r/thebulwark

I live in a tiny, rural town in Southern MAGA country, population 250. This week, the very last Trump flag visible on my work commute came down. This is probably the first time in a decade that this has been true.

He disagreed with the Publisher and they made a video hashing it out instead of her telling him to not squash the topic

I continue to love the bulwark even though I’m like way left of most of them lol

"Three weeks into the conflict—in mid-March—White House chief of staff Susie Wiles forced a meeting of Donald Trump’s most trusted advisers to deliver the bad news. Privately, Wiles had urged the president’s inner circle to stop feeding him a rose-tinted interpretation of the conflict, fearing that Trump was largely unaware of the domestic fallout of the war just months ahead of a contentious midterm season, Time magazine reported Thursday."

and

"Wiles urged her colleagues to be “more forthright with the boss” about the political and economic risks of pushing U.S. troops into Iran, according to Time."

I'm not sure how effective Susie's exhortations to Trump's advisors will be. The rain they are feeding him only what he wants to hear is that he reacts badly when people don't tell him what he wants to hear. Nothing Susie says to Trump's advisors will change that dynamic.

Also, I notice that Ms Wiles herself did not have the courage to go to trump and say something along the lines of, "Sir, all of us have been shielding you from the truth. I'm sorry to say that a majority of Americans actually hate what you've been doing and that Republicans will absolutely lose the House and possibly the Senate as well unless you drastically change course."

instead, she asks everyone else to do what she herself doesn't have the courage to do.

I haven’t worn a mask since 2022 except when I worked in a hospital for a bit and when I’ve been sick, but during covid I thought so many people were making way too big a deal about being required to wear masks. Yes, they can be uncomfortable and annoying, but it felt like a minor inconvenience to try and keep both others and myself safe.

I honestly think that people who were against having to wear masks were displaying selfish individualism that seems to be so deeply ingrained in American culture, as opposed to the culture of community and social responsibility seen in many East Asian countries.

America's reliance on oil has now fucked us in two middle east wars, and has been the driving force behind a lot of the conflict dynamics of the globe for years.

China is the current winner in green technology, and it's not even close. It's time for a new American moonshot. We eliminate the need for oil in America by 2050.

That's the new FDR-level movement. American dominance in renewable energy by 2050.