Returning to Democracy

Royalty was like dandelions. No matter how many heads you chopped off, the roots were still there underground, waiting to spring up again. It seemed to be a chronic disease. It was as if even the most intelligent person had this little blank spot in their heads where someone had written: “Kings. What a good idea.” Whoever had created humanity had left in a major design flaw. It was its tendency to bend at the knees. – Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay

The Countercoup

What people want the Democrats to do, of course, is stage a countercoup. But they are not a revolutionary party. And this has happened before. That was the Compromise of 1877 and we know how it went. It led to a generation, slightly more, of racist reaction and aggrandizement of the rich, which all ended up in the the Great Depression of the 1930s.

I believe that US history can be understood as a series of swings between aristocratic and democratic politics. We are now in a period of aristocratic reaction.

The Roberts Court Let Trump Off

The Roberts Court let Trump off, not Mueller, not Smith. I have gathered up Allison “Mueller, She Wrote” Gill’s remarks from the Meidas Touch podcast of October 26, 2025, so as to have a short summary to point to. Allison herself, and links to her podcasts, can be found on Bluesky.

Fascism Is Not Capitalist

[I find this short piece quite frustrating. I don't think it will persuade anyone, for I am arguing that the left has got something important wrong for nearly a century. And yet I think the arguments made here are important, if only a sketch of some longer argument.]

Fascism is not capitalist. Fascist nationalism opposes international trade and immigrant labor. This is a drag on a national economy; economies grow through trade. Look around you! We have the tariffs, we have the businesses going under because of Trump’s trade war, we have media companies losing millions because they’re trying to propagandize Trump, we have businesses losing money as they implement racist policies, we have the wholesale destruction of the US scientific establishment, the engine of future economic development. It’s losing money. It’s destroying capital.

Gaza: They Make a Desolation and They Call It Peace

So Trump gets to play the peacemaker, Netanyahu gets off, the surviving leaders of Hamas get off, the Trump family makes a bunch of money, Gaza is down to the ground, and there are 67,000 Palestinians dead. Of those deaths, 13,600 deaths and 57,900 injuries occurred after Trump supported Netanyahu in breaking Biden’s ceasefire, put in place at the end of his administration.

Brief Notes On Non-Violent Movements

If you advocate violence, you are not nonviolent, even if you don't personally use the gun or the knife. Supporters of the IRA, supporters of Hamas, supporters of Benjamin Netanyahu, Turning Point USA, none of them are nonviolent and none of them can claim the mantle of non-violence.

When Martin Luther King Jr's Southern Christian Leadership Conference decided to undertake nonviolent civil disobedience, they eschewed even violence in self-defense. They knew that any acts of self-defense would be spun as offensive violence.

Self-defense itself can become an excuse for offensive violence. Some of the most violent movements claim to be defending themselves: Nazis claim to be defending themselves against Jews, US white nationalists claim to be defending themselves against black people, and so on.

In Praise of Progressive Courage

Would people please stop calling progressives cowards? It's the progressives who've been trying to lead this charge for 2½ decades, in the face of constantly being told they were alarmists and not to worry. With each new surrender we were told that surely now the abuses would stop. And with each new surrender, the enemies of the Constitution and freedom and the Republic gained more ground. And yes, we're tired. In 2½ decades, the young of us have become middle-aged and the middle aged have become old. But we're still fighting and we were out there fighting when so-called "cooler heads" were surrendering in advance. 

We wonder at the compliance of our institutional leadership but they are only following the standard the "moderate" political leadership has been setting for 2½ decades. It is time for different leadership, and where else could it come from but progressives?