jan 6, 2021, an act of Treason. (And to think that the Republicans had impeached President Clinton just over lying about sex, while not the most honorable behavior by an occupant holding the highest office in the land, but at least something shared by most all human beings, lived, living, and yet to live.)

I had always intended on reading the book during that time of then-astounding and confounding political upheaval, but never got around to it. Now, today, I had assumed its narrative and reporting would be OBE (Overtaken By Events), or even quaint and obsolete. But to my surprise, enlighteningly and disturbingly, nothing could be further from the truth.

In light of today’s transgressions, it does seem rather quaint, though, on thinking back on those days, when the belief was evident that the “adults in the room” would serve as “guardrails” against executive overreach, exercising checks and restraints on an impulsive, incompetent, inexperienced Commander in Chief. How quaint, indeed. It is instructive to note what happened to those “adults,” from Comey, Priebus, Kelly, Mattis, McMaster, Tillerson, Christie, Sessions, Bolton, Rosenstein, Yates, Dowd, Corallo, McCabe, Cobb, Porter, Hicks, Spicer, Goldstein, to Nielsen, to name some of the most prominent, all of whom were fired, or resigned by force or eventual principle, because of their continued or eventual exercise of independent, constitutional, or professional integrity. Mueller, the Special Counsel, while not a casualty of repeated administration attempts at removal, suffered, in the end, irreparable harm to a life-long, otherwise well-earned reputation. (Flynn, Manafort, and Bannon, three prominent casualties, were, in contrast, cause for celebration by the national “adult” constituency.)

[Despite my experience in the Foreign Service of having worked for Rex Tillerson, the ex-Exxon Chief Executive Officer (CEO) as the then-Secretary of State, finding his helmsmanship uninspiring, listless, forgettable, and counterproductive, Mr. Rucker and Ms. Leonnig paint an altogether unexpected picture of a generally honorable man flummoxed by the position he had assumed and the man he found himself answering to. Their depictions of his sense of integrity and courage are especially evident in vignettes in which he exposes himself to his own personal and professional jeopardy in coming to the defense, publicly, of the nation’s defense establishment leadership, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff, against then-first-term President Trump’s boorish, ignorant, withering, hostile, venal, destructive, false, shocking, abusive, and unprecedented attacks on the men and women in uniform. Their reporting recognizes Secretary Tillerson’s character, and merits thanks by all citizens regardless of partisan interest and affiliation. To that in itself, my own judgement of the man stands now in some correction.]

Instead, the book exists as a beacon shining on executive malfeasance and overreach, a clarion call to the need for citizen involvement in choosing and electing their leadership, and a dire warning of what is at stake to national integrity and institutional infrastructure in the failures to exercise not just vigilance but democratic control and accountability. Sadly, We the People, of whom we hold the most responsibility, have demonstrated how abominably we have failed to heed these historic lessons. Worse, Mr. Trump, his plutocratic and kleptocratic enablers, and sycophantic, unprincipled, self-interested, and ambitious followers have learned their lessons far too well.

What comes through in the book is that Trump I was not really all that different from Trump II. But that Trump II is a dotard so much more empowered, and empowered in his infantility, immaturity, impulsiveness, and insanity. And the apparent reason for this is that he and his handlers have learned their lessons from Trump I, and that was to not include, and thus surround, Trump with any independently-minded professionals, but only willingly manipulatable sycophants.

A litany of current enablers compared to the prior list is all the tell one needs (regardless of the fact that a few of these met ignoble ends in their own rights): Shady Vance [VP]; Little Marco Rubio [State/NSA]; Secretary of War Crimes Hegseth [DoD]; ICE Barbie Noem [DHS-(ex)]; Bootlicker Barbie Pam Blondi [AG-(ex)]; Do Not Invite Gabbard [DNI-(soon-ex)]; Anti-Vaxxer/Science RFK Jr [HHS]; Fascist “Submissive Stephen” Miller [D/WHCoS (holdover from Trump I)]; KKKaroline Leavitt [WH Press Secretary]; Lyin’ Spigot Pigott [Principal D/Spokesperson DOS]; Make a Wish Director Patel [FBI]; Presiding-Over-the-Defenestration-of-My-Own-Agency McMahon [ED]; Father of Family Separation Tom Homan [ICE (Trump I)/“Border Czar” (Trump II]; Howard “Nutlick” [Commerce]; Hosing-My-Security-Detail-While-Skimming-Public-Monies-for-Personal-Travel-and-Nipping-the-Hooch-In-the Office Chavez-DeRemer [Labor-(ex)]; Darth Vader Vought [OMB]; Killing-the-Feds-Not-So-Softly Scott Kupor [OPM]; Sell-Out-the-Nation-to-the-Highest-Bidder Bessent [Treasury]; Cuts, Control, and Climate Silence Rollins [USDA]; Tilting at Tariffs Navarro [Snr WH Counselor, Trade and Manufacturing]; Snake Oil “Dr.” Warlock of Oz [Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)]; See No Evil Conflict of Interest Todd Blanche [A/AG]; Seize-Any-Opportunity-to-Trump-God-and-Country Pulte [A/DNI], and Sieg Heil DOGE-Bag Musk [DOGE-(ex)]; among many, many others . . .

What is remarkable about this Rogues’ Gallery of characters is not just their apparently complete absence of ethics, morals, and scruples, but also the depths to which they will humiliate and debase themselves and the nation to their self-interests, ambitions, personal profits, and personal promotions. Where any crazy batshit and dangerous suggestion - or as I had written previously [https://thedisquisitor.substack.com/p/ladies-and-gentlemen-introducing?r=831gda (last page)], verbal diarrhea - goes not just unquestioned but is readily endorsed. This includes an inexhaustible list of wacko, bad national policy, and unconstitutional pronouncements, some realized, such as weaponizing Department of Justice prosecutions, seizing Greenland, making Canada a 51^st State, removing American troops from NATO front-line countries, decimating necessary, useful life-saving agencies like USAID, abandoning all climate science data gathering, pardoning insurrectionists, abusing taxpayer dollars via a slush fund of corruption rewarding political allies, blowing small boats out of the Caribbean, and, of course, starting a war of choice with Iran, which no prior, sane president could have or would have entertained.

Trump I, back then, was frustrated and angry that he couldn’t get his way, behaving exactly like a spoiled child with impulse-control ADHD issues. This bitterness fueled his “Deep State” conspiracy theories and carried over into the spite, vengeance, and vendettas animating so much of his now unleashed aggression. Unfettered, untethered, and unbound, however, this time around - not just by his inner circle, but by a neutered Legislative branch under a compliant, supplicated, and co-opted majority political party apparatus, and a super-majority, activist, hard-right Supreme Court - Trump has no restraints upon his immature, insecure, careless, and selfish impulses. Not just anything goes this time around, but anything he wants; feeding expectations of monarchic, unadulterated, monopolistic, unitary executive power conferred upon an oafish and odious human being who has shown himself to be the least qualified and most untrustworthy individual to exercise such awesome power. (As I had previously written [https://thedisquisitor.substack.com/p/ladies-and-gentlemen-introducing?r=831gda (first page], any random Dachshund would be an improvement.)

After all the mind-bending and mind-numbing insanity of this second Trump administration, we forget the chaos, incompetence, and absurdity of the first one. Thus, the book remains a necessary, mind-bending reminder of the whirlwind drama, chaos, incompetency, recklessness, treason, and just plain stupidity of that administration at that time, and a warning against allowing the same in the future.

Which is exactly what we, the American people, have allowed and unleashed. And by it being, by today’s standards, a comparatively benign precursor to the far more dangerous, egregious, unhinged, and unleashed infractions, abuses, outrages, and horrors of today’s unbound, unguarded Trump II “administration” only makes our culpability that much worse. After all, the subtitle of the book is called, Donald J. Trump‘s Testing of America, and we, the American people, have so far failed that test.

We cannot fail again. It is said that “life does not give second chances.” Maybe that is true, but maybe it can give us a third chance. Unprecedented, no? After all, third time’s a charm, right? Maybe there really is some benign, well-meaning, benevolent power abiding over us to offer us this final shot of redemption. It would certainly be arguable that we don’t deserve it. But here it is, November 2026. Get it right, America!

Rucker’s and Leonnig’s book concludes on the inception of Trump’s first impeachment process in December 2019. (No spoiler alert here, as the entire book advertises the same) the book concludes:

“Republicans now faced the same choice [Maryland Republican Representative Lawrence J.] Hogan did forty-five years before [during President Nixon’s impeachment vote of 1974]. They had held their tongues in fear after so many Trump transgressions. They, too, had called the investigations into the president witch hunts. They had made quiet calculations about when, if ever, they might take a stand. Yet the time was nearing to consider not merely the judgement of their party or the punishment from their president, but the fate of history.”

Well, that history is upon us. Today’s MAGA-morphed Republican party has proven itself unfit to govern in any moral responsibility to the larger national interests beyond monopoly, capital rule by the wealthy and the White. That burden of historical correction now lies with, and only with, the American people writ large, and within their strength and numbers to turn out, both in upcoming voting and in removal of the vestiges of the current, corrupt regime. We must not just “throw the bums out” but replace them with the only institutionalized party capable and proven in ability in legislation of fixing the damage and thereafter responsibly governing (as recently detailed within these Substack pages [of essays https://thedisquisitor.substack.com/p/democrats-on-the-wings-of-angels, https://thedisquisitor.substack.com/p/part-i-the-case-for-the-democratic, https://thedisquisitor.substack.com/p/part-ii-the-case-for-the-democratic, and https://thedisquisitor.substack.com/p/part-iii-the-case-for-the-democratic]). We do this, of course, by empowering and voting for that Party, the Democratic Party, even when that Party seems unclear or unsure of how to convey its otherwise indisputable merits, in overwhelming numbers sufficient to guarantee success even in the face of inevitable efforts to deceive, corrupt, and suppress.

It almost seems that Trump in some dinosaur animal part of his brain knows that it is quite possible that he could be convicted of impeachment after the midterms and is thus going for as much corrupt advantage, personal self-aggrandizement, and legacy legal protection as he can conceivably get away with in the time remaining. It is, of course, up to us to ensure that his fears are realized. Today we must make all reasonable, available, possible, and legal efforts to mitigate his damage to any extent possible, whether that be through advocacy, persuasion, protest, community organizing, monetary donations, volunteering, charitable comfort, and litigation. But as I have also written previously [https://thedisquisitor.substack.com/p/democracy-matters], there is one, simple, constitutionally bestowed, civic, national power we all possess – the right to vote.

We must exercise that right, for as Stan Lee and Steve Ditko popularized in their attribution to Spiderman’s Uncle Ben, “with great power comes great responsibility.” On behalf of the nation, on behalf of this vaunted American experiment in democratic self-government, on behalf of a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people,” on behalf of an arc of justice resuming and continuing its onward and upward bent, on behalf of a world order ensuring human civilization’s best hope of survival, peace, and shared prosperity, and on behalf of the fate of history – We Cannot Fail. We Must Not Fail. History will not give a “fourth” chance.

By Richard D. Perkel

Part III: Winning

Please, please, it’s too much winning. We can’t take it anymore.
Donald Trump, Campaign Rally, Albany, NY, April 11, 2016

In difficult ground, press on; in encircled ground, devise stratagems; in death ground, fight.
Sun Tzu, The Art of War

The problem for Democrats to inform the electorate over the opposition’s noise and propaganda is not trivial or easy to solve. But, they must find ways in our internet obsessed, social media saturated, FOX news watching, tribal, distracted political ecosystem to communicate with the overwhelming majority that could be open to their agenda. They have to overcome the fear mongering from the other side and they have to reach people where they are. When for instance President Biden, during a State of the Union Speech yelled statistic after statistic on how much money went to this or that infrastructure project, it does not resonate with many average people UNLESS it is their bridge or their road that got repaired or rebuilt. Or, when Democrats bragged about how much money the American Rescue Plan provided to support the COVID-19 recovery, this did not really mean much to a lot of people when they went to a restaurant and saw prices through the roof.

Yes, Democrats have to brag about their accomplishments, they must inform over and over on every communication platform and explain their priorities, values, and legislation. But, they have to bring their message to local communities and address in stark, easy to understand terms how their programs are or will improve the lives of those people. They must use their federal and state congressional representatives and local community government representatives to explain the agenda and programs at the community level. Where the community is represented by Republicans (who surely take credit for Democratic initiatives like infrastructure projects that they did not vote for), Democrats must expend the resources to set the record straight. Finally, Democrats need to find ways to get their message to prospective voters, especially younger voters, on outlets and platforms where they are getting their information. If millions of people are listening to Joe Rogan, Democrats need to go on his show, or shows with similar agendas, and engage them and their audience on the Democratic agenda and accomplishments and hold them and their audience to the facts.

Progressive thought and dialogue may not be reactionary and red meat enough for a Democratic Joe Rogan corollary. But there are already some progressive talking heads and hopefully these venues will proliferate. Additionally, Democrats need to leverage their strong standing with cultural, artistic and musical celebrities to get their message out. If people are getting their information from Instagram or Facebook, Democrats must continue to find ways to use these platforms to get out their message. There are some other things that I believe Democrats should do to increase their electoral success.

Democrats must aggressively dispel myths about the Party, and counter the caricatures and misinformation that the Republican Party continually uses to disparage and undermine the Democratic agenda.

· Democrats must stamp out the misinformation that they do not believe in the 2^nd amendment right for Americans to bear arms or that they want to take away people’s guns. This is a far cry from the actual Democratic platform which calls for reasonable, responsible gun safety legislation which in fact, the majority of Americans support.

· Democrats must push back hard on the Republican nonsense of painting the entire Party with ridiculous labels and spouting cultural war issues that are insignificant to the larger American project. For instance the issue of transgender women in competitive sports is a red herring, to be generous. Less than 0.002% (that’s 0.00002) of over 500,000 NCAA college athletes (* 510,000 = 10 persons) are openly transgender, according to Senate testimony given by NCAA President Charlie Baker on Dec 17, 2024. This and many other culture war issues are not nationally relevant compared to the real problems this country faces and Democrats need to come up with messaging that counters this nonsense.

· Democrats must set the record straight on the preposterous falsehood that the Democratic agenda is hostile to the wealthy. I do not know a single Democrat who does not want to be a millionaire or for their children to be wealthy. In fact, the Democratic agenda is replete with initiatives that increase opportunity for people to succeed through education, strengthening unions, expanding tax credits for families, lowering costs for healthcare, and investing in infrastructure jobs, raising the federal minimum wage, increasing access to affordable housing, and creating subsidized child care, to name a few.
The only thing Democrats prioritize in their legislative proposals is that the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes. Not “screw the rich,” not “punish the wealthy or ultra-wealthy,” but just pay a reasonable share of income through a progressive tax system. The truth is, the tax fairness initiatives proposed by the Democrats would not alter the lifestyle of virtually any wealthy individuals nor damage the success or competitiveness of corporate America.

· Democrats must put a stake in the heart of the myth that Republicans are more fiscally responsible than Democrats. The facts just simply do not support this. Under President Bill Clinton, the budget deficit was actually transformed into a $236 billion budget surplus by the end of his presidency in January 2001. President George Bush inherited this surplus and ballooned it into a $459 billion deficit by the end of his presidency, specifically driven by huge tax cuts, the Iraq/Afghanistan wars, and the Great Recession financial crisis. When President Obama took over the presidency in January 2009, the fiscal year budget deficit had ballooned to $1.2 trillion (that’s before he even stepped into the oval office). When President Obama left office in January 2017, the deficit had been reduced to $665 billion.
Then Donald Trump took over the Presidency and the deficit dam broke. At the end of his first term, the budget deficit hit a record high of $2.77 trillion. This was driven by massive government spending in response to the COVID-19 pandemic; however, it was vastly exacerbated by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 which by itself added an estimated $1.5 trillion to the deficit. This legislation significantly overhauled the tax code drastically lowering corporate and individual taxes especially for the very wealthy. When President Biden entered office in January 2021, the fiscal year 2021 deficit was $2.78 trillion. At the end of President Biden’s term, the deficit had been reduced to $1.8 trillion, this despite the significant spending under the American Rescue Plan which was required to confront the economic challenges from the COVID-19 Pandemic.
In Trump’s second term, he enacted the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” on July 4, 2025, which is estimated to add four trillion dollars to the national debt by 2034 and increase deficits over 10 years to approximately $3.4 trillion. There’s a pattern here and it can’t be washed away by Republican rhetoric. Democrats have proposed or enacted significant legislation, but as outlined throughout this narrative, they generally include reasonable and fiscally responsible revenue generating strategies to pay for them.

· Democrats must aggressively counter the false accusation from Republicans that the Democratic Party does not support or is weak on law enforcement (LE). This is so preposterous it’s hard to know where to start. Most LE officers belong to unions, and it is indisputable that Democrats support and propose policies that strengthen unions. This current Republican Administration has eliminated thousands of federal agents, including specialized LE units and analyst positions, and transferred LE funding, personnel, and resources to their crackdown on immigrants.
Violent crime rates in Democratic governed cities have generally fallen over the last several years due to aggressive support of LE and the introduction of innovative community policing efforts. Democrats are actively promoting legislation such as the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) Hire Program and the Local Law Enforce Support Act to provide funds directly to LE agencies to hire new or rehire LE officers, provide funding for police training, equipment and protective gear, and increase community policing and crime-prevention efforts.
Most glaringly, Republicans showed their hand with their inexcusable and disgusting behavior and response to the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Republicans remained virtually silent as President Trump pardoned some 1500 of the rioters. Most Republicans refuse to this day to condemn the pardons or formally recognize and acknowledge the sacrifice and bravery of the LE officers who protected the capital from the rioters, five of whom died in connection with those attacks. Republicans have made inexcusable comments and advanced preposterous theories that these were peaceful protests, that this was started by FBI agent plants, that this was the fault of Antifa and other BS. Republicans refused to participate in and actively denounced and derided the House Select Committee on the January 6^th attack after most House and Senate Republicans blocked a bipartisan proposal to create an independent commission to investigate the attack. It took three years after it was required by law for the Republican Congress to display a plaque honoring police officers who fought and were injured or died from that day.

Below are some additional areas where I believe the Democratic Party should evolve when necessary to broaden their appeal and areas where they could increase messaging effectiveness.

· Democrats should absolutely keep their core values, but they must also evolve with changing common sentiments of the American people. Democrats will always be the Party which supports immigrants and immigration, but they must heed the will of the majority of Americans who want a secure border, and want rational immigration policy and paths to citizenship.

· Democrats will always be the party which respects and upholds a woman’s right to choose. But, Democrats can broaden their appeal by framing the discussion to enact economic policies that make raising children more possible for poor families and especially single mothers. Democrats should not instinctually avoid common ground with people who want to enact policies that make alternatives like adoption easier and available.

· Democrats must stop acting like pansies when it comes to confronting the Republicans. If a Republican is lying, they must be called out as liars. When Republicans make false or preposterous statements or take ridiculous actions, Democrats must correct the record in clear unambiguous response. Thank goodness, the redistricting battle that Trump started with Texas is an example of the Democrats getting a backbone and fighting fire with fire, albeit taking the higher ground by bringing the issue to the voters (notwithstanding that the Republican-led majority VA Supreme Court just overturned this exercise of civic constitutional democracy on a questionable technicality). Democrats need to keep this up.

· Democrats should focus particularly on messaging to young people who see with their own eyes the dysfunction of the Republican Party. Now is the opportunity to provide the contrast between the Parties. Democrats must educate young people what the Democratic Party has done and what kind of world they want to help the younger generation inherit.

· Democrats need to do a much better job informing their base. This is the low hanging fruit, but anecdotally, many strong Democratic, progressive, liberal leaning people, in fact likely the majority, do not have a clue of the details and sheer magnitude of the Democratic legislation, a small slice which is included in Part II of this narrative. Democrats should use every forum and media where liberal-minded people gather, to educate, provide summaries, and ensure that the Party is meeting the realistic expectations of those constituents.

· Democrats need to outline their priorities and solutions to regular people’s problems and challenges, and talk to people about their ideas to meet their aspirations. This must be done with simple, clear messaging, honest dialogue, and information campaigns that tell people what Democrats stand for, and what they have accomplished for the American people.

· This is critical. Democrats must hold the current Republican agenda like a sword of Damocles over the head of every Republican running for office, from local to state to federal candidates, to the next Presidential campaign. The Republicans must be held accountable for the next 100 years as the Party of: Ignoring or supporting Donald Trump’s pardoning of 1500 rioters who participated in the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S Capitol, including 170 convicted for use of a deadly weapon against law enforcement officers; Massive taxation without representation in the form of illegal tariffs; Massive cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, SNAP, and social safety net programs; Massive tax cuts for the wealthy and ultra-wealthy; Adding an estimated four trillion dollars to the national deficit over the next 10 years; Trampling on our rich heritage of diversity, woman’s rights, and civil rights; Rogue ICE agents in masks terrorizing our great cities, conducting warrantless searches, and shooting unarmed citizens; Decimating vital federal government agencies; Destroying the CDC, withdrawing from WHO, and diminishing trust in vaccines; Gutting agencies such as USAID that demonstrated the U.S. as a force for good throughout the world; Disparaging and alienating our allies, threatening Canada and Greenland, threatening the existence of NATO, and abandoning our ally, Ukraine; Killing hundreds of people in small boats without due process and outside any rule of law; Starting a war of choice in Iran, costing, to date, the lives of 13 of our country’s service members and up to 4500 Iranians, and causing higher prices at the grocery store and gas pump; and, Corruption in the White House to an extent that has never been seen before in the history of the United States. This only scratches the surface. Republicans provided little to no oversight and turned a blind eye or even encouraged this outrageous agenda and conduct.

· Maybe most important, Democrats need to get out and . . . vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote.

Finally, Democrats must, I repeat, must continue to be the Party of truth. The Democratic Party must continue to be the Party of allegiance to the Constitution and fidelity to the Rule-of-Law, not any one person. Democrats must continue to be the party of science, education, and exploration of the planet and outer space. Democrats must continue to be the party of compassion for the underprivileged, ensuring no American goes hungry and of healthcare for all. Democrats must continue to be the Party of fiscal responsibility and for leveraging the government as a force of good in the country. Democrats must continue to be the party of peaceful protest, rejecting violence and discrimination, and promoting diversity. Democrats must continue to be the party that protects the environment, embraces the science of climate change, and looks for solutions and ways to protect the planet. Democrats must continue to be the party that protects and facilitates the right to vote for every American. Democrats must continue to be the Party of International Cooperation, leading America as a force for good in the world, garnering trust and resolve to our allies and adversaries alike. Oh, and did I mention, Democrats must continue to be the Party of truth.

By Richard D. Perkel

Part II: Play Ball!

The Best Defense is a Good Offense.
Jack Dempsey

He’s making a list,
Checking it twice,
Gonna find out who’s naughty or nice.
John Frederick Coots and Haven Gillespie, Santa Claus is Coming to Town

Following are some examples of recent major legislation, proposed and enacted by the Democratic Party:

The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021

The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 was enacted by the Democrats and signed into law by President Biden in March 2021 to address the economic and human impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic. This $1.9 trillion legislation can arguably be credited with saving the economy from a double-digit recession, and sustaining and revitalizing the economy in the post COVID period. The legislation is credited with adding over 15 million jobs during the Biden Administration. It should be noted that not a single Republican in the House or Senate voted for this legislation. The Act provided temporary stimulus checks to low and middle class families, temporarily extended federal unemployment benefits, provided over 300 billion to state, local and tribal governments to cover pandemic related revenue losses and costs, provided funds to K-12 schools for safe reopening, provided funds for childcare providers, provided billions for small businesses and dedicated funding for the particularly hard hit restaurant sector, and provided rental, utility and mortgage relief and expanded SNAP benefits. Of particular note, the Act:

· Temporarily expanded the Child Tax Credit to $3000 per child and $3600 for children under age 6. The credit was fully refundable, meaning low-income families received the full amount of the credit even if they owed zero federal income taxes or had no earned income. This provision is widely credited with reducing child poverty during its existence by 50%. The Democrats tried to re-authorize the tax credits in the Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act of 2024 but were blocked by Republicans for a much more meager proposal.

· Increased the Affordable Care Act subsidies, drastically lowering or eliminating health insurance premiums for low and middle class Americans. These are the subsidies that were eliminated by the Republicans in their so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill” and the Democrats aggressively tried to retain the subsidies, leading to the longest government shutdown in history (thereby demonstrating some Democratic spine on a matter of integral importance to the genuine Democratic platform, though this was lost on most Americans).

· Saved the Teamsters Union Pension Fund. When the bill was introduced, the Teamsters Union’s Pension Fund was essentially insolvent. The Democrats included a provision in the bill called the Special Financial Assistance (SFA) Program which provided $36 billion in federal grants to insolvent multiemployer pension plans. These funds, administered by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), allowed the fund to pay 100% of earned benefits to over 350,000 workers through 2051, preventing projected pension cuts of up to 60% to Union workers.

Build Back Better Plan (BBB)

The $3.5 trillion Build Back Better (BBB) Plan, introduced in September 2021, was the legislation pioneered by President Joe Biden and supported by virtually all Democrats. This legislation provides a clarion ”mirror” into the values and priorities of the Democratic Party. Only one Democrat in the House voted against the bill. The only reason the bill is not law today is because the Senate had a 50 – 50 split between Democrats and Republicans. Only 2 out of the 50 Democratic Senators did not fully support the bill. Senator Joe Manchin eventually announced his opposition and Senator Kyrsten Sinema was also a probable no vote, therefore the bill died in the Senate. Again, not a single Republican voted for or supported the bill. Unlike Republican legislation which overwhelmingly benefits wealthy and extremely wealthy individuals, and over the years has added trillions to the national debt, the BBB Plan was largely and responsibly paid for by increasing taxes on corporations and high-income earners. Key provisions of this proposed legislation were:

· Provided hundreds of billions of dollars in tax credits for solar panels, wind energy, electric vehicles (EV), and clean manufacturing.

· Provided hundreds of billions of dollars for universal pre-K (3-and 4-year-olds) and childcare subsidies to limit childcare costs to seven percent of income for most families.

· Included a provision for four weeks of paid family and medical leave for all Americans.

· Permanently extended the Child Tax Credits and Earned Income Tax Credit which were initiated by the Democrats in the American Rescue Plan and had a substantial impact in reducing child poverty.

· Extended the enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies similar to the expansion in the American Rescue Plan.

· Expanded Medicare to include hearing services.

· Expanded home care for elderly and disabled individuals through Medicaid.

· Created one-to-two million new apprenticeship positions.

· Provided investments to build, rehabilitate, and retrofit over 1.8 million affordable housing units.

· Provided funding for school infrastructure, higher education, and increased Pell Grants.

· Provided work permits and deportation protection to certain undocumented immigrants.

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) was the follow-on legislation to the Build Back Better (BBB) Plan. This legislation garnered enough Democratic support to pass in August 2022. The $370 billion legislation included some of the provisions of the BBB and included significant funding for climate and energy security. The legislation was largely paid for through corporate tax reform, significant increases in IRS tax enforcement, and decreases in prescription drug outlays due to allowing Medicare to negotiate certain prescription drug prices. Not a single Republican in either the House or Senate voted for the IRA. Key provisions of the legislation included:

· Authorized renewable energy tax credits for solar, wind, and electricity storage.

· Provided consumer tax credits for new and used electric vehicles (EV) made in America.

· Provided Tax credits for domestic manufacturing of clean energy technologies.

· Provided block grant funding for community-led projects aimed at monitoring and reducing pollution in disadvantaged communities.

· Offered rebates and tax credits for homeowners to upgrade to efficient electric appliances.

· Empowered Medicare to negotiate prices for certain high-cost drugs.

· Capped annual out-of-pocket prescription drug costs at $2000 for all Medicare beneficiaries.

· Provided a limit on insulin costs for Medicare beneficiaries to $35.00 per month.

· Extended the enhanced Affordable Care Act (ACA) premium subsidies through 2025.

· Imposed a 15% minimum tax on income of corporations with profits over $1 billion.

· Provided funding for the IRS to modernize, hire auditors, and increase enforcement, primarily targeting high-wealth individuals and corporations.

· Introduced a 1% excise tax on corporate stock buybacks.

Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act addressed a long-standing Democratic priority which was promoted by President Biden and initiated in the congress by Democrats. The bill was signed into law by President Biden in November 2021. This $1.2 trillion law had a 5 year horizon and provided massive investments in the country’s crumbling and long-neglected infrastructure. The bill was initially focused on provisions related strictly to transportation infrastructure, but was amended in the House to add funding for broadband access, clean water, and electric grid renewal. This was a bipartisan bill that garnered some support from Republicans. However, only 13 out of 213 Republicans voted for the bill in the House and 19 out of 49 Republicans voted for the bill in the Senate. Key provisions of the legislation included:

· Provided funding for transportation infrastructure including billions for roads, bridges, and major projects with a focus on repairing, rebuilding, and modernization. It allocated billions for passenger and freight rail, which was the largest investment in Amtrak since its creation.

· Provided billions to modernize transit, improve accessibility, and improve safety.

· Expanded high-speed, reliable internet access to unserved and underserved communities.

· Provided billions to improve the Power & Grid infrastructure. Focused on strengthening the electric grid, building thousands of miles of new transmission lines to facilitate renewable energy, and support grid modernization.

· Provided billions for water and environmental clean-up, including billions for lead service line replacement and funds to address PFAS contaminants in drinking water.

· Provided funding for creation of a national network of 500,000 electric vehicle chargers.

· Included strong “Buy America” requirements, permitting reforms to speed up project approvals and funds for environmental remediation to clean up legacy pollution, and addressing abandoned mines and oil/gas wells.

Bipartisan Safer Communities Act

The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act was signed into law by President Biden in June 2022. This was the first significant federal gun safety legislation in almost 30 years. The Democratic Party supported, initiated, promoted, and signed this legislation into law which demonstrates the glaring difference between the Republican Party’s offering “thoughts and prayers” to address the country’s gun violence epidemic and the Democrat’s commitment to do something about it. The legislation did garner some bipartisan support. All Democrats voted for the bill. But only 14 out of 207 Republicans voted for the bill in the House and 15 out of 48 Republicans voted for the bill in the Senate. The legislation enacted concrete gun safety measures, and invested billions in mental health services and school safety. Key provisions of the legislation included:

· Enhanced background checks for under 21-year-old buyers: Established an investigative period (up to 3 business days) to check juvenile and mental health records for gun buyers under 21.

· Closed the “Boyfriend Loophole”: Expanded federal law to prohibit individuals convicted of domestic abuse against spouses and dating partners from purchasing or possessing firearms.

· Funding for State Red Flag Laws: Provided $750 million to support state crisis intervention programs, including “red flag” laws that temporarily remove guns from individuals posing a danger.

· Anti-Trafficking and Straw Purchasing Penalties: Created federal criminal offenses for gun trafficking and straw purchasing, strengthening tools to stop illegal gun flow.

· Clarifying “Engaged in Business”: Clarified definitions to require unlicensed sellers dealing in firearms to obtain a federal license and run background checks.

· Mental Health and School Safety Funding: Allocated billions for school based mental health services, community health centers, and investments in school safety initiatives.

· NICS Records Improvement: Allocated $200 million to improve state criminal and mental health record systems for better background check accuracy.

John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act

The John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, Democratic proposed legislation, illustrates the Democratic Party’s commitment to supporting and preserving fair voting rights for all Americans. It was considered by the Congress in December 2019 and August 2021. In 2019 the bill passed the House with all Democrats voting yes and a single Republican yes vote out of a total 187. The Republican Senate Majority Leader (Mitch McConnell) did not bring the measure to the floor for a vote. In 2021 all House Democrats voted for the bill. No Republican House members voted for the bill. It passed the House with all 219 Democrats for and all 212 Republicans against. It was filibustered by Republicans in the Senate after several attempts by Democrats to overcome cloture. The Bill was designed to restore and modernize the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Its purpose was to combat discriminatory voting laws by reinstating a “preclearance” formula, requiring jurisdictions with recent histories of discrimination to obtain federal approval before changing voting rules.

Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act

The Freedom to Vote Act was a Democratic bill that was considered by the Congress as part of a combined package titled the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act. The bill died in the Senate in January 2022 with not a single Republican vote in the House or Senate. The legislation attempted to expand voting access, provide election integrity reforms, and set federal minimum standards on various voting parameters. Some of the key provisions of the act were to end partisan gerrymandering and root out undue influence of special interest money in our politics. Some other key provisions of the act include:

· Eliminated partisan gerrymandering nationwide.

· Enacted automatic voter registration and online voter registration.

· Made Election Day a public holiday.

· Ensured voters have access to at least 15 consecutive days of early voting.

· Ensured every state offers same day registration.

· Created a national standard permitting no-excuse, vote-by-mail for all eligible voters, and allowed all voters to return mail ballots in person to polling places or drop boxes.

· Included voting protections for individuals with disabilities.

· Required entities that spend more than $10,000 in an election to disclose all major donors.

· Tightened rules to keep super PACs and other outside groups independent of candidates.

· Restored the right of vote to formerly incarcerated citizens upon their release.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA)

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) was signed into law by President Obama on March 23, 2010. Although this legislation is from several years ago, it is included in this narrative because it so clearly illustrates the vastly different priorities and values of the Democratic Party from the Republican Party. It was a landmark legislation that drastically improved access and affordability of health care for the American people. It was complex legislation, but a review of the main provisions reflects common sense, necessary, reasonable healthcare reforms that are laser-focused on the working class and underprivileged segments of our society. It must be emphasized that the Republicans have made over 70 attempts to weaken, amend or fully repeal the ACA. The legislation was literally hanging by a thread on July 28, 2017, when the Republican Senate voted to replace it with the so-called “Skinny Repeal” bill which essentially dismantled the ACA. This bill failed when Senator John McCain famously voted no to deny the Republicans the simple majority they needed to kill the ACA. For context, and as an example of the Republican’s disinterest in health care affordability, a verbatim excerpt from the “Skinny Repeal” bill literally said, “nothing shall be construed [in this bill] to restrict the amount that an employer or individual may be charged for coverage under a group health plan.”

The bill required two separate Congressional votes. The first, on the main legislation, was initiated in the Senate where the Democrats had a filibuster proof majority. On December 24, 2009, it passed the Senate with a vote count of 60 to 39, with all Democrats (and two Independents) voting yes and all 39 Republicans present voting no. This bill passed the House with not a single Republican vote. Democratic House members had some serious concerns that the original bill had some shortcomings in its healthcare protections and they persuaded the Senate that the bill needed some improvements. However, the Senate lost their 60-vote filibuster-proof majority due to a special election in Massachusetts which elected Republican Scott Brown who won the seat formerly held by Senator Ted Kennedy. This required the modified bill to be passed under the Reconciliation process. Therefore, a second bill – the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 - was introduced. The House voted on this bill on March 21, 2010. All 178 Republicans voted no on the reconciliation bill. Under the reconciliation process, only a simple majority in the Senate is required and the Senate voted for the bill on March 25, 2010. Again, all Republican Senators voted no. Key provisions of the ACA included:

· Individual Mandate: Prohibited insurance companies from denying coverage or charging more based on an individual’s medical history.

· Medicaid Expansion: Allows states to expand Medicaid eligibility to adults with incomes up to 138% of the federal poverty level. As of March 2026, 10 states have not adopted the ACA Medicaid expansion. Every one of them has either a Republican Governor or Republican legislatures.

· Young Adult Coverage: Permits children to remain on their parent’s insurance plans until age 26.

· Health Insurance Marketplaces: Created online exchanges (such as HealthCare.gov) where individuals and small businesses can compare and purchase insurance plans.

· Premium Subsidies: Provided financial assistance in the form of tax credits to individuals and families with incomes between 100% and 400% of the federal poverty level.

· Essential Health Benefits: Mandates that all qualified plans cover ten core services, including emergency care, maternity care, mental health services, and prescription drugs.

· Free Preventive Care: Requires insurance plans to cover preventive services, such as immunizations and screenings (e.g., mammograms), without out-of-pocket costs.

· Medical Loss Ratio (80/20 Rule): Requires insurers to spend at least 80% or 85% of premium dollars on health care services rather than administrative costs and profits.

· Ban on Coverage Limits: Prohibits insurance companies from setting lifetime or annual dollar limits on essential health benefits.

· Incentives for Electronic Records: Included provisions and funding to encourage hospitals and doctors to transition to computerized medical records to improve efficiency and reduce errors.

[Full editorial disclosure, section titling and selection of section epigraphs are those of the “editor,” The Disquisitor.]

Part I: Democrats on Defense
Part II: Play Ball!
Part III: Winning

Part I: Democrats on Defense

Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone . . .
Joni Mitchell, Big Yellow Taxi

It has always been my contention that if the provisions of the Democratic Party’s platform and legislative priorities were presented to a cross section of Americans in a non-partisan poll or survey, some 70% to 80% of Americans would support most of these priorities. There is some empirical data to support this. A Washington Post poll found that 70-80% support ideas like worker training tax credits and childcare support. Many other reputable surveys consistently find overwhelming support for ideas such as: infrastructure spending, lower prescription drug costs, protecting Social Security and Medicare, background checks for gun purchases, clean energy investments and many other overwhelmingly Democratic priorities.

This is not just reflected in disparate polling data, it is ingrained in the actual legislation (proposed or signed into law) by the two parties. The Democratic legislative agenda is (and has historically been) laser focused on addressing the concerns and issues confronting the middle class, the working class, the poor and the disadvantaged. In support of this contention, I have provided in part 2 of this narrative a summary of some of the major Democratic legislation in the recent past. I have purposefully gone into some detail of what is actually in the legislation because it concretely illustrates the depth, complexity, focus, granularity, and sheer enormity of the ideas espoused by the Democratic Party when they have been in the majority and had the power to enact their agenda. Keep in mind, this is just a small sample of recent Democratic legislative initiatives and does not even attempt to go back in history to elucidate the Democratic Party led legislative triumphs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, establishment of NATO, Peace Corps, GI Bill, National Industrial Recovery Act (8 hour workday, minimum wage, paid overtime, right to collective bargaining), Unemployment Benefits, Fair Labor Standards, Voting Rights, Civil Rights, Head Start, Family and Medical Leave Act, the list goes on and on.

On the contrary, the Republican Party has a very different political and legislative agenda. To be fair, they have participated in some bipartisan legislative initiatives. But after taking control of the House in 2011 and Senate in 2015, the Republicans have focused on dismantling the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Other legislative efforts emphasized shrinking the federal government, enacting significant spending cuts, reducing federal regulation especially environmental regulation, initiatives to increase domestic energy production (a priority that is more rhetorical than actual), diluting voting rights, dismantling diversity initiatives, curtailing a woman’s right to choose and cutting taxes in a way that overwhelmingly favors the wealthy and ultra-wealthy. Don’t take my word for this. An internet search on any reputable search platform of the Republican’s legislative agenda will corroborate this.

The Republican’s disparaging of the Democratic Party platform has become so skilled and ingrained that even some Democratic and liberal luminaries have bought into the fantasy that the Democratic Party has lost its core principles and its focus on working Americans. This is pure horse hockey and I find it particularly galling and unhelpful. This nonsense has been espoused by a prominent Independent - Democratic Socialist Senator who will go unnamed but whose initials are the same as the BS that it is. This thinking belies a selective amnesia on the contents of the very legislation that they championed, as enumerated in part 2 of this narrative.

So, what’s going on here? The case that the Democratic Party agenda overwhelmingly favors the working class, middle class and the poor is almost a caricature in its starkness from the Republican agenda. How is it that a buffoon like Donald Trump was elected not once but twice and the Republican Party currently controls all three branches of government? I have some thoughts.

Fear is much more powerful than reason and logic. I can say with confidence that very few would take the time to read the legislative descriptions and provisions listed in this narrative without their eyes glazing over. But, statements like “illegal immigrant are taking over the country,” “crime in the streets is rampant,” “Democrats stole the election,” “trans people are ruining our country,” “Democrats are bankrupting the country” have huge impact on the electorate, especially in our internet headline focused, misinformed, distracted society where many people struggle to put food on the table and pay the rent no less delve into the nature of political thought in America. A phenomenon that requires examination far more than can be covered in this essay is the pigeonholing of news and information sources to outlets that do not adhere to long standing journalistic standards has become a part of our body politic. Tribalism and lack of a common ground of truth is rampant and dangerous. Also, the Democratic agenda clearly does not speak to everybody. Passage of the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act is probably not a home-run to a white supremacist in Mississippi. Gun safety regulations are not a winning theme to many NRA enthusiasts. Environmental regulations promoting renewable clean energy are not on the top of the list for a Kentucky coal miner. You get the point. But then again, as I started in this piece, the Democratic agenda in its broadest sense is indisputably, overwhelmingly popular.

But we are not powerless. In fact, we have the power to turn this thing around in the proverbial instant. We always had. Think. If we just mostly voted for Harris, we’d have no need for litigation, protests, community organizing, editorializing, blogging, or Substacks dedicated to saving the nation. True, we might not have gotten all we wanted, such as affordable housing in a single cycle, <2% inflation, a free Gaza, peace in Ukraine, transgender-use bathrooms, and a firm 1.5° above pre-industrial levels limit on global warming. But we’d have been closer to all of these things than ever before in history and, sure as Shit, exponentially beyond where the Trump administration and Project 2025 have left us today, not just losing ground, but in free fall. Careers destroyed, foreign development aid decimated and used for extortion, illegal wars, extrajudicial killings at home and abroad, corruption on an epic scale, science disparaged, facts erased, rule by a dystopian mafia dynasty. None of this had to have happened. None of this would have happened. Instead, we blame Trump. But this is on us. We, the American people, voted for this wreckage and only we can stop it.

Vote. Vote like your life depends upon it. Vote in overwhelming numbers sufficient to overcome the inevitable election fraud and undemocratic mechanizations already coming from the right. And Vote Democrat! Across the board, up and down the ballot. This is not a time for pretend civic compromise by dividing the House and Senate between parties in some civic belief lesson in electoral checks and balances. We need a full Democratic Congress to pass the legislation necessary not just to dig us out of this Hell hole, not just to move the needle forward, but to begin rebuilding and building anew positive social policies in health care, education, economy, war powers, international alliance relations, and taking back the predominant Article I power of Congress. We need 300 Executive Orders ready on day one, Jan 20, 2029, to overturn the worst of this Trump administration’s abuses. (That’s assuming Democrats don’t take both Houses in sufficient numbers to impeach and convict . . . and that, too, is in our power.) We need to again bend the arc of justice upwards.

But here you protest. The Democrats, you cry? They had their chance and failed. We need something new, something fresh. If only you knew what that was. Admittedly, it’s hard to tell from the Democratic party itself.

Well, that which you seek politically has always been with the Democratic party. The Democrats are genuine legislators on the wings of angels, particularly during the Biden administration. But the Democrats are abject losers on message, discipline, and that translation to winning electoral dominance. They are just too “nice” to execute tactic ruthlessness to consistently win. They are too complacent in their righteousness that they fail to understand how the majority of Americans feel and too arrogant in their beliefs to entertain not just the possibility but the fact that the average American mindset is lost to them. Reagan Democrats, anyone? The beginning of the slide, the wakeup call missed.

But it is so simple for them, too. You want the Affordable Care Act subsidies to continue? Expanded Medicare and capped prescription drug costs, leading to more universal health care options? Universal early childcare subsidies? National educational institutional support, including financial aid? Family and medical leave? Reformed IRS taxation enforcement targeting the wealthy recalcitrant? Unions supported and strengthened? Pollution mitigation? Greenhouse gas regulation of the most obtrusive and unhealthy particulates? Sustainable energy policies, built into the tax code, with incentives for industrial and residential alternatives? Renewed, rebuilt, and newly built infrastructure, including transportation, road and rail, housing, Internet, the electrical grid, and expanded electrical vehicle adoption and adaptation? Preserving and expanding voting rights and electoral access for all, particularly the disenfranchised, minorities, and the poor? And these are just a few. AND, these are not wish lists. These are actual Democratic legislative enactments either achieved, crafted, or drafted, within the last Biden administration alone! And the Republicans? On seven major legislative votes profiled (below), not a single Republican vote was cast in favor! Particularly egregious were unanimous Republican votes against all electoral expansion and reform initiatives. Of two passed “bipartisan,” Republican House “yeas” were 6-7% and Senate, 31-39%.

AND all of this is to say nothing of the social wedge issues like abortion and contraceptive access to allow women to control their identities and futures, or reasonable gun control measures to attempt to stem rampant public carnage, or criminal justice and capital punishment reform to ensure equity in racial and class administration. How about keeping the establishment of a national religion a reality and out of the public school curriculum? Ensuring banned books is an oxymoron? LGBTQ+ rights, anyone? How about balanced Supreme Court appointments, or better yet, Democratic, to claw back the Dred Scott-equivalent-awful rulings of this current reactionary activist cabal.

AND adding now in the historical, society-changing, arc-of-justice bending advancements – ALL from Democratic administrations - of a Liberal World Order manifested by a League of Nations (Wilson) and then a United Nations (Truman), followed by the Bretton Woods established international monetary regulatory system of an IMF and World Bank (FDR); the herculean New Deal programs (FDR) of Social Security, the Fair Labor Standards Act prohibiting child labor and establishing a minimum wage, overtime, and a five-day workweek (leading to the weekend, for God’s sake!), establishing workers’ rights of unionization with the National Labor Relations Act, the restoration of public confidence in and reform of banks and stock markets through the FDIC and the SEC, national energy electrification through the Tennessee Valley Authority, infrastructure development and jobs promotion through the Public Works and Works Progress Administrations, and the Civilian Conservation Corps; the establishment of NATO, rebuilding a post-WWII Europe through the Marshall Plan, and the first to recognize the new country of Israel (Truman); directing humankind into space and to the moon, and establishing the Peace Corps (JFK); the great Great Society programs (LBJ) of civil rights, Job Corps, VISTA, Food Stamps, Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start, and the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities; Camp David Accords (Carter) establishing peace between Egypt and Israel, modeling all subsequent and future Middle East accords of comity and coexistence; and the Affordable Care Act (Obama)! These are exactly what you want, exactly what Americans tell pollsters they want. And these are exactly the actions our Democratic party is on record enacting and supporting, then and now. Who would have known? Certainly not from the Democrats themselves, not how they sell it.

What Republicans stand for, that’s easy. It’s essentially only three things. One, kleptocracy (rule by the powerful to control resources) and plutocracy (rule by the wealthy), now essentially the same. Two, economic monopoly power, unfettered by unbound capitalism. And three, the tactical mechanisms by which the former two are achieved – (i) environmental, economic deregulation; (ii) limited, meaning no, government to ensure the immediately preceding point; (iii) limited, meaning no, taxes, ensuring the second point, except regressive sales, license, and use fees most burdensome upon lower and middle classes; and (iv) the dismantling of the democratic, enfranchised, egalitarian, institutional State. And, sorry, there is a fourth, of course, being the religious Christian and White race-favorable, social policies that conveniently divide us to preserve antidemocratic power.

When 14 candidates get on that debate stage to vie for a single presidential candidate anointment, they will instead look like a clown car of a lost tribe of squabbling, quibbling, whining wannabes, more bent on attacking each other than presenting a unifying, national vision, no less defending the angelic legacy of the Democratic Party and platform. And that is a tragedy of epic proportions. For each one, alone, is a great individual of hard-earned merit, knowledge, and ability, and worthy, in their own right, to lead. But the nation won’t see it that way.

We must return the United States of America to the great idea of a democratic Republic, founded on liberty and freedom, AND principle. A nation of ideas, promise, and institutions of justice and opportunity. To become again – yes, we truly were – “the indispensable nation” of ideas, promise, and institutions of justice and opportunity to which other nations and the oppressed looked towards for hope and inspiration. Yes, yes, yes! Of course the reality of American history is also rife with horrible oppression, imperialism, slavery, racism, opportunism, inequality, rapaciousness, war, and nuclear terror. Just like all nations led by human beings everywhere. But the idea of America, the American dream, the tantalizing illusion of a democratic experiment based on laws, not men, on principled institutions, not transactional, arbitrary, self-serving advantage. The “Spirit of America.” That is also who we once were, who the peoples of the world hoped we were and hoped they could be. That is what is at stake and what we must fight for.

One cannot do better than quote Abraham Lincoln in invocation of the magnitude of the challenge, and the imminence and immensity of the risks. Twenty-five years before his Gettysburg address questioning the enduring longevity of a nation conceived in liberty and equality while engaged in a national civil war dividing brother against brother, Lincoln as a young lawyer delivered on Jan 27, 1838, a speech at the Young Men’s Lyceum in Springfield, Illinois. It addressed the dangers of violent political instability threatening the survival of republican governance itself, rooted in Lincoln’s concerns over Jacksonian populist politics and its expansion of presidential, executive authority. Entitled ”The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions,” he said, “If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide.” Lincoln did not see national, institutional “danger” coming “from abroad,” but “if . . . ever reach[ing] us it must spring up amongst us.” In other words, the risk is not external, but internal, of us, quite simply, destroying ourselves.

And here we are today, “a house divided,” exploited and under assault from populism captured by a madman enabled by kleptocrats, plutocrats, and Republicans pressing relentlessly and ruthlessly decades-dreams of Christian, White, male, billionaires’ power. One party, and only one with the scope, vision, and record, has stood in firm contradiction.

Yet, the Democratic party’s heroic and on-record advocacy for positive policy positions is consistently ignored or, worse, unknown by the pundits and analysts whose job it is TO know. Focusing on the party’s hapless and empty rhetoric, overweening and insufferable arrogance, and cowardice to take firm positions against its extremist base, while still executing through action and legislature magnificent progressive policies it was in fact pursuing but could not translate for public consumption, these pundit arbiters of American political culture would have us believe that the Democrats stand for nothing. Yet nothing is farther from the truth.

And so we will do for the Democratic Party, and by extension the national cause, a service by stating herein - within the next few installments - that which the Democratic Party so righteously and identifiably stands for, but for reasons of some systemic and intrinsic paralysis, cannot do so for itself.
________________________________________________

At the outset of this disquisition, I encountered a dilemma. I was intending on producing a multi-part analysis of the Democratic Party – right, wrong, and solutions – and had asked a contact of mine who I knew was tracking Democratic legislation and votes to provide me a concise summation of notable initiatives I could draw from in making the case. Apparently in the heat of the battle of the task, he got inspired and instead wrote up an entire essay on the subject in its own right. What to do? Cannibalize the parts I needed, killing the host? Why not solve the “problem” by letting his work stand not just for my values but on their own merits? Indeed, that is what we will precisely do. My first guest contributor.

In the coming days, then, I will present his essay and analysis in series, in full, verbatim. [Full editorial disclosure, essay organization, titling, and selection of section epigraphs are mine; that’s all.] I trust, dear readers, that you will find these pieces valuable, essential, even, as a sort of “pocket guide” to the Democratic Party, making not just the case but the facts of Democratic Party initiative clear and concise in ways that the experts themselves either fail to understand or are unable to coalesce. Think of it as a public service to the nation. Friends, Americans, country persons, I present to you, shortly, The Case for the Democratic Party’s Agenda, by my brother, Richard D. Perkel.

We can all certainly imagine other regimens of national governance more efficient, quicker in action, more able to deliver a certain time-defined prosperity, and thus, depending on the time horizon and the percentages of those served, even better to a point. Benevolent dictator, anyone? After all, people want to be led. People need to be led. Socially, evolutionarily, we are mostly all followers. Otherwise, we would all be islands of one, fighting for dominance amongst each other. It works the same for nation-states. Hegemonic ambition breeds international conflict and with technological armaments since the last century, world war. International institutions, bred and borne on the principles of democracy, inclusion, and a voice given to the smaller and weaker members of the international community help ensure global governance, comity, peace, and prosperity. All of this is at risk today.

Democracy, alone among all other mechanisms and attempted philosophies of governance, puts control and, most importantly, accountability in the hands of the people. We may choose bad governments, we may choose war, but it is the people’s choice, expressed through their institutional mechanisms of electoral process. Democracy manifests national will at its purest. And because the mechanisms of process are democratic, change is most readily achievable, minority voices best heard with the opportunity to convince, democratically, a change to majority.

Yesterday, April 21, 2026, score a small victory for democracy. I fully recognize the irony and inconsistency of that win, involving gerrymandering advantages conferred, democratically (rather than by committee), to a specific partisan group. In a perfect world, gerrymandering is contra-democratic, drawing arbitrary or partisan lines to disenfranchise other misaligned groups. The Democrats, finally finding some spine and discipline, fought back against recent and powerful Republican efforts to misalign the entire national, representative structure through recent aggressive gerrymandering of districts in red states TX and MO [‘25], FL [’22; ’26 in contention], PA [‘02], NC [‘23], GA [’23 in contention] , and OH [‘22]. In fair disclosure, Democrats had recent gerrymandered successes in CA [‘25], and NY and IL [‘22]. Make no mistake, though, Republicans disproportionally control the legislative redistricting machinery. The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law, an independent, nonpartisan law and policy organization, writes in September 24, 2024, that in the decade, Republicans drew 191 (44%) of Congressional districts compared to Democrats’ 75. More than arguably, yesterday’s victory provided needed parity to a national structure requiring balance in representation to approximate democracy and democratic principles.

However, yesterday’s win for democracy is not total and, of itself, much less enduring than appears on headlines alone. The final margin was less than three percent, 51.4 to 48.6; not an overwhelming endorsement in favor of the Democrats or democracy. Most favorable votes came in early voting, at risk in future primaries and the midterms. Election day voting was low in comparison to the ’25 Governor’s race, particularly so in the Northern Virginia Democratic strongholds. Republicans gained numerical ground in a supposed “purple” state. Meanwhile, a ground shaking decision looms in the Supreme Court to overturn the part of the Voting Rights Act that bans racial gerrymandering, effectively allowing red states to push through new maps favoring Republicans ahead of the midterms. This was by no means a resounding victory for the Democrats nor a clarion call by citizens for normalcy in American governance.

The risks, nay, the reality of the unfair, corrupt, and undemocratic attacks on elections to come are very, very real. Let’s understand who we are dealing with here. After all, Virginia House GOP Leader Terry Gilgore says of the Virginia vote, without any sense of irony, “the ballot box was never the final word here. . . . [It] now move[s] where [it] belong[s]: to the courts.” And this in the context of a public election by the people, made by a representative of the party overwhelmingly enthralled to and empowered by the practice in question. We must be wary of and overcome the coming election suppression attempts – access and registration restrictions, mail-in ballot limits, roll purges, ID impediments, shortened voting windows and, yes, continued unrepresentative gerrymandering. True democratic victory, for the Democrats and for democracy, must be of a margin great enough to overcome any doubt. Three points won’t cut it. Thirteen, thirty! Maybe . . .

We are at an inflection point. The fight is incumbent on everyone, me, you, all. Protesting, attending rallies, community organizing, supporting unions are all necessary and heroic. But the only thing that will matter in the end is voter turnout, and turnout in numbers sufficient to overcome the inevitable suppression efforts and doubts they are designed to sow. Let there be no doubt! Just vote! It is that simple. Anything less than full voter mobilization risks loss and ruin. “[T]he Union will endure forever,” Abraham Lincoln said in his First Inaugural Address of March 4, 1861. “[If we c]ontinue to execute all the express provisions of our National Constitution, . . . it [will] be[ ] impossible to destroy it except by some action not provided for in the instrument itself.”

Make no mistake. We are not being led under Donald Trump. At first, we were conned, then abused, and now, we are being ruined. Donald Trump, his administration, and today’s Republican Party are engaged in an all-out effort to permanently remake the American enterprise into a bastion of entitlement to unfettered, corporate, capital control, White racial dominance, and Christian Evangelical divine governance. Absent unquestionably exercised institutional and constitutional checks, balances, and mechanisms of governance, they will burn the house down before voluntarily and peaceably relinquishing control.

I don’t believe people fully understand the values of our current “leadership.” I wrote before in my disquisition on Introducing the Real Donald Trump [https://thedisquisitor.substack.com/p/ladies-and-gentlemen-introducing], but it bears, nay, demands repetition far and wide: In a value system of conservative worship of unfettered, unregulated capital markets, pluralism, compromise, inclusion, constitutionalism, institutionalism, and, most disturbingly, democracy just are not that important, and certainly not as much as their tribal, exclusive, capitalistic, monopolistic values, and are thus wholly and unreservedly expendable for these advocates. In short, these goals trump, pun intended, all other American values, including democracy, the Constitution, and the larger American institutional experiment of civic Republic governance. Don’t let that happen. It is now or never.

The basis of the case against Mr. Brennan is his claims to Congress in 2023 in allowing an appendix to be included in the CIA intelligence assessment concluding Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. The appendix in question referenced the so-called Steele dossier of unverified and later discredited allegations about Mr. Trump and ties to Russia and its role in interfering with the 2016 election in favor of Trump. The FBI had wanted to include the dossier within the body of the intelligence assessment. In Congressional testimony, Mr. Brennan had said that he supported CIA analysts opposing the inclusion of the dossier in the assessment itself. Mr. Brennan, however, supported its inclusion in an appendix in compromise between the two competing FBI and CIA positions.

Talk about “tangled webs we weave” or, better understood, attempting to prevail through obfuscation and confusion. What exactly are they seeking to link and prove? That Mr. Brennan’s compromise position was a lie to Congress about the intelligence assessment’s credibility and findings because it referenced a document with arguable merit even though the underlying finding has proven unassailable? And where would perjury even lie in any of that? Divide and conquer; attack the messenger; discredit the real issue at hand being Russian complicity in support of Trump; distract from the snow actually on the ground.

Yet, what does reality tell us? Did Russia possess the cyberthreat capabilities to interfere with U.S. national electioneering mechanisms during the 2016 election? Would it have been in Russia’s indisputable great national interests to so interfere? Which major party candidate at the time, Democrat Hillary Clinton or Republican Donald Trump, would have presented Russia with better leverage over U.S. foreign policy towards and on behalf of Russia as president? These questions are, of course, rhetorical, as the asking is the answering.

And in fact, what have we actually seen? President Joe Biden presided over a rigorous, domestic and international campaign to counter Russian aggression in Ukraine, all over almost unified Republican opposition. Donald Trump in his second presidential term has consistently overturned these initiatives while fracturing the international alliance previously existing to maintain them. Russia has benefited substantially from the current Iran war, aided by higher oil revenues as prices surged and the rising demand for other products it produces like fertilizers. Earlier, Trump has castigated Ukraine’s defensive rationale – asserting cynically and falsely that Ukraine started the war – and has continued to legitimate Russian aims and tactics, including acceptance of Russian territorial gains as well as conceding territory not yet even captured. Trump has severely weakened the NATO alliance, generated mistrust of the United States on behalf of member States, and thereby strengthened Russia’s position and increased the risk of further European conflict. Trump, in general, has consistently re-legitimated Russia’s global standing as a great power competitor (where the reality is that, aside from their formidable nuclear arsenal, Russia has been reduced to a second-rate, unstable – and thus still dangerous - regional power under the abusive authority of Russian President Vladimir Putin). Every time Trump undermines international norms of democracy and human rights at home and abroad, he legitimates autocracy, totalitarianism, fascism, and dictatorship in other states, including, of course, Russia. I need not even mention Trump’s obvious bromance and fanboy admiration of strongman Putin himself.

So, where is this grand conspiracy? Or is it, not just more likely but written on the ground as plain fact in front of our eyes, that Russia is winning under Donald Trump. Let’s see. Which horse might they have bet on in 2016 (and again in 2020 and 2024)? Hmmm. That’s a hard one, right? NOT. And if they could have bet on the horse race in 2016, would they have not? Again, rhetorical.

But we don’t need rhetorical query. In 2019, the Mueller Special Counsel Russia Investigation, while finding no evidence that President Trump or any of his aides “coordinated” with the Russian government’s 2016 election interference, uncovered “extensive criminal activity.” It concluded that Russia engaged in “extensive attacks” on the U.S. election system. The report concluded that the Russian Internet Research Agency supported Trump’s presidential candidacy while attacking Clinton’s, with Russian intelligence hacking and releasing damaging material from the Clinton campaign and Democratic Party organizations, while citing multiple linkages between the Russian government and the Trump campaign. The Special Counsel declined to exonerate President Trump – on the technicality that the Special Counsel “accepted” the Department of Justice policy that a sitting President cannot be indicted - and instead detailed multiple episodes in which he engaged in obstructive conduct. In the end, the investigation produced 37 indictments, with seven guilty pleas or convictions. And in a BTW that is more than just an aside, upon Mr. Mueller’s death on March 20, Mr. Trump wrote on his social media feed the next day, “Good, I’m glad he’s dead.”

But more snow has fallen overnight that we are told not to believe. When the January 6 Capitol Attack Insurrection is said to be tourism; when U. S. citizens Renee Goode and Alex Pretti exercising their constitutional rights of peaceful protest are murdered on camera in front of our eyes by the State and are then the ones investigated for domestic terrorism rather than their federally empowered murderers; when proven life-saving enhancing vaccines in defense against measles, mumps, rubella, poliomyelitis, diphtheria, meningitis, yellow fever, and COVID-19, are discarded as official national health policy in favor of what(?) bleach and wishful thinking; when American elections, historically global models of integrity for modeling and emulation, are instead called out by Republicans as “rigged, “stolen,” and “fraudulent” despite multiple investigations and court rulings finding no such evidence (and when in fact it is becoming increasingly evident that real fraud and corruption is being set up by these same naysayers to secure their success in the upcoming mid-term election in November); when the costs of tariffs are ultimately borne by consumers, not foreign exporting countries as the administration would have you believe; when nearly every economic measure cited by Trump and his administration – new foreign investment, consumer, gasoline, and prescription drug prices, inflation, jobs and unemployment, the federal budget deficit – are overstated, some wildly so, or entirely fictional; when Elon Musk, who has a history on this point, gestures a Sieg Heil Nazi salute and we are told it is actually over-exuberance; when Trump moves the course of Hurricane Dorian with a Sharpie pen to where it was never going; when the sparce crowds of Trump’s 2017 inauguration, contradicted by photographic evidence shown right in front of our very eyes as such, is said to be the largest in history; when “grabbing by the pussy” womanizing, including one instance, at least, proven by civil court judgment, is just locker room “boys being boys” talk; when a former president born in Hawaii - last I checked part of the United States of America - who identifies as a Protestant Christian, is actually a monkey (according to Mr. Trump’s social media platform meme) and a Muslim from Indonesia (where he did live for four years growing up ages 6-10, years 1967-71); when Anthropocentric global warming-induced climate change - occurring in real time, within a generation, not geologic as is historically manifested, witnessed firsthand by us, causing: weirder, more unpredictable weather; rising daily temperatures; rising sea levels: increasingly severe storms: larger storm surges; deadlier floods; firestorms so severe that they create their own weather conditions; worsening drought conditions; higher ocean salinization; disrupted ocean currents and atmospheric jet streams; advancing species extinction; higher human mortality; and costlier economic damage - is just nothing but a hoax; when objective facts of empiricism, law, science, and economy become “alternative” to what is in front of our very eyes, there is no snow.

How have we let it come to this, a situation where the snow I see on the ground - what? - dumped there by the ghost of Bing Crosby‘s White Christmas or, better yet from the standpoint of our would be cultural arbiters and the new truth police, is not really there at all?

For many, especially in the scientific community, the historic importance of the mission was not lost. For many, the display of scientific precision and excellence was celebrated. For many, the wonder, the real meaning of true shock and awe, was more than understood but felt. And yes, to their infinite credit, the major broadcast networks, ABC, CBS, and NBC, again had interrupted programming to draw attention to history. But for many, from my perspective, most, the event, no less its significance, was not just not appreciated or understood, but lost, even ignored. Clearly, our fixation on our devices, social media tribalism, and our incessant self-interest, are to blame. So too, is our physical world, where our urban environment and its consequent and increasing light pollution has separated us from the heavens, from the cosmos, and from self-reflection and insight itself. Reality is just not that important anymore. The social affirmation of the virtual supersedes.

Forget the easy dismissiveness of ramblings of an older generation whose time has passed, the fact is that when NASA was achieving decades of miracles in the 1960s and 70s through the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs, the entire world watched, hopeful, anxious, awed, and captivated. It seemed as though civilization paused in breath, as one, to watch as men first launched into space, orbited the planet, defied physics with docking and space walks, went to the moon, and then, by God, landed on it!

Even with today’s undisputed success, many question if not the specifics of the mission, but the utility for continuing further along the path of human space flight. For every homage offered to the Artemis mission, multiple others detract from achievement to question costs, budgets, utilities, offering righteous and pious comparisons “better spent” on our earthly troubles of poverty, scarcity, and division. Never mind that the estimated cost to establish a lunar base is $35 billion while the ongoing, unprovoked, unsanctioned Trump war in Iran cost estimates as of today alone currently run from $35-$50 billion! In the critics’ same vein, they question not just the utility of lunar colonies, voyages to Mars and beyond, and humankind’s future in space, but claim the advantages gained from the Apollo missions and its predecessors were overblown.

First, not only is this untrue on its face but it misses incalculable, unquantifiable earnings to society and civilization. In launching the United State’s mission to the moon at Rice University on September 12, 1962, President John F. Kennedy said, and I quote, “We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”

Because it is hard! Because it pushes us out of complacency to challenge not just ourselves, not just to meet difficult goals for capital, pecuniary, or utilitarian gain, but to do the impossible! Developing and launching the James Webb Space Telescope required overcoming 344 single-point failures! More than any other mission in history. A single point of failure is a part of a system that would stop the entire system from working if it were to fail. Yet, not only did we preserver, we succeeded. For by succeeding we transcend ourselves, we transcend the human condition. We reach for God, to use a religious allusion, we reach for a quintessential, universal meaning of human existence, we reach into the very soul of the human condition, we reach for immortality.

The NASA space missions, pre- and post-lunar, including probes to every planet, to the surface of Mars, beyond the Solar System, and into interstellar space have given us tools. Their innovations have led to breakthroughs in medicine, health, transportation, communication, defense, and technology, to include solar energy, water purification, and environmental protection. In a world where international cooperation and alliances are breaking down in real time (thanks to this Trump administration we, collectively as Americans, voted for), space programs had fostered international, global collaboration, partnerships, and industry to achieve shared success, including the International Space Station, Earth weather and atmospheric analysis, Mars exploration, the Hubble Space Telescope, and Artemis itself.

But the greatest advantage of all is aspirational and therefrom, inspirational. Apollo and its precursors inspired generations, before, of, and after, in the promise of daring to succeed, “to boldly go,” “to slip the surly bonds of Earth and dance the skies on laughter-silvered wings (High Flight, John Gallespie Magee (1941)). To dare. To dream. To dare to dream! That is it!

To what do we dream of today? What is inspirational? Who inspires us? The world, through our own actions and choices, is becoming meaner, coarser, vulgarer, led by charlatans, fools, cons, and sycophants. We have always been flawed. That is our greatness. But we have allowed our weakness to define our character, rather than serve as inspiration from which to overcome. But overcome, we must!

That is why Artemis matters. Humanity matters. Life matters. Striving matters, just in and of itself. Dreams matter.

First, those which sound like positive traits but which we will shortly see are anything but. Donald Trump is the most consequential president of the century and certainly among the most within all American history. Donald Trump is not stupid. While, within his own rendition, neither “stable” nor “genius,” he is exceptionally cunning, canny, and wily, and with an unparalleled facility for reading, exploiting, and manipulating the public mood. He appears to be in good, physical shape for a man approaching 80. Related, the man is not lazy, per se, evinced by a regimen of physically adept golf, punishing executive, public appearances, and social media logging schedules.

Now, in context. Yes, Donald Trump is undeniably consequential. Consequential, however, does not necessarily mean good. Consequential means “of consequence,” “of importance,” “of significance.” Disasters are consequential. The great bulk of Donald Trump’s actions and orders are disasters of consequential and epic proportions. But even taking the truth of this statement at face value doesn’t give enough credit, albeit negative, to the man. A Dachshund in office signaling decisions by the wags of its tail would make similarly consequential decisions. Perhaps, if viewed by the statistics of a 50/50 coin toss representing a wag to either side, public policy might even be better off with a Dachshund in office than the near universal horror of Donald Trump’s ego-infused, insecurity-raving, attention-seeking, revenge-fueled, and blatant lie-driven production destruction.

No, Donald Trump is not stupid. But he is an idiot. He possesses none of the attributes for measured intelligence, most notably possessing an ignorant person’s lack of curiosity and disinterest in facts, research, reading, and the wisdom earned by listening, in general, and in particular, to the temperance offered by competing and alternate viewpoints. In fact, Mr. Trump relishes in his ignorance and isolated judgement, telling The New York Times in January that the only limits on his powers are “my own morality[;] my own mind.” Who needs study, research, and advisors when one can act and execute only by “shooting from the hip?” (We will see shortly below that there is not from where he is actually shooting from, but close. . .)

No, Donald Trump would not know a theory of Realist international relations from those Liberal or Constructive or from a door post, for that matter; nationalism from isolationism; autarky from a wild turkey; autocracy from automobile. This is not because he is stupid, but because he is intellectually lazy; not lazy in active self-promotion and preservation, but lazy in discipline, study, reflection, humility, self-control, and wisdom. He simply has no interest in anything beyond his own interests and after a lifetime of self-delusion, enabled by iterations of sycophants and cowards, he has lost all facility for constructive self-awareness necessary for studied, stable, and effective statecraft. He is a permanently regressed, seven-year-old, school yard bully with “daddy didn’t love me” issues of massive insecurity.

His vanity is merely a manifestation of the same. While appearing to retain certain vital, physical attributes into his advanced years, if somewhat of a corpulent bearing, his questionable cognitive abilities and acumen have always been on display in his public speech. Rambling, undisciplined, and often incoherent, the shame is on us in allowing him to excuse such laziness as a self-described style of “The Weave.” No, this is not a style; this is a fifth-grader’s grasp of language and a dullard’s fallback to speaking out of turn without thought, knowledge, or self-reflection. Shame on him for not even having the self-awareness to see how this should embarrass him; shame on us for not just letting him get away with it, but excusing and rewarding it. We are a coarser, meaner, and uglier body politic and culture for it. No, Donald Trump’s vanity does not protect or promote him, for the emperor has no clothes and he nor we should not wish to be seeing him so starkly visible.

To understand who Donald Trump is, we must understand who he is NOT. Contrary to popular belief, he is NOT the one in charge. Think about it. He can’t be. He stands for nothing but his own ego and self-aggrandizement. If in an alternate universe where the Democrats were in charge and as ruthless as the Republicans are now, Mr. Trump would surely be a Democrat, remaining so as he once was when desperately seeking approval and relevance in his New York playboy developer salad days. No, Mr. Trump is not the one calling the real shots that matter.

I believe that Donald Trump was true to his word – sometimes Mr. Trump is glaringly and cringingly honest – during the campaign when he said he had “nothing to do” with Project 2025. Yet, from day one of his second term, this administration has followed a hard, strict, unwavering line on the full Project 2025 agenda: of government “efficiency” and “deconstruction [and] dismantling of the administrative state”; tax policy abolishing progressive, “marginal” rates; “minimizing interference with the operation of the free market and free enterprise;” ending immigration; ending alleged fraud in social welfare programs, abortion, alleged “woke culture,” and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives; and stopping Iran. In Donald Trump, they struck gold.

A pliant Trump, being enabled with an expanding unitary executive authority, is empowered in his role as Chief Executive lap dog to accomplish the wet dream goals of the hard right since Barry Goldwater, William F. Buckley, Jr., Grover Norquist, Newt Gingrich, and Ronald Reagan, namely, curtailed federal government, reduced taxation, eliminated regulation, and unfettered capital markets, leading and including up to monopoly power in the fewest, wealthiest corporations. The important point of all of this is that in a value system of conservative worship of unfettered, unregulated capital markets, pluralism, compromise, inclusion, constitutionalism, institutionalism, and, most disturbingly, democracy just are not that important, and certainly not as much as their tribal, exclusive, capitalistic, monopolistic values, and are thus wholly and unreservedly expendable for these advocates.

In short, these goals trump, pun intended, all other American values, including democracy, the Constitution, and the larger American institutional experiment of civic Republic governance. In Donald Trump, they found the perfect vehicle of easy manipulation to achieve generations-long ambitions. In this way, Trump has been the most consequential AND successful Republican, “conservative” president in the history of the extreme-right conservative movement. Fan his vainglory, stroke his ego, offer platitudinal flattery, and bribe him in corrupt excess, and there they have it. Instant conservative revolution.

However, as soon as Mr. Trump becomes a significant liability to the agenda, his benefactors will drop him like a hot potato, and then, the party. Mr. Trump knows this. This is why he said in January that he will be impeached if Republicans lose the midterms. Everyone including Mr. Trump knows without acknowledging that Mr. Trump has always been viewed with suspicion, at best, and derision, at most, from the days of the golden escalator descent to today. History will adjudge him a tragic figure, a 21^st-century King Lear or Macbeth, an ultimate victim of his abuses of and madness in power, loyalty tests, betrayals, deceit, overweening ambition, and failure to accept accountable responsibility for one’s actions. He is tolerated because his easy manipulation allowed revolutionary conservative results. When embarrassment overcomes advantage, his utility ceases.

The scholars, analysts, and statespersons I have alluded to have reputations governed by institutional norms to adhere to and thus, systemically, must temper judgment with reassurance and restraint. I, with no such allegiances, can be free of such circumspection and moderation and put things in their true and horrifying perspective. Beyond that which Mr. Trump is doing at the behest of his true benefactor masters, his “policies,” pronouncements, and decisions are incoherent, inconsistent, and incontinent being the determinant to take us to the beginning.

So, as I began this paper, how do we understand the real Donald Trump? Attributing to him a vision is not just giving him more credit than due, but giving where none should even bestow. His approach is what I will colorfully call policy flatulence, verbal diarrhea and hot air emanating from (perhaps too colorfully) his oral orifice, venting blasts on a whim without deliberation, on passion without consideration, and on impulse without discipline. Through this haze, he stains the Oval Office in more than gauche pretension and a peasant understanding of imperial wealth. He stains his own reputation, but worse, he defiles that of the nation he has sworn to protect.

First, those which sound like positive traits but which we will shortly see are anything but. Donald Trump is the most consequential president of the century, probably of a century, and certainly among the most within all American history. Donald Trump is not stupid. While, within his own rendition, neither “stable” nor “genius,” he is exceptionally cunning, canny, and wily, and with an unparalleled facility for reading, exploiting, and manipulating the public mood. Case in point being the carnival bestowal of national honors at the State of the Union 2026 as though reality television prizes. He appears to be in good physical shape for a man approaching 80, notwithstanding advertised bouts of artificial tanning, hair pieces, and plastic surgery. Related, the man is not lazy, per se, evinced by a regimen of physically adept golf, punishing executive, public appearances, and social media logging schedules.

Now, in context. Yes, Donald Trump is undeniably consequential. Consequential, however, does not necessarily mean good. Consequential means “of consequence,” “of importance,” “of significance.” Disasters are consequential. The great bulk of Donald Trump’s actions and orders are disasters of consequential and epic proportions. But even taking the truth of this statement at face value doesn’t give enough credit, albeit negative, to the man. A Dachshund in office signaling decisions by the wags of its tail would make similarly consequential decisions. Perhaps, if viewed by the statistics of a 50/50 coin toss representing a wag to either side, public policy might even be better off with a Dachshund in office than the near universal horror of Donald Trump’s ego-infused, insecurity-raving, attention-seeking, revenge-fueled, and blatant lie-driven production destruction.

Destruction is easy; we’ve done it since childhood, relishing in the washing away of our sand castles at the beach to kicking over a sibling’s toy fortress in the living room in a state of pique. Except that Mr. Trump is a grown man in his twilight years AND the president of the most powerful nation on the planet with the same impulses of a five-year-old. Witness Iran. Destruction is easy. Building a vision, a coalition for success, understanding interrelated and complex financial, trade, and market interactions is hard and takes patience, wisdom, forbearance, and maturity, attributes none of which Mr. Trump possesses.

No, Donald Trump is not stupid. But he is an idiot, an ignoramus. He possesses none of the attributes for measured intelligence, most notably possessing an ignorant person’s lack of curiosity and disinterest in facts, research, reading, and the wisdom earned by listening, in general, and in particular, to the temperance offered by competing and alternate viewpoints. In fact, Mr. Trump relishes in his ignorance and isolated judgement, telling The New York Times on Jan 7 that the only limits on his powers are “my own morality[;] my own mind.” Who needs study, research, and advisors when one can act and execute only by “shooting from the hip?” (We will see shortly below that there is not from where he is actually shooting from, but close.)

No, Donald Trump would not know a theory of Realist international relations from those Liberal or Constructive or from a door post, for that matter; nationalism from isolationism from patriotism; autarky from a wild turkey; autocracy from autonomy from automobile, for that matter, again. And no, “strategic ambiguity” is not a legitimate policy or strategy; it is fraud covering up a failure to think, develop, and work at constructing such. Again, this is not because he is stupid, but because he is intellectually lazy; not lazy in active self-promotion and preservation, but lazy in discipline, study, reflection, humility, self-control, and wisdom. He simply has no interest in anything beyond his own interests and after a lifetime of self-delusion, enabled by iterations of sycophants and cowards, he has lost all facility for constructive self-awareness necessary for studied, stable, and effective statecraft. He is a permanently regressed, seven-year-old, school yard bully with “daddy didn’t love me” issues of massive insecurity.

His vanity is merely a manifestation of the same. While appearing to retain certain vital, physical attributes into his advanced years, if somewhat of a corpulent bearing, his questionable cognitive abilities and acumen - never the sharpest tool in the shed (again, not stupid, and even exceptional in a carnival barker’s instinct for the public con) – have always been on display in his public speech. Rambling, undisciplined, and often incoherent, the shame is on us in allowing him to excuse such laziness as a self-described style of “The Weave.” No, this is not a style; this is a fifth-grader’s grasp of language and a dullard’s fallback to speaking out of turn without thought, knowledge, or self-reflection. What statespersons communicate in ALL CAPS? None. Charlatans and fools do. If you think that you have to shout to have your point understood, then you either have no valid point or a target otherwise uninterested in substance, in it for the show (discounting the carnivalesque of a cowed, fearful, or brainwashed audience). Shame on him for not even having the self-awareness to see how this should embarrass him; shame on us for not just letting him get away with it, but excusing and rewarding it. We are a coarser, meaner, and uglier body politic and culture for it. No, Donald Trump’s vanity does not protect or promote him, for the emperor has no clothes, and he nor we should not wish to be seeing him so starkly visible.

The iteration of transgression is too long to duplicate here and should boggle the national consciousness that it has gone on this long. A partial list: From birtherism to depicting President Obama and the former First Lady (and by extension all black persons) as apes; to the “deconstruction” of the administrative state; the evisceration of federal service and diplomacy; the destruction of USAID and development aid; inciting and pardoning insurrection; the ruination of the post-WWII Liberal World Order which brought unequivocal peace and prosperity throughout the world; gross executive corruption; the elimination of union collective bargaining and the emasculation of federal unions (the last remaining bastions of national labor unionism); the loss of important momentum on inclusion and diversity, the greatest advancement of civil rights and justice since the Great Society programs; the gutting of Medicaid and affordable health insurance subsidies for the middle class; the impotency of Article I Congressional authority; the weaponization and infringement on the independence of the Department of Justice; posse comitatus violations in the Caribbean; flagrant unauthorized declarations and acts of war against sovereign nations; blurring tactical rules of military engagement risking civilians as legitimate targets; cavalier threats of gross commissions of war crimes through “civilizational erasure;” unleashing AI unbound into national defense and war planning while hastening unchecked market and economic penetration; deregulating carbon emissions as a contributing greenhouse gas, and withdrawing the United States from and ending funding to international organizations, conventions, and treaties making up the international, scientific climate change consensus; defenestrating independent auditing, analytical bodies such as Inspectors General and agencies SEC, FTC, FCC, NLRB, FERC, EEOC, and the Federal Reserve; debilitating funding for scientific research analysis at NIH, NSF, NWS, NOAA, NASA, NIST, CDC, EPA, FEMA, and FDA, to name a few; executive power intimidation of legal and media private sector entities; threatened free speech, First Amendment protections, and state-sanctioned murder of protesting American citizens; prosecuting an immigration policy based on fear, wedge, and division rather than economic and public safety realities, leading to possible concentration camp incarceration conditions here on American soil; tariff impositions based on pique, retribution, and ignorance over law, history, alliance, and probity; causing petrol pricing to spike; raising inflation; erratic bluster shaking global stock markets, risking global recession; tearing asunder international relationships with allies and partners; shredding international alliances on trade, health, environment, and defense, including the weakening and possible defeat of NATO, the cross-Atlantic alliance most responsible for preventing the emergence of the next World War; the resurgence in curable disease incidence due to anti-vaccine/anti-science conspiracy wedge distractions; decimating public broadcasting; tearing down and into the White House without review or oversight; the decrement of civil governance, universal electoral enfranchisement, democracy, and constitutional institutionalism; and to the inexorable, real-time slide into national fascist authoritarianism. We are way past impeachment and conviction; way past invocation of the 25^th Amendment. But a spineless, cowed, coopted, and degenerated majority party makes these currently impossible; while the opposition party is lost in a paralyzed wilderness of befuddlement, self-immolation, and perceived powerlessness.

Indulge me in the example of the destruction of USAID upon its one-year anniversary. The elimination of USAID is estimated to “cost more than 14 million additional deaths by 2030, including 4·5 million deaths among children younger than 5 years,” according to a study published in June 2025 in the peer-reviewed medical journal, The Lancet. Saying the same thing from the opposite angle, the same report claims “USAID-supported efforts have helped to prevent more than 91 million deaths across all age groups, including 30 million deaths among children” from 2001-2021. Yet almost every critique of the administration’s reorganizations, reforms, terminations, orders, and regulations, including this terminating destruction of USAID, takes pains to state that all said agencies, programs, and offices exhibited possible, potential, and real waste, fraud, and abuse, and all stood in need of significant reform and rehabilitation. Well, yeah, and so doth the sun rise. I brush my teeth twice a day and have done so for the myriad six-plus decades of my life. Indubitably, I could be doing a better job, with a different method, technique, or tool. But that doesn’t mean that I’m going to knock out all my teeth to spite my face. But that is what is going on in much of the federal overhaul, national civil governance, and international world and trade order occurring as you read this.

Enough! Every system, organization, scheme, or plan of mice and men, women, and personhood can withstand improvement. It goes without saying and we need to stop saying so, because doing so becomes nothing more than sheer appeasement, abasement, and self-abnegation under color of offering aid and comfort to the opposition. Sure, Iran under the Ayatollah Khamanei regime was vile and repugnant. This cannot excuse the unconstitutional failure to seek Congressional authorization to declare war nor to seek alliance partnerships, and certainly cannot justify indiscriminate civilian infrastructure targeting knowingly to cause misery, poverty, and death to innocents, including children. This surely excuses Russia in Ukraine, China in Taiwan, and others more powerful than their adversaries to pursue wars of choice on self-interest and power alone, outside of international legal comity. This is not mere Realpolitik, but the exercise of Nietzschean power for power’s sake leading to world anarchy without rules, and risking personal and social nihilism. There are better ways to fix systems and programs, like USAID, and to terminate the broken, unsalvageable, or, again, just, plain something-has-to-give-and-it’s-gonna’-be-these (of which category USAID did NOT fall within). There are better ways to promote regional stability than uniliteral, personalized whims. They take honesty. They take integrity. They take courage and conviction, and the combination of the two. Much of what this Trump administration rails against such as development assistance, climate change, democracy, civil rights, constitutional legitimacy, and international cooperation are at risk of not just becoming quaint, but obsolete as policy. But ignoring a reality, a scientific fact, a gravity of nature because it is inconvenient or inapposite to an ideology does not change the reality or the physics, make the issue disappear, or ameliorate its effects and risks, whether we believe in them or not. It is quickly becoming too late for corrective action if we do not act NOW.

To understand who Donald Trump is, we must understand who he is NOT. Contrary to popular belief, he is NOT the one in charge. Think about it. He can’t be. He stands for nothing but his own ego and self-aggrandizement, with some lunacy thrown in for good measure. The man has no moral compass, no ethical compunctions or empathy whatsoever, the living, breathing example of a sociopathology. If in an alternate universe where the Democrats were in charge and as ruthless as the Republicans are in the here and now (say, like the ruthless and vile ambitions portrayed in the Netflix series House of Cards), Mr. Trump would surely be a Democrat, remaining so as he once was when desperately seeking approval and relevance in his New York playboy developer salad days (whence, mostly during that times, his business ventures filed for bankruptcy six times, 1991-2014 [so much for the canard as the “businessman president”]). No, Mr. Trump is not the one really calling the shots, the real shots that matter, that is.

I believe that Donald Trump was true to his word – sometimes Mr. Trump is glaringly and cringingly honest – during the campaign when he said he had “nothing to do” with Project 2025, confessing ignorance of it during a debate with VP Kamala Harris on September 10, 2024. I believe him because, as stated above about his true ignorance of policy matters and theory, he probably did not truly understand it nor be able to articulate any of which he might have (notwithstanding him writing on his Truth Social platform in July 2024 that some parts are “absolutely ridiculous and abysmal”). Yet, from day one of his second term, including his Executive Orders, this administration has followed a hard, strict, unwavering line on the full Project 2025 (page references listed when not too numerous to cite) agenda: of government “efficiency” and “deconstruction [and] dismantling of the administrative state” (p. xiv, 3, 6-9, 21, 50); tax policy abolishing progressive, “marginal” rates (pp. 660, 695) and “minimizing interference with the operation of the free market and free enterprise” (p. 696); on immigration; ending alleged fraud in social welfare programs, abortion, alleged “woke culture” (4, 8-10, 14-19, 38, 43, 48, 60, 62, 156, 204, 263, 284-85, 320, 462, 587, 692 [demonstrating that these folks are apparently really threatened by “wokeism,” whatever the Hell that is, viewed by this crowd as one of the greatest threats to American national interests beyond war and economy]), and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives (pp. 4, 258); and stopping Iran (particularly at pp. 3-4, 93-94, 123, 125, 180-81, 184-85, 267, 274, 372, and 556, with multiple references interspersed throughout from pp. 3 to 852).

Project 25’s authors include, among many others, the Heritage Foundation think tank, Lindsey Burke, David Burton, Ken Cucinelli, Paul Dans, and many prominent figures in the Trump administration such as Russell Vought (Director OMB), Peter Navarro (Trade Advisor), Paul Atkins (Chair SEC), Brendan Carr (Chair FCC), John Ratcliffe (Director CIA), Tom Homan (“Border Czar”), Monica Crowley (Chief of Protocol DOS), Michael Anton (former Director Policy and Planning DOS), and Stephen Miller (Deputy Chief of Staff and “architect” of administration immigration policy [Mr. Miller denies affiliation with Project 2025 though his America First Legal organization was originally so listed]. Beyond these and perhaps higher on the pecking order are of course the companies of the new robber barons of today’s technology, communication, AI, petrochemical, mining, industrial, banking, and retail sectors, such as Tesla/SpaceX/xAI, Oracle, Google/Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Fox, Walmart, and Koch, to name a few. No spoiler alert here; these are the folks pulling the strings. In a way, throughout history, they and their ilk always were. But in Donald Trump, they struck gold.

A pliant Trump, being enabled with an expanding unitary executive authority, is empowered in his role as Chief Executive lap dog to accomplish the wet dream goals of the hard right since Barry Goldwater, William F. Buckley, Jr., Grover Norquist, Newt Gingrich, and Ronald Reagan, namely, curtailed federal government, reduced taxation - specifically the marginal, progressive (benefiting the wealthy, with no concern over the truly regressive tax streams of sales, tolls, and fee encumbering disproportionally the poorer and middle classes), eliminated regulation, and unfettered capital markets, leading and including up to monopoly power in the fewest, wealthiest corporations. The important point of all of this is that in a value system of conservative worship of unfettered, unregulated capital markets, pluralism, compromise, inclusion, constitutionalism, institutionalism, and, most disturbingly, democracy just are not that important, and certainly not as much as their tribal, exclusive, capitalistic, monopolistic values, and are thus wholly and unreservedly expendable for these advocates.

In short, these goals trump, pun intended, all other American values, including democracy, the Constitution, and the larger American institutional experiment of civic Republic governance. That has always been the hard right’s and the newer Project 2025’s goals, not those of larger American, democratic, civil national interests, or the economic interests of the majority of American citizens, particularly minorities writ large (race, gender, ethnicity). In Donald Trump, they found the perfect vehicle of easy manipulation to achieve generations-long ambitions. In this way, Trump has been the most consequential AND successful Republican, “conservative” president in the history of the extreme-right conservative movement and Republican party. Fan his vainglory, stroke his ego, offer platitudinal flattery, and bribe him in corrupt excess, and there they have it. Instant conservative revolution (if not the “Instant Karma” of immediate consequence conceptualized by John Lennon).

But karma, like gravity, is a bitch. As soon as Mr. Trump becomes a significant liability to the agenda, his benefactors will drop him like a hot potato, and then thereafter, the party. Mr. Trump knows this. Everyone including Mr. Trump knows without acknowledging that Mr. Trump has always been viewed with suspicion, at best, and derision and scorn, at most, from the days of the golden escalator descent to today. History will adjudge him a tragic figure, a 21^st-century King Lear or Macbeth, an ultimate victim of his abuses of and madness in power, loyalty tests, betrayals, deceit, overweening ambition, and failure to accept accountable responsibility for one’s actions. President Biden’s aging lapses hold no candle to the undisguised, public bouts of ennui and ranting, raving, madness Mr. Trump is increasingly exhibiting, without apology, restraint, without censure from his party, and often with its encouragement. This is not mere rhetoric. Mr. Trump occupies a position of unrivaled global influence. As the “leader of the free world,” his words hold significance (though as I argue herein, they should not, when viewed objectively). Without reflection or discipline, Mr. Trump’s irresponsibility staggers global institutions, markets, and alliances, while reflecting incalculable loss to American influence, credibility, power, and security itself.

Mr. Trump’s greatest fear has been of being found out as the fraud and charlatan he always has been and his greatest motivation has been to hide and distract from that truth. His attempt to distract by accusing political foes such as Sen. Adam Schiff, Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, and NY Attorney General Letitia James of mortgage fraud is particularly loathsome. It is no small observation that hypocrisy falls at Dante’s eighth (of nine) circle of Hell. He is tolerated because his easy manipulation allowed revolutionary conservative results. When his embarrassments become a significant liability to this agenda, his utility ceases.

That’s where we, the American people, come in. It is way past time to take our country back from the brink. Vote like your life and way of life, and that of your children’s children, depend upon it, because they do. Either the United States endures as a shining symbol of democracy, progress, prosperity for all, and the continuance of the arc of justice to bend upward, or we fall into irreparable civil division, intertribal distrust and conflict, rule by a rich oligarchic kleptocracy, and authoritarian fascism. We are on the cusp; our institutions can only bear so much strain before collapse. Don’t think it can’t happen “here.” History shows it can and does. The power is the people’s to protect. That is all the joy, wonder, and promise of American democracy, civil governance, and the American dream, all now at significant risk.

The scholars, analysts, and statespersons I have alluded to within have reputations governed by institutional norms to adhere to of which they belong and thus, systemically, must temper judgment with reassurance and restraint. I, with no such allegiance but to myself, family, community, and in patriotism for this great nation of the United States of America, can be free of such circumspection and moderation and put things in what I see as their true and horrifying perspective. Beyond that which Mr. Trump is doing at the behest of his true benefactors, and thus masters, his “policies,” pronouncements, and decisions are incoherent, inconsistent, and incontinent. The latter being the most determinant and taking us to where we began.

So, as I began this paper, how do we understand the real Donald Trump? Attributing to him a vision is not just giving him credit, but giving where none should bestow. His approach is what I will colorfully call policy flatulence, verbal diarrhea and hot air emanating from (perhaps too colorfully) his oral orifice, venting blasts on a whim without deliberation, on passion without consideration, and on impulse without discipline. Why are we crediting stock in verbal diarrhea? This is on us. Through this haze, he stains the Oval Office in more than gauche pretension and a peasant understanding of imperial wealth. He stains his own reputation, but worse, he defiles that of the nation he has sworn to protect.

To follow the metaphor to its logical and literal “end.” The man is an a- -hole. If I could create a meme, it would be blue-suited, long, red-tied torso attached to an orange, faux-tanned, rear end-up “head,” topped by a flapping blonding grey toupée, with vapors emanating to indicate the presence and quality of the discourse.

I suspect that few Americans understood that in voting for Mr. Trump, they were voting for Project 2025, an oligarch’s heaven, a ruling kleptocracy, and the beginnings of American fascism. It is up to us to realize Mr. Trump’s greatest fear and offer him the payback and karma he deserves. But we must vote in numbers great enough to overcome the inevitable attempts at fraud, manipulation, and disinformation to interfere with the upcoming midterm election. Our victory has to be of a margin great enough to overcome any doubt, even when sowed by the coming election suppression attempts. They will come – access and registration restrictions, mail-in ballot limits, roll purges, ID impediments, unrepresentative gerrymandering, and shortened voting windows. But, as was said in earlier contexts against injustice, We Shall Overcome.

Certainly not for the bona fides of its creators, none less than the legendary composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyricist (and in this case librettist) Tim Rice. Equally legendary (if not racially diverse) were the original cast. What can you say about a Jesus played by Deep Purple’s Ian Gillan? I am struck more so, listening again more than 50 years later, how entirely relevant and prescient it was, is, and remains. So clearly a product of the complex times of the “Summer of Love,” hippie power, and anti-war protests, the universal message of faith, belief, and the human condition to need a savior and sacrifice endures with a surprisingly breathtaking freshness.

The lyrics are sing-along addictive while revealing profound truths of power, ambition, guilt, and longing. The music remains as memorable and fresh as if hearing anew the first time. And many of the songs, on a relisten, remain staples of musical heritage. For example, in I Don’t Know How to Love Him, Mary Magdalene, an apologetic representative of the world’s oldest profession, sings one of the greatest love songs ever penned. As one who claims some conceit to understanding and appreciating music, myself a frustrated composer, it is nevertheless rare for a song to invoke within me an emotional response verging on tear, yet listening to the song for the first time in 50 years, like the protagonist herself, I could not help feel that overwhelming tinge of emotion welling behind the eyes and spinning the mind towards a vertigo-induced passion of loss of control that drives all love, longing, hope, and loss. And many of the riffs and grooves are, well, groovy.

While neither producers Webber or Rice are Jewish, from my interpretation of the great faiths, Jesus Christ Superstar resonates with me as a quintessentially Jewish take on the tragedy of Jesus’s ascendance, betrayal, destruction, and eternal life, in meaning, after death. All parts, in turn, cynical and hopeful, ironic and earnest, tragic and comical, full of nuance and contradiction, the lack of bright lines, point to Talmudic interpretation versus evangelical demands to acceptance.

At the outset, the story focuses more on those Jesus influences than on the prophet himself. Jesus, central to the story all around, is here more a captive to events set in motion by actions out of control. “You’ve begun to matter more than the things you say.” Like flawed leaders everywhere, Pilate and Herrod renounce responsibility, casting themselves as victims to the demands of popular will. And Jesus, the man, himself? Yes. Exactly that. “Just a man.” Anguished, suffering, overburdened, and all before judgement and crucifixion, which ultimately come more as release than punishment. It is Judas, on the other hand, who suffers the knowledge of damnation eternal while still alive walking the Earth. The story focuses on the “life” and mortal death of the man, studiously avoiding resurrection and ascension. Of course, if there had been no resurrection, there could be no religion upon which disciples and apostles and deacons and bishops and popes and latter-day Caesars could minister, evangelize, and rule from. Were Jesus just to die, as any man and rebel, so too would the power from which an inexplicable mystery and “miracle” to found a religion to rule the world derives. And thus this human focus on life shouts through the chaos of religious confusion to paradoxically focus on the divinity – and its demanded responsibility or betrayal in its absence - of each of us as living, breathing people.

And the people, themselves? The crowd, the rabble, the confounding cumulation of humanity’s dreams, faults, inconsistencies, and unrealizable expectations? Therein lies the production’s genius. Not just a story set in biblical Judea over two-thousand years removed. As the voice of Judas intones, “Why’d you choose such a backward time and such a strange land?” Not just 1970! So prescient, before the Internet, ubiquitous phones, social media, AI algorithms. Can you imagine today if a religion of such power, potential, promise, peril, bloodlust, and corruption were to erupt? Oh, how the fickle crowd pushes and pulls, prevaricates, demands, hates, and, no, not loves, but idolizes – no more terrifying a fate can befall a mortal – and betrays in the cruelest of ways only an unhinged, unmoored mass can. We may yet destroy ourselves. At least a pre-mass communication age bought us two-thousand years. Today? The wave is coming, a tsunami of epic, “biblical” proportions to sweep all and everything away. Or not. It’s up to you.

For those who haven’t in a while, and for those who haven’t at all, I suggest a relisten or first listen to Jesus Christ Superstar. Whether Jesus Christ lives or not is open to interpretation if not fact. The music and message here is not.

It is also the day when the Supreme Court will hear arguments to overturn birthright citizenship, against the direct language written into the 14^th Amendment to the Constitution itself; against prior Supreme Court precedent repudiating the egregious racism of the Dred Scott decision of 1857, the affirmation of its validation in Wong Kim Ark of 1898, and jurisprudence since; against Common Law history; and against the very written past arguments of conservative administration apologists whose today’s revisionist arguments were inevident back when they had the transparent chance when originally published contrary to their today’s obsequious administrative deference. With today’s unrepresentative and majority uncredible Supreme Court, who knows? Perhaps the quixotic dreams of the nationalist, pro-Caucasian “defenders” of white racist rule will be realized to turn “abolition” on its head by abolishing the natural right of birthright citizenship, a foundation of an egalitarian American Republic, in favor of the demonization and domination of “the other,” the despised and unprivileged classes of “underserving” minorities.

It is also a Full Moon, the “Pink Moon,” appropriate to the blooming of the Cherry Blossoms raging throughout the nation’s capital (though that is not the etymology of the nomenclature, named instead after the spring bloom of the creeping phlox wildflower), emblematic of Spring’s ever hopeful renewal amidst even troubled times, like today.

It is also April Fool’s Day. Appropriate then that I launch my Substack platform, a venue to express (perhaps vent is more apropos) my disquisitions on matters of import, relevance, and even existential to the human condition. What is a disquisition? A discussion, an elaboration, a rumination, a consideration. A forum to express what to me would seem to be self-evident and necessary truths, but instead in a world where “alternative facts” shower inapposite “truths” so socially-evidently not universal, not shared, literally and metaphorically, and thus not universally understood. When I wake up and see snow on the ground, I know it snowed even if I did not witness it snowing. (Getting ahead of my disquisitions, the day is coming when such wonderful dawn surprises will become increasingly rare.) But today, we are told not to believe our eyes, senses, and inner childhood judgements of innocence in favor of a world we are told to believe in fantasy and exploited, fantastical longing, sure enough leading to authoritarian fascism promising eternal justice and salvation to the chosen, righteous, and deserving few. As I will write again, gravity is a bitch. Ignoring a reality, a scientific fact, a gravity of nature because it is inconvenient or inapposite to an ideology does not change the reality or the physics, make the issue disappear, or ameliorate its effects and risks, whether we believe in them or not. And in attempting to express, or better yet, persuade and convince, the seemingly unapparent, discouragingly misunderstood, and ununderstood realities of “truth, justice, and the American way” – the very definition of “super” powers “away above . . . over the rainbow” - what could be more hopeful, and thus inherently quixotic, than that?

Why me? Who the Hell am I? Such hubristic audacity! Such ego-driven drivel! On the contrary. I am you, I’d like to think. I am you, articulating what you feel but haven’t found the words or expression. I am childhood innocence, adolescent insecurity, teenage irresponsibility, youthful arrogance, midlife regret, aging wisdom, old age’s “rage against the dying of the light,” and above all, confused incoherence struggling for balance and meaning, a weed fighting to hold root against the wind, deaf, dumb, and blind, yet seeing and knowing in essence incarnate, that there are really, in fact, “truths we hold self-evident.” I am nobody. I am everybody. I Am You.

I am a recently retired Foreign Service Officer with the U.S. Department of State (having done so by having reached the mandatory requirement separation age and not for any other “incentive” or personnel action). I was privileged to serve nearly 23 years in the countries of Ecuador, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Indonesia, Fiji, Turkey, Niger, and Tunisia. Before, I held a stint at USDA in the Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS). I am a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (RPCV) (Solomon Islands/1988-91 - then-credentialed Barrister and Solicitor). I also was an attorney at law in previous practice (licenses in CO and WI and for the Chuuk State, Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), legislature). I possess graduate degrees of JD (U of WI Law School), MPA (Columbia School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA)), and MS Joint Campaign Planning and Strategy (Joint Advanced Warfighting School (JAWS) Joint Forces Staff College (JFSC) National Defense University (NDU)). A traveler by backpack and bicycle, I have visited well over 50 countries on six of seven continents. An American citizen and patriot, more than anything, these experiences have imbued me with unique senses of perspective and insight. Thus, otherwise unattached to any academic, institutional, or professional affiliation, I may best be able to directly say the obvious, the reality so few actually can say in publication. I will try to do that. It needs to be done. And now more than ever.