The skeptical mode is the source of modernism’s contempt for the human intellect. Or maybe it’s better to say modernism’s contempt for the human’s ability to know anything. Harold Kaplan1 says we have come to believe this mode is the strongest trait of an enlightened modern consciousness. Metaphysics might seem to be the focus of this skepticism, but its focus is primarily the ordinary human consciousness.
(more…)Author: Sheila Marler
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The Crisis of Knowledge
In this series, I want to share my thoughts about Harold Kaplan’s book, The Passive Voice1. Kaplan deals with several related literary topics, but they all arise from the crisis of knowledge in modern intellectual history. I have some doubts about my part in this endeavor, which I’ll state briefly in this introduction to the series.
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Guard Against Spiritual Contagion
Diego Fares SJ wrote an article in 2018 about ‘the spirit of fierceness‘. He said this spirit pervades all of human history. It has a certain dynamic–opposition against ‘the other’. I think Fares’s article is important because it provides tools to help us guard against spiritual contagion.
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A Problem With the Progressive Conversation
There is a problem with the progressive conversation. Progressives have apparently forgotten everything that has happened since the 2016 election. Maybe that’s why they keep trying to help the Democratic Party. They started doing this while the Biden administration was still in control and they continued through the Harris campaign. Now they’re scratching their heads over what they see as Democratic incompetence in dealing with Trump. This is very frustrating.
Progressives are ignoring certain facts, which I list below. Those with knowledge of American politics will have to decide if the following facts are helpful. It’s important to mention that improving the conversation may not improve the political situation. But if the alternative media channels insist on talking about politics they should consider all the facts. Otherwise they will just add to the chaos.
The 2016 Election
- Progressives’ ability to remember certain important facts would improve the conversation.
- The Democratic Party demonstrated its ability to keep a candidate out of the White House. Yet Trump is the President.
- Some Democrats openly admitted during Bernie’s campaign that they preferred Trump to someone like Bernie.
- The DNC’s frantic and obvious effort to destroy Bernie’s candidacy–twice– was suspicious. In my opinion the Democrats chose suspicious behavior over decorum, even though the best competitors they could offer clung to an establishment worldview rejected by progressives.
- In the 2016 campaign, the DNC styled Hilary Clinton as the Democratic version of an emperor. Think white pantsuit, golden lighting, arms raised like a prizefighter. Maybe that’s why she couldn’t communicate to the voters why she wanted to be president.
- Donald Trump announced his candidacy after a meeting with Bill Clinton.
- Hilary received enough cash after her loss to Donald Trump to purchase the estate next to her New York residence.
The 2024 Election
- Since Trump’s second inauguration, the Democratic Establishment has continued to act as though they are watching a play. It took Elon Musk’s outrageous behavior to jolt Congressional Democrats out of their stupor.
- During Bernie’s campaign, Members of Congress didn’t need an unelected billionaire to wake them up. They were united in their contempt for Bernie. This attitude filtered down to state Democratic parties. I believe the Maricopa County Democratic Party is a good example of the DNC’s thorough organizing effort.
- We shouldn’t forget that the DNC did not stand behind Joe Biden in 2024. In addition, they failed to inform the electorate of the Biden/Harris administration’s strengths.
- Why did it take so long for Congress to become ‘aroused’, as Chuck Schumer put it? Were they waiting for their cue from the DNC?
- At least one Democratic Representative may have received a cue. This is Hakeem Jeffries, Minority Leader of the US House of Representatives. He claims the Republicans are in control and the Democrats can’t do anything about it. Jeffries almost sounds like he’s calling for someone else to step in. But maybe it only seems that way to me because of my own background.
The Enemy From Within
- Donald Trump has told us that the problem in America is ‘the enemy from within’.
- The Mormon Church has been warning its membership about the enemy from within for decades. There will come a time, the Church claims, when the Constitution will be hanging by a thread. At that time Mormon leaders will be called upon to step in and rescue us.
- The Church also predicts that it will be put in charge of ‘poor relief’. This is the exact term used for the Catholic Church when it was still a European institution. At its height, the Catholic Church owned a third of the land of Europe. We don’t know how much land the Mormon Church now owns worldwide because it is often bought furtively. But we know it’s a lot.
- The Church in Utah uses the US welfare program to pressure recipients to be active in the Church. This aspect of the current crisis makes me believe these actors are no joke. There is a takeover in progress and its exact characteristics, while not known to us, have already been worked out.
- Jonathan Rauch has been making the rounds of certain alternative media channels to promote the Mormon Church as an authority on civic religion.
See also: The Foundation of American Civil Religion
- Progressives’ ability to remember certain important facts would improve the conversation.
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Religion Must Guide the Political Moment
The religions that are most liable for the current political crisis are Judaism and Christianity. Some may find fault with this statement. They will say religions are irrelevant; today politics are part of a secular world. This is in spite of the fact that the religions of Judaism and Christianity prop up the far Right’s nationalist aspirations. Alternatively, the religious will say that their particular religion is on the side of righteousness. In this view, everyone who disagrees with them, meaning the secular world, is evil.
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The Most Important Skill for 2025 is Ignoring Trump
Since 2015, we’ve had good reasons for our continued participation in this one-sided conversation. I say one-sided because progressives have been the only ones actually carrying on a conversation. I believe Trump and his cronies, among others, function as a distraction and an elaborate insult to voters. Therefore, I argue that the most important skill of 2025 is ignoring Trump.
The reason we put our hope in a conversation in the first place was the belief that America’s foreign policy had proven to be a failure and that our leaders would see the error of their ways. In addition, the climate crisis and agricultural policies were looming threats, which no one was addressing. It was obvious that we needed a course change. In other words, this was supposed to be a conversation with our leaders–at least with the leaders of the Democratic Party. But their willingness to change direction was a false hope.
We remained in the conversation at that point because of a lasting threat from the radical right. For three election cycles, we supported the Democratic candidate for president in an effort to deny Trump the presidency. However, a funny thing happened on our way to shore up the conversation. First, Donald Trump ran for office. Then he won, twice. This made a joke of our conversation.
Of course, it’s not only Trump and his cohorts who made a joke of the conversation. America’s determination to obliterate Gaza made a joke of it too. On October 7, 2023, a certain YouTube channel was drumming up indignation against the Palestinians. They went so far as allowing their guests to call the Palestinians sub-human animals. This was the Bulwark channel. (This is a link to the channel. The video may be hidden.) To be fair, the speakers were not the regular hosts of the channel, but in my opinion this segment left a lasting stain on the channel’s image.
It also inspired fear, both for the Palestinians and for our progressive agenda. Pundits have drummed up indignation in the past and we know they want to lead us into another conflict. So, we continued to talk in hopes of a peaceful resolution. But that didn’t happen either. It’s almost as if American and Israeli leaders relish our dismay.
Now, with a second Trump presidency looming, I feel I have no choice but to disconnect from American politics. Not a single thing I’ve been talking about for more than a decade remains on the table. Instead, we see an elaborate display of sheer patriarchal force. The he-men among us have drowned the conversation in testosterone. Their answer to our concerns is the caveman’s club.
The only clue we have that they were listening at all is the realization that they have closed down everything that’s important to us. In retrospect, I have to admit that the political conversation may have been dead when we started, but Trump has finally relieved us of trying to revive it. His second presidency is the final joke. Boorishness has triumphed.
For a more positive analysis on the political situation watch Yanis Varoufakis’s approach on DiEM25
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Modern Israel is Anti-West
In this article, I hope to correct the way progressives think about modern Israel. I think much of our secular sympathy for Jewish people comes from the fact that the Nazi regime hated them and persecuted them. In retrospect, we had that in common with the Jews: the Nazis hated the West as well. But Israel has more in common with war-time Germany than it does with the West. Modern Israel is anti-West. In short, progressives seem stuck on the political contradictions of Israel. Christians give the Jews an additional benefit of the doubt because Christianity and Judaism are kin, religiously speaking.
The West is Israel’s Biggest Victim
Sometimes this preference for modern Israel takes the form of a belief. We believe that the Israeli government’s atrocities are aberrations from Israel’s ideal nature. I will argue on the contrary that Israel’s behavior is the result of her true nature. To put it plainly, modern Israel does not now and never has possessed an ideal nature separate from its atrocities. Worse, Western countries are not simple bystanders to Israel’s actions. The West may be powerful enablers of Israel’s drama, but The West is also Israel’s biggest victim.
Israel and the West Against Hamas Where Does the Far Right End and Israel Begin?
Where doest the Far Right End and Israel Begin? To the United States, the German far right’s critique of the West, seems completely unique to World War II. But Israel hijacked our thinking. According to Rabbi Simon Jacobson of Chabad, Israel opposes the West as much as Germany ever did. For that matter, Israel opposes the entire world. Why? Modern Israel has a race theory that rivals that of the Nazis. Richard Rothschild calls Chabad’s race theory Modern, ‘Moral,’ Reactionary Jewish Racism. This racism does not admit political causes of the strife in Palestine.
Similar to the Netanyahu government’s dependence on the Old Testament story of Amalek, Rabbi Jacobson argues that the conflict in the Middle East started not with rivalry over the land, but with Jacob and Esau. Israel and Palestine are at war because they are descended from two archetypes. It’s a clash of civilizations.
A Clash of Archetypes/Civilizations
Rebecca, the mother of Jacob and Esau, was told she had two nations within her. Jacob was the father of the jewish people and Esau represented Western Roman Christianity. They remain at odds. Their immediate ancestors, Ishmael and Isaac, were not at peace either. Therefore, it’s not a surprise at all in Jacobson’s telling that their children and grandchildren are still enemies.
Strangely, after explaining how the line of Jacob is superior to the line of Esau, Jacobson then claims to promote peace. For example, he says Christianity’s war against Judaism proves that peace is possible, because Christianity was ‘tamed’. Translation: peace means the acknowledgement of Jewish supremacy.
Self-Serving Interpretations of Scripture
Based on a mix of sources, including the Zohar, Jacobson says ‘one regrets Hagar had Ishmael‘ (Ishmael was Abraham’s son through Hagar, Sarah’s handmaid). He points out that Ishmael was not circumcised until 13 years of age. As a result, God gave Ishmael’s posterity a portion for a period of time in Israel, and decreed that the children of Ishmael will rule the land for that time. But like their circumcision, which was not complete, it will be temporary. And it will be over a period of time when the land will be desolate. Then these people will prevent the children of Israel from returning to their place until the time has come to return the land to the Jewish people.
As a citation for this astonishing conclusion, Jacobson gives the page number: 32-A in the Zohar. I didn’t find his citations helpful, but I include them on the chance that someone else can use them. Then he continues: The children of Ishmael, the Arab nations and the Muslim nations, will cause great wars in the world, and the Children of Esau will gather against them. It’s a war between the West the the Muslim Arab world.
The Defeat of the Christian West
The war will go back and forth where the children of Esau, the Christians, and Romans and so on, will rule over the Ishmaelites. But the Children of Esau will not inhabit the land. The Holy Land will not be given over to them. At that time a nation from the ends of the earth will be aroused against evil Rome, and wage war against it for three months. Nations will gather there and Rome, referring to the Western World, will fall into their hands until all the children of Esau will gather against the nation, against that nation, from all the corners of the world. Then God will be roused against them. (And this is the meaning of the verse, for God is a sacrifice in Butra?). (That’s in Isaiah 3:46?) and afterwards it is written that it may take hold of the ends of the earth in (Job 38:31?) and he will defeat the descendants of Esau from the land and break all the powers of the nations, the nations’ guardian angels.
There will not remain any power of any people on earth except the power of Israel on earth (and this is the meaning God is your shade upon your right hand in the book of Psalms 12:15?), and then he concludes with verses talking about how ultimately we will come to the end of days, where on that day, God shall be one and his name one, and all the people of the nations of the world will recognize the name, and the truth of this one God each in their own way, (and that’s from the Book of Safia 3:9?) and then Blessed is God forever, amen and amen, and that’s how the Zohar ends.
False Humility
From here, he spends some time giving advice on humility and on how God wants harmony. But before peace can happen, there will be the period of these confrontations. What does that mean and translate in our lives he asks? That we all have within ourselves conflicts between our faith and the values that we believe in, and sometimes how do you implement that for example that has not compromised some of your ideals, due to so-called the realities on the ground. The challenge is how do you integrate the two.
Indeed!
Rothschild criticizes this belief system in more detail. For example, it is extremely disturbing that Chabad teaches similar divisions between peoples as the European far right. In this view, peoples of different nationalities belong to different species, with nothing in common. There is no universal man.
Modern Israel considers the West her enemy. And after squandering the West’s support, the Israeli’s believe that they will rule over the West with the approval of a Jewish God. Modern Israel is anti-West.
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Rick Wilson Blames Progressives for 2024
Rick Wilson’s interview with Harry Litman is just one example of the wrong-headed analyses of Kamala Harris’s loss that have been making the rounds since the 2024 election. For the most part, Rick Wilson blames progressives for 2024. At 21:42 in the video, Litman asks Wilson what the focus should be for rebuilding the Democratic Party. Wilson answers:
Stop looking over your left shoulder at the progressives because what have they proven to you this year? They don’t f**king care if you win or lose. They don’t care if you win or lose. All the garbage they put this party through and Harris through about Gaza, and the decisive number of democrats who voted for Jill Stein in Michigan because of Gaza..
Wilson is probably correct about Jill Stein’s part in Harris’s loss. He is not the first to call this out. His claim is based on his organization’s model. The model shows that progressive and Arab Democrats made up enough of he vote that killed her (Harris) in Michigan. Then he continues:
If these people, if the democratic party doesn’t realize that the progressives are not their ally, that they are a competing party inside their party, just like the Republican Party didn’t realize that MAGA was going to consume them…
I disagree with this comparison, as I explain below.
Wilson Says AOC Will Tweet Mean Things About Him
Wilson laments that he’ll get a lot of sh*t from progressives, and AOC will tweet mean things about him. He insists that he is a practical politics guy, not an ideologue or a pie in the sky whatever. He believes in victory and if you don’t have victory against Donald Trump and his allies in the 2026 cycle, goodbye, it’s over. They [the Democrats?] need to go at the throat [of progressives?] all the time. “There’s no more ‘my honorable friend’ in the house or Senate. They need to go to war every single day to stop every Trump appointee.”
Then Wilson goes to his focus on the trans issue. He cites the Trump campaign ads based on Harris’s past support for trans-friendly policies. Wilson doesn’t blame this on the Democratic Party. They were in fear of the left flank. Democrats have to overcome this fear.
He insists that he’s not telling the Democrats to become Republican light. He’s telling them to be more like Bill Clinton, who won by being a non-traditional Democrat. Or Barack Obama, who ‘came across like a country club Republican’. Wilson’s anti-progressive wish list for the Democratic Party includes things like ditch the radical talk, the progressive fantasy world. Stop thinking you have to go out and campaign to talk to workers about industrial policy and solar panel jobs. Start talking to them where they live (which he implies is not in the trans world). This harangue against progressivism, or against Wilson’s definition of progressivism, continues until 26:31.
Wilson’s Progressivism is a Straw Man
It seems obvious that when Rick Wilson blames progressives for 2024, he’s not talking about progressives at all. He’s talking about the progressive fantasy world. And the progressive fantasy world is his own creation. Furthermore, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama are not the way forward as he suggests. They are part of the Democratic Party’s past. Furthermore, they lost this election. In recommending them to Democrats, Wilson reveals his irrelevance to both Democrats and progressives.
The Progressive Response
Much of what I’ve written since 2016 assumes readers remember the exhilaration of calling out the madness in the Middle East and then discovering Bernie Sanders. I probably should have written about that process in the lead up to this election.
We suddenly saw that it was time for a new direction. If this sounds overly ambitious, there was reason to believe that our leaders saw it too. Their foreign policy had been a spectacular failure, Libya being the most recent example before Gaza. And there were going to be repercussions that no one seemed concerned about.
The Importance of Food Systems
Bombs and white phosphorus were destroying food systems and farmland. Land and water resources and housing were in danger, while the global population was larger that it had ever been. By 2050, the population would reach 9 billion. We declared that it was time to stop the destruction. It was time to prepare for coming generations.
Intervention in Libya, Credit: By Jolly Janner This agenda implied self-sacrifice on the part of progressives, but it had an enthusiastic following. I would argue that it was the blossoming of new life in the electorate. But the Democrats chose to cling to their failed worldview. Or perhaps they were clinging to the worldview of their donors. The blindness and arrogance were breathtaking.
Progressives are the Loyal Opposition
However, progressives are nothing like MAGA. We voted for Hillary in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020. In 2024, I urged progressives to vote for Kamala. Then came 2024. We were told Biden was pressured to drop out of the race because of his health. His policy platform was not part of the discussion.
However, Harris was consistently asked whether she would continue Biden’s policies. Questions about her policy proposals began to grow.
This is strange, given the fact that Bernie’s candidacy had been scuttled by Barack Obama. He decided it would be Biden instead of Bernie. We voted for Joe Biden to keep Trump out. And then Biden surprised us by cooperating with the progressives. My point is that we had no reason to think we could hold Harris over a barrel policy-wise. The salient points were that she was young and healthy and not Trump.
There was also the problem of Gaza. It is a problem. Voters, especially Arab voters, hated Joe Biden for his part in the genocide. Therefore…what? Don’t vote? Vote for Trump? It was a hard decision. However, progressives are not necessarily to blame. Gaza caused everyone anguish in one way or another. How could it not affect the way they vote? No voter should have to weigh the suffering of Gaza when they cast their vote. But that’s what they had to do.
The Democratic Establishment Fought Progressives. The trans-rights issue came from them, not us.
In 2016, the Democratic Establishment was thunderstruck that anyone would criticize their policies. They apparently thought everything was going well. Instead of accepting progressive criticism, they fought it tooth and nail. They fought our candidate too. It was almost embarrassing how openly they went to war against Bernie Sanders.
We knew very little about Bernie back then. As it happened, his focus was not food and water security or foreign policy. It was more about elevating the domestic working class and alleviating wealth and income inequality. For progressives on the other hand, food and water security was tied to foreign policy. It was an internationalist outlook from the beginning. We knew that we can never be secure when so much of the world is in turmoil and so many people lack basic necessities. And this state of affairs was being driven by US foreign policy.
If we had analyzed our differences with Bernie, we would have supported him anyway. Compared to the neocons and Conservatives, Bernie was like rain in the desert. However, we did have one thing in common with Bernie: none of us was even thinking about the trans issue or same-sex marriage.
The Indiscriminate and Undiscriminating World of Alternative Media
The term ‘woke’ appeared quite early in our conversation. I don’t know where it came from. I would guess that the woman who first uttered it was a manifestation of establishment (probably Democratic) consultation.
From the Republican side, a fear campaign was launched against the term ‘social justice’. I once used this term in reference to Bernie’s agenda. I didn’t realize it had negative connotations from the World War II era. But during World War II, this term was not used by the Democratic Party–progressive or otherwise. It was associated with Father Charles Coughlin, an American right-wing supporter of Adolf Hitler. Of course the Republicans didn’t mention that in 2016.
Leading up to the 2016 election, YouTube pundits began encouraging progressives to vote for either Bernie Sanders or Jill Stein. I objected in their video comments and on my blog. I said that telling young voters to choose between two candidates is not a strategy. But they continued.
Jill Stein has been lauded consistently over the last decade by Chris Hedges. Hedges appears to be a progressive but he always seems to be working against the Democratic Party.
Trans Rights
No one has ever explained to me how same-sex marriage and trans rights are progressive. At least not in the sense of 21st century progressivism. Our focus is the survival of the human race, which is threatened by war and unsustainable agricultural systems. We’re not just promoting the survival of the human race. We are in search of a fulfilling and productive existence for everyone.
But the celebration of same-sex marriage and trans rights seemed to appear on the scene as part of a full-scale blitz. Certain ‘progressive’ YouTube pundits suddenly appeared with over ten thousand followers and they immediately joined in the celebration.
We support policies that fight discrimination. This includes discrimination against same-sex couples and trans people. But same-sex marriage and trans rights do not take precedence over survival in the progressive agenda.
The 2024 Election
When Benjamin Netanyahu attacked Gaza in spite of Americans’ warnings and objections, I predicted that he would continue to pound the people of Gaza until the election. And that’s what he did. Today everyone agrees that Israel’s behavior hurt Joe Biden’s chances in the 2024 election. Of course it did. It was meant to hurt Biden. Netanyahu wanted Trump to win the election.
Palestinians inspect the damage following an Israeli airstrike on the El-Remal aera in Gaza City on October 9, 2023. Israel continued to battle Hamas fighters on October 10 and massed tens of thousands of troops and heavy armour around the Gaza Strip after vowing a massive blow over the Palestinian militants’ surprise attack. Photo by Naaman Omar apaimages The voters were herded like cattle on market day. That’s how Trump won the presidency. and it didn’t happen in a media vacuum. Influencers on YouTube and in Michigan pushed the strategy of punishing Biden in the election. It was obvious to most people that helping Trump get elected would not be good for Gaza, but the influencers continued anyway. These influencers included Benjamin Netanyahu, Chris Hedges and Jill Stein.
It’s not the first time voters have been herded. However if Trump has his way, it will be the last time. No elections, no voters. I could lecture you that strategic thinking and voting is important in a democracy. However, even if a majority of Americans could be influenced by such arguments I would be closing the barn door after the cows got out.
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A Progressive View of the 2024 Election
This article is a progressive view of the 2024 election. This is just the way I see it. It’s the result of watching the electoral process very closely since 2015, but I could be wrong on any point. It’s value to me is that it refutes many of the strategic mistakes I see in the political conversation. I think the following factors are important for decision-making in 2024. What do you think?
- The political establishment is able to stop the progressive agenda in its tracks. Progressives should have learned this in the 2016 election.
- Donald Trump is part of the establishment. That explains why the Biden Administration has continued many of Trump’s foreign policies. However, President Biden has cooperated with progressives in domestic policy. Biden achieved many important policy changes as a result. We seem to be looking at two different factions within the government.
- Kamala Harris is a legitimate alternative to Donald Trump. However, Harris supporters of all political persuasions lament that she does not have the particular policies they want her to have. I believe this is evidence of a blindness to the reality that progressives were forced to learn in 2016, and which was repeated in 2020.
- Biden and Kamala Harris as his VP have taken the progressives seriously. We don’t know if this will continue with a Harris presidency. Nevertheless, anyone who tells you that you have a choice in this particular election is leading you astray.
- Kamala Harris is a good soldier, or she would not be the Democratic candidate for president. However, she may now have, or she may develop in the course of her presidency, a more nuanced agenda. We won’t know until we elect her.
- Kamala represents a new generation of leadership. The entire political establishment is past its prime. Republicans admit this fact. The Democratic establishment still thinks it dodged a bullet in defeating Bernie Sanders.
- The Green Party in the United States acts as an electoral pied piper for progressives. So does Donald Trump. Trump plays the part of the dancing fascist, partly as a way to distract the electorate.
- It is well-known that Donald Trump has had ties with the Mob. This brings up some interesting questions. Mafias need states to make money. They earn money by providing services for these states. One of these services is helping certain candidates win elections. Therefore, it is very interesting that Trump is proposing to dismantle the US government bureaucracy. Trump’s Mob ties suggest the US ‘state’ is not going away. Apparently, Trump is serving its most extreme faction.
- This extreme faction had no plan until the progressives developed their agenda in 2015. That’s how the right operates. Conservatives don’t propose new ideas. They only react to progressive proposals.
- Trump is both a fraud and a real threat. He is an actor in someone else’s play. That has always been his role in the US government.
- Mara-a-Lago has flood insurance through the federal government’s National Flood Insurance Program. Trump once took a $17 million insurance payment for damage that no one remembers happening.
- Trump put on quite an act when he teased us with the release of the JFK assassination files. Trump probably knows exactly who killed JFK and he doesn’t need the files to give him this information.
- Donald Trump had a meeting with Bill Clinton immediately before he announced his candidacy in 2015. Perhaps the events are not connected. Bill should explain this.
- Hillary Clinton received a large sum of money in 2016, after she was defeated. The Clintons used it to purchase the estate next to theirs in New York. Their daughter Chelsea and her family have the use of that estate when she visits her parents.
- I believe the loss of the 2016 election surprised Hillary. It was a crushing blow. Trump was probably surprised as well. He thought he was only there to defeat Sanders. I’ll bet Bill was not surprised.
- This does not mean that the 2024 election is not meaningful. If we fail to defeat Trump in this election, he will do exactly as he says he is going to do and no one will stop him. Trump will continue to behave as a fascist if he is elected, although he won’t have free rein.