Pro-Choice, Pro-Democracy, Anti-Bullshit

My moment of zen today near Buena Vista, Colorado. Perfect day. Perfect hike.

Let's be clear: Trump's slush fund creates a loyal militia of insurrectionists who are ready to break the law on his behalf and who will be PAID for their loyalty with your taxpayer money. There are no words left to describe the corruption we are witnessing.

I think that J6rs underestimate the feelings that the rest of the country and the world have about them We saw it happening live. We recoiled and were horrified The convictions didn't change our feelings, but the pardons made us sick. The thought that they might get paid...No.

This is what I’ve been talking about - the IC assesses that Iran could have a fully reconstituted drone program in 6 months. They still have 60-70% of their missiles and launchers. This war accomplished little, and it taught Iran they can close the Strait anytime they want.

So. Much. This. Anyone who is still a Republican is utter scum. I said what I said.

The Trump phenomenon: why did half of America believe a liar? Many people keep asking the same question: how did Donald Trump come to power? Why did such massive support go to a man widely seen as uneducated, irresponsible, and narcissistically self-obsessed? Why did intelligence, competence, and experience suddenly carry so little political weight — and what does that say about democracy itself? • Populism always sells simple answers. Where experts talk about complexity, risks, and nuance, populists shout slogans. “Build the wall.” “Bring back greatness.” A slogan is always shorter than analysis — and therefore more effective for masses tired of thinking, or who never wanted to think deeply in the first place. • Emotion defeats argument. Trump, like every demagogue, spoke not to reason but to emotion. His rhetoric was built on anger, resentment, and fear. He created enemies, promised revenge, and avoided complicated explanations. Like many populists before him, he relied less on programs and more on outrage and emotionally charged narratives. • Simplicity becomes the language of the “common people.” Intellectuals almost always lose in mass politics. Complex language irritates people. Many feel uncomfortable when they do not understand something, but instead of admitting it, they blame the speaker. The person who speaks more simply is seen as “one of us.” • Confidence is mistaken for competence. Human nature has not changed. People still confuse decisiveness with wisdom and confidence with knowledge. Trump became a perfect example of the Dunning–Kruger effect: a man with limited understanding who presents himself as a genius. Yet this blind self-confidence is exactly what many voters perceive as strength. • Populists surround themselves with weaker people. Demagogues and authoritarian-minded leaders fear intelligent independent thinkers. That is why they often surround themselves with loyal but less competent figures. Trump’s first administration was partially restrained by institutional inertia and traditional Republicans. Later, many critics argued he increasingly preferred loyalists, conspiracy theorists, and ideological fanatics over experienced professionals. • History keeps repeating itself. A society searching for easy answers repeatedly opens the door to demagogues. Instead of embracing the difficult reality of democracy — compromise, institutions, responsibility — people choose the illusion of simplicity. They want a “strong leader” who supposedly “knows how” and will finally “tell the truth,” even if that truth is largely fiction. • Knowledge itself becomes a disadvantage. One of the paradoxes of modern politics is that intellect often appears weak. Thoughtfulness creates doubt, and doubt annoys people. The one who analyzes seems uncertain. The one who promises certainty sounds convincing. For many voters, appearance matters more than reality. The lesson is simple and brutal: democracy without thoughtful voters is only a shell. As long as large parts of society continue believing in easy answers to complex problems, the Trump phenomenon — or something very similar to it — will keep returning in different countries and under different faces. And every time, it comes with the same promise: “I alone can fix it.” That is why democracy requires more than voting. It requires thinking. Without that, anyone with a slogan can become your master.

“Trump had trades in his personal stock portfolio on 7 of the 17 companies represented in his trip to Beijing. Most substantially, NVIDIA with whom he placed a multimillion dollar trade in February before their deal with META was announced. Trump’s stock portfolio alone is not just a conflict of interest, it is a crime in plain sight - and our chance to do something about it is slipping away. The war chest they are amassing, filled by both by the tech oligarchs and the corrupt Trump administration Cabinet members and allies, will be leveraged against freedom and democracy for decades.” open.substack.com/pub/noelcasler…

While everyone's watching Hormuz, the Epstein files are being buried. The law says release them. Trump is fighting it. Massie may lose his seat Tuesday for pushing it. And now a $1.7B slush fund for Jan 6 defendants? Don't go quiet. (link in reply)

Officer Brian Sicknick's family did not receive a single penny but trump is out here trying to make the people who murdered him millionaires.

The most accurate portrayal of the pro-Jim Crow, white nationalist Roberts Supreme Court I've seen yet.

Trump is robbing American taxpayers blind. And Republicans are letting him.

America went from Barack Obama to Donald Trump. From dignity, empathy, and competence. To grievance, cruelty, and chaos. It wasn’t an accident. It was backlash. Backlash to having a smart, principled, wildly popular Black president who proved this country could be better. And some people couldn’t stand it.

Can we all just admit that trump is being outplayed by every other leader across the globe and the United States has become a laughing stock as a result?

Trump is negotiating to settle his lawsuit against his own IRS, and one of the remedies being floated (along with almost 2 billion dollars) is the IRS dropping all audits of Trump, his family, and his businesses. Just absolutely staggering corruption.

Let me get this straight. Trump, the only president since Nixon not to release his tax returns, and who promised he would release his tax returns when he was president, is suing the government for $10 billion dollars in "damages" for leaked tax returns which reveal his corruption. And his DOJ, which is run by his personal lawyer who he appointed as "Acting AG," is going to settle. So the American people are now gong to personally pay a corrupt president $10 billion of our hard earned tax dollars, because his feelings got hurt when his shady tax returns were leaked? Got it. 👌

I guess it’s just an amazing coincidence that basically every decision related to politics helps Republicans, and every decision related to regulation helps fossil fuel polluters. nbcnews.com/politics/supre…

And this is why we need allies, MAGA nitwits. Sigh.

Trump has Frontotemporal Dementia with physical and mental symptoms like incompetence, impulsivity and delusions. It's criminal for him to play a role in the military or world economy. He lost the Iran war. He has no idea what he's doing. Gift article. nytimes.com/live/2026/05/0…

Global oil reserves are being released at record pace, all to keep oil around $100 a barrel. This isn’t sustainable, and the administration has no plan to reopen the Strait.

The MAGA crowd in Washington has decided that since Europeans don’t sufficiently appreciate Trump, the American bases on the continent must go. This is the strategic reasoning of a man who burns down his own kitchen. American bases in Europe were never a favour. They are the logistical spine of every war the United States fights east of Gibraltar. Ramstein moves the cargo, Aviano launches the jets, Rota services the ships. Without them the Pentagon does not project power into the Middle East. It projects PowerPoint. The fantasy assumes the alternative is aircraft carriers gliding majestically into the Persian Gulf. That era is ending. A modern carrier is a thirteen-billion-dollar trophy that can be reduced to scrap by a couple of hundred cheap missiles fired from the Iranian coast. China noticed. The other fantasy is that America simply fights from home. Picture the alternative: twenty thousand transatlantic sorties shuttling spare parts, munitions, fuel bladders, mechanics and replacement pilots from Norfolk and Dover to wherever the war happens to be. A C-17 burns through roughly 35,000 dollars of fuel every hour it flies, and the round trip from the American east coast to the Gulf is the better part of a day. Multiply that by every bolt, every missile, every spare engine. The war becomes a sustained airborne traffic jam with the bill arriving by the second. So you need land, specifically land near the war. Modern combat aircraft are not Spitfires you fuel up and send off with a wave. An F-35 demands an entire Walmart of spare parts, a small city of technicians, climate-controlled hangars and a supply chain stretching halfway round the planet. Drones need operators, networks, satellites and a steady diet of components no carrier can store. Modern war arrives by container ship and lives in a warehouse. Close the bases, and Washington loses the warehouses. Lose the warehouses, and the next confrontation with Iran is either fought by phone or fought from Kansas with a flight schedule that bankrupts the Treasury before the first missile lands. MAGA thinks shutting Ramstein punishes Europe. It punishes America. Europe will be inconvenienced. America will be unarmed. And so, after a thousand insults, a thousand sneers, a thousand late-night posts about freeloading allies, Europe is quietly drafting the politest letter in diplomatic history. It thanks America for its service. It wishes the troops a safe journey home. It suggests, with great warmth, that Washington might now turn its attention to its neighbours in Latin America, where a fading superpower can busy itself with whatever a fading superpower busies itself with. Spain had its century. Britain had its empire. The Soviets had their parades. Each ended the same way: as a shadow of itself, with the historians left to argue, volume after volume, about precisely when the rot set in and why nobody noticed in time. America is welcome to join them on the shelf.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ If you like what you read, please follow Gandalv on Substack: @gandalv" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">substack.com/@gandalv

Trump’s ballroom went from $200M to $300M to $400M, and now Congress wants $1B for a tacky gold ballroom. We aren’t being governed. We’re being fucking looted.