Moretrav

These quick thoughts by Michael Jochum on the disturbing reason Trump gets as much support as he does is a must-read 👇 I used to wonder how it was possible that Trump could have won in 2016, and then again in 2024, given how emotionally toxic and depraved he is. I don’t wonder anymore. I think he won for that exact reason. Because he carried at least one broken shard to reflect the broken shards in millions of others. If you’re a racist, you found your guy. If you’re a misogynist, you found your guy. If money is your only religion, you found your guy. If your heart is armored shut, you found your guy. If you mock the disabled, you found your guy. If intelligence makes you insecure, you found your guy. If you’re a sexual predator, you found your guy. If you trade in humiliation and conspiracy and filth, you found your guy. If you’ve never done a single hour of emotional inventory, you found your guy. If you cheat, stiff contractors, bankrupt your obligations, and call it savvy, you found your guy. If you lie as easily as you breathe, you found your guy. If cruelty feels like strength, you found your guy. If white grievance is your comfort food, you found your guy. If your ego is a black hole no title can fill, you found your guy. If warmongering fuels your ego, you found your guy, If empathy feels like weakness and dominance feels like oxygen, you found your guy. If he’d only carried one or two of these pathologies, he might have been dismissed as just another loud, damaged man. But he carried a buffet of them. That was the appeal. Millions could locate themselves somewhere in the wreckage. They didn’t have to agree with all of it. They just had to recognize a piece of themselves in it. It was never really about him. It was about the validation. The absolution. The permission. He didn’t invent the resentment; he amplified it. He didn’t create the cruelty; he normalized it. He gave millions the intoxicating relief of hearing their ugliest impulses echoed back at rally volume. Trump is a symptom. The deeper illness is collective. If there’s one sentence that defines his power, it’s this: “He says the things I’m thinking.” And that’s the part that should chill us. Because what does it say about us that so many were thinking those things? That tens of millions of Americans harbored resentments so deep, so seething, that they were simply waiting for a demagogue to baptize them as virtue? That after decades of supposed progress on race, gender, and equality, so many white men felt so threatened, so displaced, so furious, that cruelty became a political platform? Maybe we were living in a fool’s paradise, mistaking silence for healing, politeness for progress. Now the mask is off. Now we know. And knowing is a far more dangerous place to stand. – Michael Jochum, Not Just a Drummer: Reflections on Art, Politics, Dogs, and the Human Condition.

You need to understand that when Musk becomes the first trillionaire, that is tied intimately to the US national debt rising to 39 trillion dollars.

It’s really something how billionaires have rigged the rules to let them vacuum up all of society’s wealth & then fund think tanks and buy media properties that blame poverty and homelessness and despair on literally everything other than billionaires vacuuming up all the wealth

The real welfare queen in America is Jeff Bezos, worth $279 billion, who pays wages so low his workers rely on food stamps and Medicaid while he sailed on his $500 million yacht to his $55 million wedding to give his wife a $5 million ring because his tax rate is less than 1%.

Russia just attacked Ukraine with the same missiles that carry nuclear warheads. Russia is a terrorist state

Missing your son’s wedding to attend a staged assassination attempt is crazy work.

Never before in history have billionaires existed at this scale. Billionaires hoard wealth that could solve hunger, housing, and healthcare crises; their existence is not a sign of success but of selfishness and systemic failure.

You don't want to have too many assassination attempts or people might become desensitized to them like mass shootings.

Shocking footage of the destruction in Kyiv following Russian attacks last night. Russia has once again targeted only civilian objectives. Russia is a cancer.

July 26, 2020. A beach near Collingwood, Ontario. Sixteen-year-old Jamey Ruth Klassen was supposed to be enjoying a quiet family vacation beside the icy blue waters of Georgian Bay. Farther out on the lake, a man named Christopher Robertson had taken his kayak out alone for a peaceful paddle. Then the kayak filled with water and flipped. Suddenly, he was stranded in the freezing bay, clinging desperately to the overturned hull while shouting for help. Jamey didn’t hear him directly. What she heard instead were strangers nearby calling 911, panicking about a kayaker who had disappeared beneath the surface and wasn’t coming back up. Most teenagers would’ve stayed on shore. The water was brutally cold. The distance looked impossible. Lifeguards and paramedics were already being called. Waiting would’ve been understandable. Jamey never waited. She ran toward the water and dove in. Alone, she swam nearly 600 feet through Georgian Bay — the distance of two football fields — pushing herself farther and farther from shore toward the empty kayak floating in the distance. By the time she reached it, Christopher Robertson was gone. Then Jamey looked down. Through the clear Canadian water, she could see him lying motionless twelve feet below on the lake floor. She took one breath. And dove. The cold tightened around her body instantly as she reached the bottom. She grabbed Robertson beneath both arms and forced herself upward, dragging his unconscious body back toward the surface. He wasn’t breathing. His body hung limp in the water. Jamey refused to let go. She turned him onto his back, balanced his head against her shoulder, wrapped one arm across his chest, and began swimming him toward shore using only one arm and her legs. Every second became harder. Her muscles burned violently. Her lungs screamed. She had no formal lifeguard certification because the pandemic had canceled the courses she planned to take that summer. Still, she kept kicking. Then fear hit her. Jamey realized she might drown beside him before reaching shore. Exhausted and losing strength, she used the last thing she still had left: Her voice. She screamed for help. A nearby paddleboarder heard her cries and rushed across the water. Together, they lifted Robertson onto the board while Jamey, shivering and exhausted, swam the remaining distance alone. Onshore, police officers and paramedics immediately began CPR. Moments later, Christopher Robertson started breathing again. He survived. Nearly a year later, Jamey Ruth Klassen received the Carnegie Medal — North America’s highest civilian honor for heroism. Out of millions of people, only eighteen recipients were chosen that year. But Jamey barely spoke about herself afterward. Instead, she used the scholarship money from the award to attend nursing school at McMaster University, quietly continuing the same instinct that had driven her into the freezing water that day: If someone needs help, you go. No hesitation. No spotlight. No waiting for someone braver. Just a sixteen-year-old girl who saw a stranger drowning… and decided his life mattered more than her fear.

4 miles from Disneyland there is a possibility of a hazardous material explosion or leakage about to happen. They evacuated everybody from their homes in the surrounding area, but Disneyland is not closed because they are “monitoring the situation.“ So if that motherfucker blows, and all those chemicals reach the park in a matter of Minutes, what will they be monitoring then besides a mass casualty event If you don’t think corporations aren’t putting money over people, you’re not fucking paying attention

If you poured a gallon of poison in a CEO's pool, you'd be arrested, for attempted murder. They pour 10,000 gallons into your drinking water, that's just business.

Look, world. Please look. This is Kyiv today after another russian attаck

True story, I once had an infection on my foot that required hospitalization. The nurses who took care of me were all Nigerian immigrant women, and they were the sweetest souls I've ever met. Immigrants are not the problem with America, billionaires who don't pay taxes are.

The United States has no universal healthcare, but we DO have 49 private insurance billionaires.

Several Tu-95MS bombers have taken off from Olenya Air Base. Dozens of Shahed drones are already in our skies. Looks like russia is trying to force “peace” on us again tonight. Another night of terror ahead — watched by the world online, lived by us.

This is where we at y’all. Trump got his wish. For women to be punished. Married Fort Worth, Texas couple find out wife is miscarrying at 13 weeks. Sent home with Misoprostol. Wife takes two rounds of the drug. It doesn’t work. They go back to the same hospital. Turned away. Go to another hospital requesting a D&C so that sepsis doesn’t set in. The hospital said she wasn’t SICK enough for a D&C so they got a third round of Misoprostol and were sent home. At home wife passes out unconscious, blood and bodily fluid everywhere. She’s rushed to the hospital they say “Thank God you brought her in.” Fuck Republicans vote Blue! #DemsUnited #AbortionIsHealthCare

So, turns out racist, wealthy white men are a bigger existential threat to our democracy than immigrants, trans people, drag queens or empowered women ever were. Or ever will be.

A woman on my flight yesterday switched seats with her husband because their toddler wouldn’t stop crying. The second she sat down alone, she closed her eyes for maybe 30 seconds. Just resting. Not sleeping. When the husband walked past with the kid later, he laughed and said loudly, “Must be nice to finally get a break from doing nothing.” A few people chuckled. She laughed too. But something about it felt off because for the entire flight she had been: holding the baby, packing snacks, cleaning spills, walking him down the aisle, missing her own meal trying to calm him down… while the husband watched a movie with headphones on. And honestly I think that’s why so many women are exhausted. Not because they’re doing everything alone. But because they’re doing everything while someone else calls it “nothing.”

@tedcruz You wish I hadn’t pointed out that 95+% of my opponent’s funding came from the Israeli lobby, and millions of that came from a woman who has Israeli citizenship and served in the IDF? Sorry for your feels Ted.