Recovery came in the form of the Biden Administration. Steps were taken to resolve supply chain issues, distribute vaccines, and provide resources to businesses, saving literally millions of jobs that would have been lost otherwise. More jobs were lost under Trump than any previous Presidential administration since Hoover. The recovery, something which required, and got, leadership from Joe Biden, saved most of those jobs, and his economic expansion, including the infrastructure bill, added even more.

On top of that, when global inflation affected the American economy, we had a leader who stepped up and took action against that as well. As a result, the effects of inflation were not nearly as bad in the United States as they were in most other places.

And as another result, few Americans are aware of any of this. They are either self-isolated in their own information bubble, or they are bored with politics, economics and "all that stuff," and pay little attention. And even if they really had wanted to find out what was going on, their limited attention span wouldn't have allowed them to stay tuned in long enough to get past all the Trump news they were hearing and seeing every day.

If an honest survey could be conducted and reported, it would find that Trump, as an ex-President, got ten times the coverage that the sitting President of the United States got in the mainstream media. I counted, one night, back in 2021, during the Congressional investigation into Trump's incitement of the insurrection against the Capitol and against Congress and the American people, during the one hour broadcast of one of my favorite commentators, Lawrence O'Donnell. He's not Trump-friendly by any means. The name "Trump" or "Donald Trump" came out of his lips 34 times in that one hour broadcast, about once every two minutes.

In resigning ourselves to the fact that we have lost our free press, Democrats must figure out not only how to simplify the narrative so people actually understand how it works for them, but they must do things to get enough attention to make media outlets turn their cameras off the orange headed buffoon onto Democratic party candidates. I know it's not in our nature, but the only way we're going to be able to do any kind of mass saturation of the media with a clear, easy to understand message, is to do things to get the kind of attention Trump gets.

We must consider the mainstream media propaganda, not journalism, and use it that way and not feel guilty about it. Only then will we be able to explain, in the simplest of terms, how much more we have to offer the American people by making government work well, than they do, by destroying it.

One of the most high profile criminals in all of American history is not just walking away scot-free, he is headed for a second term as President of the United States. If I were writing a novel and I wanted to create the most incredibly unbelieveable problem for the characters to resolve, I could not have come up with a theme as crazy, and as incredible as this.

He attempted to overturn the results of a state's election by intimidating election workers and threatening state officials, corruptly asking to "find me 11,000 more votes." He took classified documents from the White House, an openly illegal crime, and then attempted to hide them from the FBI. He tried to cover up an illicit affair with a porn star by putting the payoffs into his business budget. And worst of all, he attempted to overthrown the results of a legitimate election, and thus overthrow the government of the United States, by inciting a violent riot that intended to commit murder to do so, and in fact, did just that.

And he walks away from all of it. This isn't something hidden in some corner, it's something the whole world can see, and it is an utter embarrassment to the United States. It is a message to the rest of the world that there is no rule of law in America, and that we have, by default, become an oligarchy of the rich, even as our form of government goes through the motions. The constitution has failed in one of its core objectives to protect the American people.

I still fail to understand how it could be that a mob could attack the Capitol, at the instigation of the President, and he was not arrested, charged and taken into custody the day after the insurrection, when it was clear he incited it. That's what should have happened, and why it did not happen is something generations of Americans will pay for with their individual rights and freedoms. I've heard all of the Justice department apologists and they can keep their defensive rhetoric. This was a monumental failure of justice, of the legal system, the courts and of the Department of Justice.

What's happened during, and since the January 6th Trump Insurrection has been nothing short of appalling. I have no vocabulary strong enough or condemning enough to express my utter disgust and disappointment with that group of Americans, displaying their appalling and obtuse ignorance and their total abandonment of reason and critical thinking in attacking the Congress while in a dual session for the purpose of certifying an election in which none of the alleged "fraud" could be proven. Those who showed up demonstrated total lack of respect for the constitution's provisions for the separation of powers, operation of the federal government and the peaceful transfer of power.

This was the most heinous attack on American government since the Civil War. In all honesty, those who participated in it should have had their citizenship revoked, and required to go through the process of learning about the constitution, like foreigners who want to become citizens, before being allowed back into American society.

The congressional investigation was impeccable. Evidence was laid out in front of anyone who cared to take a look at it. The committee was virtually flawless in their presentation and remarkably unified in their conclusions. I was quite baffled at the fact that four members of the House were able to defy subpoenas, and allowed to get away with it. This is a clear indication Republicans no longer have any respect for the rule of law, or the constitution, and that is something that we, the people, need to correct by making them suffer the consequence of not being allowed to participate in government if they won't cooperate. I don't know how it was that members of Congress didn't get that message when we had a majority in both Houses.

The inability of the justice department to take that evidence, make a case with it and get it moving in a timely fashion is simply inexcusable incompetence. I'm angry at the foot-dragging, delaying obfuscation that went on at the DOJ for a couple of reasons. One is because we were left with the impression that they were moving as quickly as they could, given the deliberate and cumbersome nature of a legal system slanted to favor the rich who can afford good legal representation that slows down the process and makes a strategy out of interminable delays and legal minutia. The other is because they were lying about it, and they weren't actually doing anything at all, and had it not been for this being discovered, almost a year later in the process, and there having been a public outcry over it, no charges might ever have been filed against Trump for leading an insurrection.

And this is where my anger burns a bit hotter. The prime narrative of the Biden campaign, and his administration, along with his aims for re-election, emphasized that Trump was an existential threat to American democracy, and that the coming elections were crucial to the preservation of our democracy and the most consequential of our lifetime. Yet, they had the power, and the evidence, to have Trump permanently declared ineligible for public office by charging him with insurrection and making that verdict stick, because that's all it would have taken and it would have been the easiest case to prove.

If it were not for three hours of sanity, from 8:00 to 11:00 a.m. Central time each morning, I do not know how I would be handling this election and its results. For me, it's on an AM radio station, WCPT in Chicago, which is the only radio station to which I now listen, since the music station I used to put on in the afternoon has CBS news on the hour. The steadfast beacon of reason and hope through what I see as impending disaster for this country has been the Stephanie Miller show.

Stephanie Miller stands to lose as much as anyone in the media on the left. People sometimes look at me driving in traffic like I'm an idiot because I'm fist pumping or applauding some pithy, insulting thing they've said about Trump. There have been mornings when I've laughed so hard, I've had to pull over and get out of traffic because I literally couldn't see or hold my composure well enough to drive. Who'd have ever thought that political reality could be so terrifying and yet so funny at the same time?

She is one of just a few media personalities whom I now trust to tell me the truth. She hasn't backed down. She's shared the same fears and feelings we all had when the election results were announced and the same sense of being lost, not knowing what to do, and wondering where we are headed. But she's remain steadfast in her convictions, and her approach, the manner in which she delivers her message, and the truth she tells, and nothing has changed in spite of her clear awareness of any and all possibilities as Trump's administration settles in.

When I tuned in and listened to her program the morning after the election, I cried. Not because I was disappointed in the results, though I had cried about that earlier, but because I was listening to some truly genuine people who thought like I thought, and who were expressing the same feelings, in public, on the air, as I was feeling at that very moment. I've been tuned in every morning since then. I work in an environment that would get pretty hostile and uncomfortable quickly if I had her show on the radio in my office. I have a hearing device and I can connect it to the live stream from my phone and listen that way, and no one else even knows.

John Dewey, known as the founder of American progressive education, declared that "Democracy, and the one ultimate, ethical ideal of humanity are to my mind synonymous." As an educational reformer, and one of the most prominent American scholars in the early twentieth century, Dewey believed that an informed and educated electorate was the key to preserving America's constitutional democracy.

Dewey was right. Events leading up to and including this 2024 election in the United States have proved his words to be correct. If the election is an accurate reflection of the political will of the people, then this one is a reflection of appalling ignorance about the issues at stake, and of the ability of sheer propaganda to penetrate and saturate the electorate to achieve a result not consistent with reality. We have an electorate that is blatantly apathetic, appallingly ignorant and inexcusably uneducated that has just allegedly elected leadership bent on the destruction of American Constitutional Democracy.

And the clown that was elected is lining up a group of individuals whose incompetence and inability to manage the parts of the executive branch to which he plans to appoint them will destroy what they don't intentionally ruin when they get there. For anyone who might be placing hope in a group of Republican senators to stop this clown show, and demand that the people appointed to these cabinet positions at least be competent and capable of doing the job, and not flawed by a criminal record, or by a subversive, treasonous relationship with Vladimir Putin, or by their own deviant sexual behavior, I'll tell you now you will be disappointed. No Republican anywhere in that party's leadership has integrity any more. They're just protecting their assets at this point, like pathetic Lindsay Graham, who trots around after Trump with toilet paper and tissues, to wipe his ass and blow his nose.

So what should we now expect from the leadership of the Democratic party, after losing an election they convinced most of us to believe was the most consequential of our lifetime? Is it politics as usual? Is is an attitude of, "Well, at least I won my election and I'll be able to take my seat and collect my government paycheck and expenses." If this election was so consequential, and our democracy is now in the most danger it ever has been in, then I need to hear from the party leadership, and I need to see something that convinces me that they don't just think this is all intense election rhetoric aimed at getting contributions and votes and now we're all just going to hunker down and endure until the next election gives us a chance to change things.

If our democracy really is in danger, there may not be a "next election."

I'm going to need to see more than what I'm seeing now. If, somehow, someway our democracy does survive the next four years, the person who gets my vote will be the one who led the way through this darkness, confusion and terror of what's coming, shows no fear of Trump, challenges any moves he makes to abuse the law to get even with his enemies, and leads a genuine resistance movement that I will gladly volunteer to join and financially support.

The Southern Baptists just had a major sexual abuse scandal exposed by two Texas daily newspapers, The Houston Chronicle and The San Antonio Express News. This particular expose only dealt with cases that had been reported, verified and adjudicated. Tipped off by victims who had reported abuse that had occurred at the hands of pastors and church leaders, and had their reports covered up at the denominational level, the denomination's leadership has delayed, resisted and obfuscated when it comes to getting to the bottom of what's going on. The rank and file membership of the denomination has demanded action with overwhelmingly huge affirmative votes at their annual convention, only to have their desires stymied by a balking bureaucracy bent on protecting the reputation of some of the denomination's prominent, prestigious pastors and denominational leadership.

One of the denomination's most prominent pastors, who served as its President for two terms, and then was promoted into leadership at its North American Mission Board was implicated in the investigation, and confessed to an "inappropriate relationship." He then got four of his close friends to take him through what they called a "restoration," in which he became repentant, and they pronounced him "restored" to his conference and preaching ministry business, which nets him millions in annual income.

Sound familiar?

No wonder these people are not all that upset with the bankrupt moral character of Donald Trump and the cronies he is assembling to make up his administration. Their own moral character is lacking, and whatever power or influence they are after is more important to them than character. So they've invented all kinds of excuses to justify their association with evil, and they're ignoring the pathological lying, deceit, misogyny and abuse of women, and the complete and utter moral bankruptcy of Trump and his entourage.

In spite of known character flaws, moral impurity, illegal conduct and being untrustworthy liars, all things which the late Dr. Adrian Rogers, a highly respected Southern Baptist pastor and denominational officer, said disqualifies any candidate running for political office in the United States. So their support makes them complicit in his evil, and guilty of the sins they condemn in others.

These people believe that the prosperity and peace of the United States is directly affected by the collective "morality" of the nation, and if we get to the point to where we have more sinners than saints, making us do "worldly" things as a nation, such as give rights to LGBTQ persons, or allow abortions, then God will judge this country and remove its prosperity as a blessing.

I'm serious. That is, in a nutshell, what we are looking at with these people. The test of righteousness is shutting down a measurable amount of immorality in order to get back into God's good graces so he keeps the money streaming along, feeding our prosperity.

They have a very distorted view of the Christian gospel. They see themselves as agents of God's righteousness, and are not adverse to ignoring what Jesus claimed are the very core values of the Christian gospel to achieve a very different end. They no longer see non-Christians as "lost people" in need of saving redemption, they see them as enemies of God deserving of death. They believe people who are not intently committed to Christianity are reprobate, chosen by God for damnation, and unworthy of life.

I've told friends of mine for decades now that if the United States ever had a dictatorship in which Evangelical conservatives were determined to have a prominent role, they would be as merciless and brutal in their attacks on and elimination of their perceived enemies as the church of the middle ages was in pursuing and burning heretics at the stake. It's time to pay attention to "Seven Mountains Dominionists" and the kind of rhetoric being thrown around by people proclaiming themselves to be prophets and prophetesses. They subvert the Christian gospel by claiming that their words are a new revelation, replacing that which was preached and taught by Jesus, that what Jesus said then, pertained to that generation then, and what they say now pertains to this generation now. And they see their mission and purification of the world which makes them more than willing to murder to achieve their purpose.

But don't take just my word for it. The Oklahoma state school superintendent is giving a good primer in what's coming. The Women's Christian Temperance Union showed how religious intimidation worked. Today's Charismatic prophets and Fundamentalist legalists are angrier and more full of hate. I'm just saying, we better be ready.