Georgia Progressive Exchange

[Below] CONSTITUTION: "How did Americans come to worship the Constitution?"
From the article: "In his fascinating and powerful new book, The Constitutional Bind, Aziz Rana calls this faith in the Constitution's essential goodness 'creedal constitutionalism' and urges Americans to reject it, perhaps along with major parts of the Constitution itself. His book is much more than a progressive critique of Constitution worship: Rana presents a sweeping history of constitutional politics from the late 19th century to the present that reverses much of what Americans have learned to accept about the Constitution's meaning. He portrays creedalism as a relatively recent phenomenon, a product of the 20th century, and contends that putting the Constitution at the center of American civic culture has abetted authoritarian and repressive agendas as much as it has upheld civil libertarian or democratic ones."

"The Creed." By Jedediah Britton-Purdy, The Nation, July 2, 2024

[Below] "Ever heard of the 'mudsill theory'? Well, it goes back to the slaveholding South. And it explains a lot."
From the article:
"On March 4, 1858, slave plantation owner and South Carolina Senator James Henry Hammond rose to speak before his peers in the U.S. Senate....
     "Hammond asserted that for a society to function smoothly, it must have a "foundational" class of people who, like the way a mudsill stabilizes the house that rests atop it, bear the difficult manual labor from which almost all wealth is derived. 'In all social systems there must be a class to do the menial duties,' Hammond proclaimed, 'to perform the drudgery of life.' Hammond claimed that every society throughout history rested on a mudsill class; that even Jesus advocated this when he said, 'The poor you will always have with you.'"
     To stabilize society, he additionally argued, such a group of people must be locked rigidly into their mudsill class.

"Why Republicans Want and Need a Permanent Economic Underclass." By Thom Hartmann, The New Republic, May 24, 2024

[Below] RURAL AREAS: "We say very clearly that rural America is hurting. But we refuse to justify attitudes that some scholars try to underplay."
     From the article: "When we wrote White Rural Rage, we knew that our provocative argument and book title would arouse ire on the far right. We were not disappointed. But we have been surprised by the ferocity of the criticism we have received from scholars of rural politics....
     "What isn't said enough is that rural whites are being told to blame all the wrong people for their very real problems. As we argue in the book, Hollywood liberals didn't destroy the family farm, college professors didn't move manufacturing jobs overseas, immigrants didn't pour opioids into rural communities, and critical race theory didn't close hundreds of rural hospitals. When Republican politicians and the conservative media tell rural whites to aim their anger at those targets, it's so they won't ask why the people they keep electing haven't done anything to improve life in their communities.
     "...We argue that the return of political competition to rural areas is vital, but that will take not only Democrats making more of an effort but rural people demanding more from the Republicans who take their votes and give so little in return."

"An Honest Assessment of Rural White Resentment Is Long Overdue." By Paul Waldman and Tom Schaller, The New Republic, April 11, 2024 (Also posted here.)

[Below] ECONOMIC SECURITY: "I was at an event recently where several top business executives were perplexed about why Americans under 40 are so disillusioned with capitalism. What could they do to restore trust in our economic system?
     "My suggestion was simple: Treat workers better. This wasn't the answer they wanted....
     "Young people in America have come of age during the Great Recession,  the sluggish recovery that followed and then the coronavirus pandemic. Unemployment has been 10 percent or higher twice in the past 15 years. Young workers have seen how expendable they are to companies and how quickly financial security can evaporate."

Opinion: "Here's why Americans under 40 are so disillusioned with capitalism." By Heather Long, Washington Post, April 1, 2024

[Below] TRUMP: "Donald Trump's obvious public challenges with speech, language, and thinking are continuing to get worse....
     "To deny the obvious about Donald Trump's evidently diseased mind is to deny reality and to ignore the real possibility that a man who is already morally and ethically corrupt and now appears to be experiencing problems with his thinking could be back in the White House with the awesome responsibility and power of the presidency—including the sole authority to order the use of America's nuclear weapons...."

"Forensic psychiatrist on physical signs of Trump's mental decline: 'Changes in movement and gait'." By Chauncey DeVega, Salon, March 25, 2024

[Below] SUPREME COURT: "The Court’s decision could potentially undermine over 300 January 6 prosecutions, including Trump's."

"The Supreme Court will weigh in on the January 6 insurrection. What could possibly go wrong?" By Ian Millhiser, Vox, March 25, 2024

[Below] TRUMP; FASCISM: "Donald Trump has embraced fascist rhetoric and made bald declarations of his desire for dictatorial powers as he seeks a return to the White House in 2024. This is not politics as usual. The inflammatory language puts Trump a world apart from any presumptive, major-party nominee in modern American memory. And it’s getting worse."

"‘Bloodbath,’ ‘Vermin,’ ‘Dictator’ for a Day: A Guide to Trump’s Fascist Rhetoric." By Tim Dickinson, Rolling Stone, March 25, 2024

[Below] ISRAEL, PALESTINE; GAZA: "...Congress is poised to pass a $1.2 trillion spending package that would prohibit funding for United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).
     "Under the bill, the agency — the primary supplier of food for Gazans during the Israel-Hamas war — would be stripped of American funding until March 2025. The United States has historically been the largest contributor to UNRWA."

"Bernie Sanders Calls Out 'starvation Caucus' Over Cut to Gaza Food Aid." By Brendan Rascius (Miami Herald), rsn.org, March 23, 2024

NEW! (3/26/2024) [Below] "Quite a few Americans like the idea of strongman rule. Why not a dictator who will get things done?...
     "Strongman rule is a fantasy. Essential to it is the idea that a strongman will be your strongman. He won't. In a democracy, elected representatives listen to constituents. We take this for granted, and imagine that a dictator would owe us something. But the vote you cast for him affirms your irrelevance. The whole point is that the strongman owes us nothing. We get abused and we get used to it."

"The Strongman Fantasy...and Dictatorship in Real Life." By Timothy Snyder, snyder.substack.com, March 17, 2024

[Below] TRUMP: "Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, praised Hungary Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on Friday night for his authoritarian leadership during an event at Mar-a-Lago in Florida.
     "'There's nobody that's better, smarter or a better leader than Viktor Orbán, who's fantastic,' said Trump from a stage as he introduced his guest to the crowd. 'He's a non-controversial figure, because he says, 'This is the way it's gonna be and that's the end of it,' right? He's the boss.'
     "Trump went on to call him a 'great leader' and a 'fantastic leader.'"

"'He's the boss': Trump praises 'fantastic' dictatorial style of Viktor Orbán." By Jon Queally, Common Dreams, March 11, 2024

[Below] TRUMP: "Of course, it is increasingly obvious that Trump is facing significant mental decline. And we know from those who were close to him but are no longer, that this is not a new problem. But that issue is eclipsed by the other reality: this is a narcissistic sociopath who will stop at nothing to create a vicious, dictatorship built on retribution, racism, corruption, and sadism.
     "He doesn't cushion it, or try to hide his motives, and neither do those he will clearly rely on if he were to assume the presidency...."

"The GOP can't leave MAGA — 'Americans must electorally mercy-kill the Republican Party'" By Chauncey DeVega, Salon, March 11, 2024

[Below] "United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain on Thursday made clear to a key U.S. Senate panel that working-class people nationwide are deeply frustrated with the 'epidemic of lives dominated by work' and the fight for livable wages while executive compensation continues to climb."

"'Working-class people aren't lazy, they're fed up,' UAW leader Tells Senate." By Jessica Corbett (Common Dreams), AlterNet, March 16, 2024

[Below] MESSAGING: "The New York Times is not going to get Biden’s campaign message before voters."
From the article:
     "From the outside, one would assume that Joe Biden and the Democrats should have a relatively easy election year....
     "There’s just one problem: Not many people have heard about Biden's legislative record. And incredibly, even fewer are clued in to Trump's actions and plans for the country. As Greg Sargent points out at The New Republic, recent polling shows that large 'swaths of voters appear to have little awareness of some of Trump's clearest statements of hostility to democracy and intent to impose authoritarian rule in a second term....'
     "The reason for this is that there is a giant right-wing propaganda apparatus blasting Republican messaging into tens of millions of homes every day, which Democrats do not have. And in the case of the Biden age question, both the mainstream media and even some liberal outlets have reinforced the propaganda by obsessing endlessly about it themselves."

"Democrats Need a Party Publication." By Ryan Cooper, The American Prospect, March 11, 2024

[Below] This is a very long article with much history and many opinions. There will be those on different sides of the argument who will insist that the likely resolution is continued violence and death, until...? Others advocate a different resolution.
     The United States is involved. The Israel lobby is pouring millions into our elections (to defeat critics of the Israeli government); we were already giving the Israeli government $3.8 billion a year; and since October 7, we're giving it far more billions in weapons. This challenges our 21st century advocacy for democracy...for everyone. How much of this can be born until...something...changes?

     "American Jews' long-standing consensus about Israel has fractured. There may be no going back."

"Has Zionism Lost the Argument?" By Aaron Gel, The New Republic, March 3, 2024

[Below] ABOUT RACE: "Chapin, S.C. — Mary Wood walked between the desks in her AP English Language and Composition classroom, handing out copies of the book she was already punished once for teaching.      "Twenty-six students, all but two of them White, looked down at Ta-Nehisi Coates's 'Between the World and Me,' a memoir that dissects what it means to be Black in America—and which drew calls for Wood's firing when she tried to teach it last year in her mostly White, conservative town...."

"Students reported her for a lesson on race. Then she taught it again." By Hannah Natanson, Washington Post, February 1, 2024

[Below] TRUMP; RELIGION; AUTHORITARIANISM

"Trump's Holiness Rises as His Corruption is Revealed, in the Best Authoritarian Tradition." By Ruth Ben-Ghiat, lucid.substack.com, January 17, 2024

[Below] TRUMP 2025; PROJECT 2025

"Republicans actually published a blueprint for dismantling our democracy. It's called Project 2025." By Daily Kos, January 12, 2024

[Below] SUPREME COURT; 14TH AMENDMENT: "The Trap the Commentariat Sets for the Court."

"The Pitchfork Ruling." By Timothy Snyder, snyder.substack.com, January 1, 2024