Klein says—and Obama amplifies him in this—that it's at least possible that Trump is giving America what they said they wanted. But the data shows that voters pre-November had no idea what either candidate stood for or would do but clearly *didn't* support the policies we now see Trump was planning.
A clear majority didn't want the policies Trump was secretly harboring in 2024 and still don't want them. His agenda is wildly unpopular—and it's only a part of his base, which is a tiny fraction of Americans, who use the mantra "I voted for this." And most of *them* don't even know what he's doing.
I’d say around 38% of America is extremely happy with what is going on right now and because the GOP performed mass voter suppression efforts and mass propaganda with the help of Elmo, the MAGA minority is now fully in control and living their wildest dreams of destruction.
Much of the blame lies at the feet of the media. Not indie media—which has been getting Trump right for about 10 years now—but exactly the sort of mealy-mouthed lukewarm respectability-politics jerkoffs like Klein who've been years behind all of their peers but know how to play major media's games.
We're still 5 or 6 years from Klein mentioning even 5% of the info on Trump's criminal activities that shows up with full sourcing in the 7 books of the Proof Series. Which means we're 5 or 6 years from Obama amplifying those truths. But *we're not going to have a fucking country* in 5 or 6 years.
Thank you for this thread. I agree 100%. It amazes me that people are ignoring what’s clearly in front of their faces. I’m no political expert, but I could see this coming years ago. When MSM refused to report on the insanity, this was the only outcome. Did not expect the GOP to TOTALLY submit tho.
I will continue to say that the blood spilled by the Trump Administration is very much on the hands of the mainstream/corporate media. They normalized him ten years ago and demanded perfection out of his opponents. I hope their names are dragged through the mud in history books.
I'm so *livid* at the fact that Dems who read the news and basically everyone in indie media understands that America is speeding toward a collapse of its culture, economy, rule of law, and international influence but but we must *still* be subjected to utter gobshite from mainstream media everyday.
This was a test. The MSM failed. But it's no wonder. The legacy media is a corporate industry that cares about its bottom line and how to best pander to those in power. The fiddle as Rome burns and tell us it's not their job to take sides.
It's galling. I feel like I'm the crazy one some days. Just shouting into an uncaring void.
It is all.. so damn difficult to believe the insane way “they” seem to want us to think, live and do. Regime supporters.. were mad at Biden for asking them to wear masks… yet. Omg. Yet today… 🤬🤬🤬 We all wake up every day with SO much disbelief.
It was clear two years ago that Project 2025 and Trump planned to drain all monies from everything but Criminal Justice, Immigration, National Security and the Military, and that those formerly separate pots would in fact be one pot aimed at controlling the American population via government force.
yup, they are doing the evil sht (project 2025) what they said they would. and the MAGA faith-cultists are acting all surprised?
It was clear more than 4 years ago that Trump had lost interest in our Democratic process as designed and would seek to steal every election he could. It was clear more than 4 years ago that he was an insurrectionist willing to use violence to stay in power and looking to accumulate a paramilitary.
Where exactly was Ezra Klein when in January 2021—which is now four and a half years ago—independent journalists were saying that our legal system and Congress had to move as quickly as possible to neutralize Trump as a threat to American democracy because the alternative was a rolling insurrection?
I will tell you where he was: the same place the Democratic Party was. It was so fat and happy about having won the 2020 presidential election that it was heedless of all warnings from indie media that we were in the midst of an *ongoing insurrection* that in *no way* had capitulated to rule of law.
Biden dropped the ball with Garland and not prosecuting Trump right away. The stolen classified documents alone should have lead to Trump's arrest. Then just forgetting Covid. And not going after the leaders of the insurrection.
Agree with smack
Biden didn't know that Garland was going to go slow and let the clock run out or that he was secretly working for trump and the GOP.
where were most folks since the early 90s... all of this was clear then to those who studied history and media. Anyone who didnt see that what happened in the USSR wasnt gonna happen here.. blind.
There was no sense from DC Democrats in the 2024 election that America was in mortal danger. More importantly there was no such sense from major media—including Klein—which did its job so poorly that Americans went to the polls in 2024 more poorly informed than any US electorate in the last century.
Kamala said it would happen.
And you wonder—why? Why are all these people in mainstream media who are paid handsomely to know what's going on literally years behind understanding the dangers we're facing? And the answer is simple: in the halls of respectability politics, you can't get ahead without being acceptably milquetoast.
try watching MSNBC they actually said that every day and twice on Monday for six months
Stop this. The media was not unaware. The media was complicit.
They never allow negative stories or anything resembling reality to come across their culty members news feeds. Ever - Not one word of truth or real world gets invited in.
Had they only looked at Florida they would have got a glimpse of things to come. Last year Rose Aguilar did a great job of analysing Project 2025 on @kalwradio.bsky.social www.kalw.org/podcast/what...
Yes Congressional Democrats did not disclose. But, why? BC their silence was, by act, complicit.
America is under a dictatorship. It’s what Americans do about it. It’s only going to get worse.
Man. So much of that- that’s truly spot on.
Did u listen to the pod he mentioned with Balko? I didn’t read the Klein piece but had listened to the pod yesterday. Must’ve hit different. 🫤
There’s no way Dems in Congress, Obama and everyone close to the source hasn’t known where that trajectory has been leading. My question is why have they let it happen. Patton was right…
> It was clear more than 4 years ago that he was an insurrectionist I stopped cycling my banner image and settled on this one for the time being. tRUmp is an illegitimate president who should be simply removed from office by the US Marshals that he commands.
The abandonment of the rule of law by Republicans and SCOTUS is the act that supports the fall of the United States.
Controlling and siphoning American money in different ways, until they have it all. They’re already trying to privatize govt agencies! They’re coming for our retirements, social security AND private ones. Watch. And—Wall Street probably in on it. Insider trading paradise!
PS, if you are not ready for this(en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euromai...) that you okay with being a slave to intro rich.
Everything will be clear in the next 14 months (November 2026), Seth. If we will have or not have free and fair elections.
They looked at "establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity" and decided to dispense with a few of those things so their henchmen could accumulate even more loot.
Right. I have always maintained that the wall is meant to not allow us a route out of this country - or back in if we leave.
I’ll never understand. Ever
Welcome to Canada's CBC News.
Seth, please take your meds
the people should have taken to the streets, stormed the gates, when mcconnell denied garland's nomination. it should have been a five alarm fire, but, as you say, the media played it as "politics... what can ya do?!", and to ice the cake, it was mcconnell who gave us trump and his russian pals.
What's amazing is that Trump is both the most dishonest and the most honest politician. Dishonest because he lies even when the truth would help him. Honest because he has never hidden who he was, not since the 70s anyway, even foreigners saw it. Many Americans have lied (or stupided) to themselves.
Finally, someone says TRUTH! Recently retired History teacher....making plans to leave due to lack of Resistance
Please Klein is in that Chuck Todd’s class. He has no credibility!
Fuck Ezra Klein AND Obama. Neither is doing a damn thing to help America right now.
I knew when trump frist ran Republicans were up to some shady shit..
Why not make your excellently researched proof series and other articles free after they earn you some amount? That could help get the word out.
Damn fine analysis. Thank you! Ezra is a fucking moron. But acceptably milquetoast.
Most Dems are running scared! Trump and MAGA threaten people and there are some nuts with big guns on the right!
We have big guns on the left too. Just sayin.
The only way we’re going to beat this is violence I’m just not sure if people are willing to do that in this country but none of this is gonna happen voluntarily
Kamala warned everyone, Obama warned everyone but the same Tea Party ers who couldn't stand having a Black man as the president and depicted him as The Joker hanging him in effigy are now struggling in Trump's economy and might even lose healthcare. Just admit you voted for a racist NAZI.
The mealy-mouthed media!! Perfect
Mealy mouthed is the perfect description. People, including the mainstream media, don’t understand the gravity of what is happening. They assume (wrongly as we know from accounts of revolutions),that their lives would be in turmoil, if Trump were actually carrying out a fascist revolution.
#MSMservesBillionaires
He's rebranding ThirdWay and selling it on all the dem platforms with a jazzy sounding name. I mean who could possibly be against abundance, right? >>
But as the surrogates who don't really admit they're surrogates end up saying, they plan to push for the deregulation part first. Gotta do that cuz big companies are "the only ones" who can build all that housing. How about helping ordinary people lead the housing boom?
Just ask the Cubans in South Miami how they feel about how he campaigned on immigration vs how he is executing is immigration policy now. Now I will say most Latinos knew he was lying his ass off.
@ezraklein.bsky.social's whole thing, which drives me nuts, is to blame Dems for the rise of Trump because of some "messaging" thing. The perfect Message™ is not gonna fix it. It's a bandwidth problem to fight back against the RW propaganda machinery, not a message content problem. That's what he /1
The media is just utterly failing to meet this moment. It’s wild to watch them just lay down and capitulate under some false premise of having to portray “both sides.” How about this: when it’s been democracy and fascism there aren’t two sides that both deserve the same coverage
💯 I think it's 1) a consequence of habit formed when neither side was completely batshit crazy / fascist. They can't adapt to the new reality. 2) Fear of retribution, & 3) takeover by RW oligarchs or oligarchs who have decided to trade principle for "safety" - being on the good side of the fascists.
Agreed. I’ll just add that journalists are also more hyper-aware of their image and reputations than they used to be before the onset of the internet and online media etc. These days they’ll be called a “liberal shill” all over X if they dare to show a hint of balance in their coverage.
Yeah, that's part of the "fear" I'm talking about and also a by-product of the RW propaganda machinery dominating the info environment.
And access “journalism”. Which really isn’t journalism. If it’s noon on a sunny day, you don’t report Trump’s view that it’s noght as an alternative opinion.
💯 See Haberman, Maggie.
This, exactly! No party is perfect, but objectively, Harris ran a far better campaign than Trump. Dems have a far better message than Repubs. But they have the bandwidth. Because grifts work for a reason. Dems don’t grift, it doesn’t work on their supporters. The GOP does.
💯 Kamala's / Tim's message was fine and there were lots of concrete proposals to address real problems - healthcare, cost of living, climate change, murderous dictators invading sovereign lands, etc. Trump had tariffs and "mass deportation". No one can tell me it was a message problem for the D's.
I am SO sick of this. Harris/Walz ran an excellent campaign. The crowds were HUGE. Voter suppression won the election, and there are questions re: voting anomalies also. It's called CHEATING. www.gregpalast.com/trump-lost-v...
He also pushed anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ messages. Scare tactics. I remember the barrage of anti-trans ads during NFL games last Fall!
Yes. I think Ted Cruz's entire senate campaign was predicated around opposition to the 3 trans people in the US playing women's sports. 🤦🏼♂️ And he easily beat a good candidate - former NFL player Colin Allred. Fearmongering, othering - sadly it works. As a country, we need to do so much better :-(.
Why does the GOP grift work on Dem voters? You see my point?
But it doesn’t. It works on people that don’t vote. There is a handful of Obama/biden voters that voted for Trump. But there’s a much larger share of non voters (especially rural and lower education) that never voted before, and voted for Trump 3 times. What happens when Trump dies though?
If your grift keeps people from voting it worked. Same as Russian Intelligence kept people from voting in 2016.
The Russians never stopped working against Dems from the inside though. That’s different from the republicans grift. Podcasts still only get advertisements that lean right. Home security, hangover cures, testosterone crap. That’s why no left podcast has taken off, we don’t listen to them as much
This is another challenge. The RW propaganda machinery is fed not just from domestic sources / RW oligarchy, grifters, etc. *but also* foreign actors, *especially* Russia. This is why I say we need a *moonshot* counterpropaganda offensive. It's a moonshot because it's *hard*, we're way behind, & /1
the RW has so many advantages - RW oligarchs, the natural popularity of grievance, racism, and conspiracy, foreign actors, etc. It's a helluva uphill battle but we either fight it or we're toast. /2
The things is, the RW propaganda machinery operates not just on the right but also on the left, *from* the left. They're always trying to find wedges to split the left. That's what the '16 DNC hack was about. They're at it again. This is about impersonating left voices to amplify anti-Dem sentiment.
I 100% agree. And that’s harder to combat.
I'm pretty sure it's pretty active on BlueSky. There are legitimate gripes about the D party - it's far from perfect, but it's gotten really vicious. If you post one positive thing about D leadership you're liable to get an avalance of negative and oftentimes personally insulting comments.
doesn't get. And also, it's always the Dems fault, as if the R's have no agency in the matter of their own behavior. 🤦🏼♂️ /2
Totally agree. It's a unified effort of deception vs. a diversified analysis for balanced consensus. Guess which one wins? People are lazy and the right provides a convenient simplification.
The right wing lie machine, mostly Fox News has set a new reality in America: "heads we win and tails you lose." Also left is now right, down is up and white is black. I'm not sure how anyone can ever fight them, or reason with them again.
I agree we probably can’t reason with them. But we sure is hell can fight with them.
I think a lot differently. I do not want to fight them, I want to ambush them and end it in one fell swoop.
I hear what you're saying, Seth but it doesn't help us to bicker amongst ourselves. People like Ezra should be shown how they're not helpful, or even wrong, and then those established voices will be more powerful influencers.
To be very clear, Dems ARE partially to blame. Not majority to blame, but they definitely bear some. One example: ALL the policies that WE wanted & which they failed repeatedly to pass or even propose into legislation. Another: Failing to LISTEN to US for YEARS, instead, working for their donors.
At this point it doesn’t really matter. At this point, if nothing is done, we will never have an honest election again.
It does matter because we will NEVER fix what’s been damaged until we fully acknowledge & understand exactly what’s been damaged & how it became so damaged! We’ve NEVER fully atoned for our genocidal & slavery past. Because of that, people still suffer greatly from those failings. It does matter.
I meant it doesn’t matter who is to blame because this can’t be fixed by what’s been done before otherwise we wouldn’t be in this position. Their actions have been ineffectual.
Agree. We have a LOT of damage to fix. Old, new, insidious & antiquated. Some of which is partly due to our own apathetic, complacent & negligent making. It starts with electing people-centric Progressive candidates. If we keep doing the same old shit, we will keep getting the same old shit.
Exactly.
No, the main problem with not getting more stuff passed is that we didn't vote enough real D's into office. Manchin and Sinema proved to not be real D's, and they torpedoed lots of legislation that the Biden administration had proposed.
Who is "us" and what policies? Those of the radical Left?
No one should listen to that guy. He’s not as smart as he thinks he is.
Now, the GOP has also been spewing their propaganda and building their info networks for decades and Dems have just sat quietly. It was clear back in 2000 that we needed left-wing media infrastructure & Dems did nothing.
The RW propaganda machinery was driven mostly by RW oligarchs, not the R party. Plus, it's the sad truth that fearmongering, racism, and conspiracy sells. Truth does not. It's an uphill battle but it has to be fought or we're toast. There's no other way out. And yet we *still* have endless /1
about "the Message™". As I keep saying, we're trying to solve the wrong problem. Sure do the best with message content, but that's not the problem. No one's getting *any* message because there isn't nearly the bandwidth to compete with the RW propaganda machinery. It's gonna take a moonshot /2
Not just the D party, but we need folks like $$$$ who care about democracy to step up, and we need grassroots involvement. All of those things. /3
It’s the neo-fascist Christians in power who are implementing Project 2025 who are allowing America to fall. That they happen to be republicans is because they infiltrated that party.
They’re all members of a prosperity religion and taking advantage of Trump and his mental illnesses in order to implement their agendas. He’s fine with them as long as they pretend he’s a perfect president making perfect phone calls and he can continue to grift off his position and not have to work.
They are NOT Christians in the New Testament way. They are only pretending. They do not follow the words of Jesus Christ!
Yes, that’s right.
Yes, the Dems need a unified message with talking points put out daily for all D elected officials or candidates. That message that will sell now is strong gun safety regulations. The public supports them by a wide margin. Mock Rs as tools of the NRA.
I agree, but what I'm saying is that the Dems / left do not have the bandwidth or infrastructure to get their messages out to people such that they are heard above the RW propaganda machinery. The RW propaganda machine dominates the info wars. That's the root problem that has to be solved...somehow.
They don't just dominate, they own it outright. We ceded basically all media: legacy, digital, and public spaces to them. It's waaaaaay past time to build our own.
Gotta try though or we're toast - i.e. it's all over. That's why I call it a "moonshot" - it's a massive undertaking and it would take nearly a miracle to succeed. But the only other choice is that our country, our democracy, fails for good. Problem is we can't even get people to agree that this /1
The current president is a pedo #pedopotus
About the size of it. i stopped paying much attention to the Times, Klein and his ilk, and the MSM in general almost a decade ago because of this. They are all complicit.
The media knew he was best friends with Epstein. The stockpile of photos. This is what happens when billionaires send their lobbyists to purchase politicians .
The media did not report on voter suppression. @gregpalast.bsky.social Harris was cheated out of 3,650,000 votes by these Jim Crow tricks. 4.7 million voters purged. 3.2 million registrations rejected. 2.1 million mail-in ballots tossed. www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_Xd...
The media did report on voter suppression, though it was widely known about. Harris was cheated out of 3,650,000 votes by these Jim Crow tricks. 4.7 million voters purged. 3.2 million registrations rejected. 2.1 million mail-in ballots tossed. www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_Xd...
stop blaming the media. They gave more than ample coverage to Project 2025 -- but it was Harris' job to convince voters that Trump would implement it. and she failed to do so, largely because she and Biden had spent the prior 3 and a half years downplaying Trump's perfidy.
Bingo
What percentage of American voters do you think consume “media” or read ANYTHING?
You may be right about their ignorance, but I doubt it. I think they know exactly what is happening and they love it.
I've been saying this for years: most have no clue what is coming. And unfortunately, it's a hard lesson that many countries have had to learn, and it's time for Americans to be knocked off their high horses, I'm afraid. BUt the suffering they will endure will be heartbreaking 😔
It’s possible you wear a blindfold purposefully and with malintent. You remind me of those fascism-deniers I ruthlessly argued with in 2017. Keep talking.
He fucking told the stupidest among us that he didn't to know anything about Project 2025 and he didn't want to know anything about Project 2025.
Everything he’s doing now, is announced in Project 2025. Even the immigration. People were just to blind, selfish or stupid to read it. Or they blindly followed him when he said he didn’t know the document. Or they picked what interested them and ignored the rest. And even now, people are still in
the denial stage and they think it’s business as usual or they think they will all be over after the elections.
I guess we should stop expecting establishment Democrats to understand and be able to take on the authoritarian regime and the fascism they’ve unleashed on us.
The sad part is that most of those don't even care what he does. They just chalk all this up to some tribal victory they get to participate in over those their TV tells them to be scared of.
Secretly? As soon as the Republican party deleted their platform to elect trump you should have assumed the worst case scenario was coming. Hillary Clinton herself called him out for being a Russian puppet and people laughed at her. This country sucks.
This is a crucial distinction. Among voters who were aware of Project 2025, the overwhelming majority (nearly 80%) disapproved of it. Source navigatorresearch.org/americans-in...
I saw it as a dis to American voters. Like ok people this is what you wanted so.. it was nonsensical to have Obama elevate that bs. Infuriating.
I just listened to Klein with Radley Balko. I think you’re somewhat off here. Alarm bells are sounding.
I agree with everything above this post. But on this one I diverge. Trump is giving then what his gut wanted. Racism. Mostly subconscious, in their gut there is an itch that is being satisfied.
It was spelled out in Project 2025, but no one believed it.
It's my contention that the electorate is ignorant or uncaring. Anyone with half a brain could have seen the Trump train wreck coming and people still voted for the train wreck.
I will never trust any politician.
Thank you for pointing this out. My sense of EK these past few years is that what he cares about most is his own popularity, and if he believes half of the BS he writes, I feel sorry for him. He doesn't care who or what he takes down in his effort to be seen as the smart guy in the room.
Sure, they didn't want these policies. But what did they expect, when they voted for a convicted criminal who lies his way out every single time? 🤷♂️ I mean, if Ted Bundy promises you a happy life with him and you're stupid enough to trust him despite his murders, who is to blame when you get killed?
If voters didn't know the policies of either candidate then maybe they shouldn't have voted! As it stands, far more red voters went team red than blue went team blue. Generally blue voters are at least somewhat aware of policy. Red team voters weren't expecting to get hurt. FAFO in full effect.
I noticed the SAME thing when reading the text of the conversation. How can any self declared "analyst" ascribe ANY semblance of "good faith" to the greatest manipulative conman in the world? Looks like analysts have been conned as well - to a certain extent. And STILL don't get it.
You lost me with your Obama dissing. If he was still potus we wouldn't be where we are today.
If he was still POTUS we’d be in a different sort of constitutional crisis; Obama respects the rule of law. He’s always been a centrist who thought he could negotiate with racists though.
@barackobama.bsky.social @ezrakleinbot.bsky.social Please read this analysis of your flimsy analysis …
