Cancel Your Subscription to Spotify Today

Last week, I cancelled my subscription to Spotify because the company is running recruitment advertisements for ICE. I told the company that I was doing it to protest against the ads and that when they stopped running the ads, I would reinstate my subscription. I cancelled my subscription as a part of a national movement to boycott Spotify in protest against the running of the ads.

Why did I feel that I had to do that?

We Must Use the Weapons We Have

Our democracy is in danger, and ICE has become the symbol of the drive toward oligarchy. In our fight to preserve our democracy, we must use all of the weapons at our disposal. The Trump administration is doing everything that it can to turn our country into an oligarchy, and raids by masked ICE thugs are one of the means that the administration is using to increase its power and to make us afraid to oppose it.

The normal political weapons to oppose Trump's effort appear to be ineffective. His party has full control of the legislative branch, and the party’s members fear to oppose him even when he damages the interests of their constituents and even when he claims powers that belong rightfully to the legislative branch. Thus, for example, he has been able to impose tariffs on imports without Congress’s approval by faking a national emergency. The judicial branch also seems to be under the president’s control at least partially. The Supreme Court has regularly overturned rulings by lower courts in order to facilitate the drive toward oligarchy.

We may be able to take control of Congress away from the president in the 2026 elections, but that outcome is far from guaranteed. In any case, we cannot afford to wait another full year to begin to oppose the administration’s disastrous policies. We must do what we can do now with the weapons that we have.

The would-be oligarchs have rallied to Mr. Trump’s support as we can see from their donations to his project of building a newballroom at the White House. However, the would-be oligarchs are vulnerable to pressure from their customers. We can make it expensive for the oligarchs to support Mr. Trump, and we can use that power today.

We Must Stick Together

We should stick together and follow the leadership of progressive organizations. The boycott of Spotify is a national movement that is being promoted by strong national organizations including No Kings and Indivisible. Many of us joined them recently in the largest, peaceful, political demonstrations in our country’s history, but if we want to win in the struggle against oligarchy, our commitment must extend beyond a single day's protest. We must continue to stick together in solidarity with such organizations. We will not agree with them on every issue, but progressive forces cannot win by fighting among themselves. If the boycott is effective, it will show the would-be oligarchs that the people have power and that we are prepared to use it. However, the boycott cannot be successful unless we stick together to support it.

We Must Focus Our Efforts

You may ask why we are focusing our efforts on Spotify. After all, several companies are supporting the drive toward oligarchy. Why do we attack Spotify and not those other companies. The answer is that we cannot do everything at once. We have limited resources, and we must focus our efforts if we are to be effective. The boycott of Spotify is not the only possible action, but it is a real national action that we can support now. If allow ourselves to be immobilized because we can see that other actions are possible, we will never do anything, and we will never win. The boycott will fail without our support.

We Should Do An Easy Thing Today To Avoid Big Sacrifices Tomorrow

A day may come when we have to make big sacrifices to save our democracy. That day is not yet, and perhaps, if we act now, that day may never come. So, let us act now and hope that we will succeed.  Cancelling a subscription to Spotify is easy, and if we do enough such easy things before it is too late, perhaps we will not need to make big sacrifices later. 

So, I urge you to cancel your subscription to Spotify. We must stick together; we must use the weapons that we have; and we must focus our efforts to be successful. Resist!

Political Theater to Promote Oligarchy

Is Promoting Oligarchy the Real Goal? 

What if promoting oligarchy is Trump's real goal, and his other policies are just political theater that he uses to build and maintain his power? I have said in past posts that Trump’s populism is fake and that his real goal is promoting an oligarchy in order to reduce taxes and reduce regulation of business. He works primarily to strengthen the control of our country by the rich. 

However, Trump does many things that do not appear to have any relation to his desire to build an oligarchy. What is the point of those actions? Perhaps, they are theatrical performances designed to keep his MAGA voters happy and to justify limiting freedom of speech and of the press.  

Keeping the MAGA voters happy is important to Mr. Trump because his power depends on them, but he does not want to do anything of real substance for them that might damage the interests of his oligarchic supporters. He solves this problem by doing dramatic things that the MAGA folks love, and he thereby strengthens his hold on power. Thus, the actions that appear to be unrelated to the promotion of oligarchy are in fact important parts of the drive toward it.

A Performative Effort to Deport Immigrants

Consider for example his program of arresting and deporting undocumented immigrants. In another post on this blog, I showed that the methods he is using will not allow him to deport more than a small fraction of our undocumented immigrants, and I warned that we should expect him to resort to methods that are more violent and oppressive. 

But what if the point is not really to deport the immigrants at all but instead only to give the impression that he is deporting them and to promote protests that will justify the use of troops on American streets? Millions of MAGA voters voted for Trump because he promised to rid the country of undocumented immigrants. To maintain the loyalty of those voters, he must have a deportation program. On the other hand, some of the profits earned by his oligarchic supporters depend on the labor of undocumented immigrants. How can he please both groups in his coalition? 

He can do so by having a theatrical but limited program of deportation. He appears to be very tough on immigrants, but he actually deports only a small fraction of them. Thus, he keeps both his MAGA supporters and his oligarchic supporters happy. 

In addition, his theatrical use of masked thugs outrages his opponents and promotes resistance that justifies the restriction of freedom of speech along with use of military forces in places like Chicago or Los Angeles. Thus, the oligarchy is strengthened while relatively few immigrants are deported. All of Trump's supporters are pleased, and the oligarchy is strengthened.

We saw a great example of a performative raid recently in New York. According to the New York Times, 

More than 50 federal agents fanned out in the heart of Lower Manhattan on Tuesday afternoon, brushing past confused tourists and pedestrians to detain several men near Canal Street and quickly drawing dozens of protesters to the streets.

The article went on to say, 

The operation appeared to lead to at least four detentions, according to witnesses, with the sight of dozens of masked agents descending on the edge of TriBeCa making for a visible display of force by the Trump administration in the streets of Manhattan.

Yes, it took 50 agents to arrest four people! This does not look like a part of a real attempt to deport our millions of undocumented immigrants. It looks more like a public display of force designed to make our president look tough in order to please his MAGA voters.

Sinking Boats in the Caribbean

Consider also his recent program of sinking Venezuelan boats in the Caribbean Sea. He says that the reason he is doing it is to combat what he calls narco-terrorists and to stop the flow into our country of the drugs that are killing Americans. However, that explanation does not really make sense. The drugs that are killing Americans are mainly methamphetamines that do not come from Venezuela. They are manufactured in Mexico, which means that his actions cannot achieve what he says he wants to achieve.

On the other hand, if his real goal is to give the impression of fighting the drug trade, to please the MAGA folks and to provide a smoke screen for his oligarchic program, his theatrical and flamboyant actions in the Caribbean make sense. They strengthen his contention that we are in a state of national emergency that justifies his use of troops on American streets as well as his limiting freedom of speech.

Peace-Making as Theater

Then there is the cease fire that he managed to arrange in Gaza. He and his supporters claim that he has brought peace to the Middle East, but anyone who knows a little of the history of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians can see that is nonsense.  At best, he has brought about a brief pause in the conflict. However, his action in the Middle East works well as political theater. His MAGA supporters are thrilled, and members of the oligarchy may get opportunities to make profitable real estate investments in Gaza. Thus, Trump's drive toward oligarchy is strengthened.

Theater as a Political Tool

Mr. Trump is a master of the use of theater as a political tool. It has allowed him to hold together his fragile coalition of the business Republicans and the MAGA Republicans. He has also used theater very effectively to trap American liberals into protesting against his theatrical presentations instead of protesting against his efforts to help the rich and entrench an oligarchy. Fortunately, the current budget fight gives liberals a chance to focus their efforts on preserving affordable healthcare, which is something that really matters to millions of American voters. Let's keep our eyes on the ball.

Taking Back Our Country: the Next Steps

The Next Step

The No Kings rallies across the country were inspiring, and if you attended one as I did, you probably feel energized and ready to do what you can to take back our country. At the same time, you may wonder what you can do. Can you really make a difference and if so, how? The answer is a definite and unequivocal “Yes!” You can make difference, and the time to do it is coming up fast!

Elections Are Coming Up Soon

The Grifter in Chief's ability to do the awful things that he does depends on his control of both houses of Congress, and that control rests on razor-thin majorities. According to an article written in January of this year,

 If all members of the House are present and voting, and if the Democratic minority is unified, then Republicans can afford to lose two defectors and still win an otherwise party-line vote, 218-217. 

There are elections coming up in 2026, and if the Democrats can flip only 3 of the Republicans’ 220 seats, the Democrats may gain control of the House. It is likely that this will happen. Historically, the president’s party almost always loses congressional seats in midterm elections. In addition, Trump’s tariffs and his immigration policies have caused considerable harm to farmers and rural businesses and have upset a lot of people. Finally, there are many swing districts. So, winning a few seats for Democrats is very do-able, but it won’t happen unless Democrats work to make it happen.

What You Can Do

Here is what you should do:

• Go on line and learn all you can about Democrats who are running to unseat Republican representatives.
• Pick a few candidates whom you want to support. Go to their websites and donate money to their campaigns. Give what you can. Even small gifts can make a big difference.  Think of AOC’s trademark requests for $3 donations.
• Go the office of the Democratic Party in your county and offer to volunteer to help. There is work to do in the office; there are envelopes to stuff; there are phone calls to make; there is canvassing to do.
• Visit the website of at least one candidate who is running in your home district or a nearby district.  Donate money to his/her campaign. Offer to volunteer.
• Spread the word. Help to build a movement.
• Share this blog post on your favorite social media to spread the word to as many people as possible.
• Email or text a link to this blog post to your friends.
• If you live in Outagamie County, Wisconsin, where I live, you should attend a meeting on October 28 at the office of the local Democratic Party to learn more about how you can help. Details about the meeting are available on the WisDems website.

Act Now

Don’t sit and fret. Do some of the things listed here. Act now! You have an opportunity make a real difference, and you should not miss that opportunity. We can take back our country. Let’s get busy!

Using the Constitution to Frame Progressive Values and Political Proposals

Reclaiming the Constitution For Social Justice

A few weeks ago, in a post on this blog, I said that we who work for social justice in the United States should use basic long-standing, America values to frame our goals. In this post, I want to go further and say that we should root our values explicitly in our country's Constitution. Struggles for social justice in the United States have always been struggles over the meaning of our Constitution. Americans have argued about what the Constitution permits our government to do, and more importantly, they have argued about what the Constitution requires our government to do. In recent decades, we progressives have forgotten how to use the Constitution to argue for social justice, but The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution by Fishkin and Forbath tells us how to reclaim that knowledge and how to use it in the political battles of our time.

Fishkin and Forbath show us that the Constitution is not merely – as most liberals now see it - a set of limits on the powers of government. The Constitution also sets out affirmative duties for the Federal Government and especially for its elected branches. The big conflicts of the past including those of the Populist era or those of the New Deal were seen by the people of those times as conflicts over the meaning of the Constitution and were fought out on those grounds in the political arena and not just in the courts.

We must reclaim the tradition of framing political goals like universal healthcare or affordable childcare in terms of values that are rooted in an interpretation of the affirmative duties of the federal government and especially of Congress. We should claim that the policies we recommend ought to be supported by all patriotic Americans because those policies flow from and are required by the basic principles of our Constitution. There are two approaches that we can use: the textual approach and the structural approach.

The Textual Approach to Framing Policy Proposals

The textual approach consists of interpreting the text of the Constitution in a way that stresses underlying values. The affirmative duties of the Federal Government come from several sources. First, the Constitution’s Preamble tells us that it was established in order to “…promote the general Welfare and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.” The powers enumerated in the body of the Constitution should thus be interpreted in a way that is consistent with its purpose of promoting the general welfare. For example, Congress might establish a national healthcare system on the grounds that it promotes the general welfare. 

The Preamble is not the only source of affirmative duties. Section 4 of Article IV says, “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government ….” This clearly means that Congress has a duty to make sure through appropriate legislation that no state turns its democratic government into an oligarchy through restrictions on voting rights or through corruption.  But Congress's duty may extend much farther. For example, Congress may have a duty to prevent our current administration from using the threat of invasion to bypass a state's democratic procedures and guarantees.

The Structural Approach to Framing Policy Proposals

The structural approach relies on the idea that the democratic political system established by our Constitution can survive only if certain structural conditions are met. The founders of our republic believed that democracy requires a broad, stable and secure middle class and an economy that gives members of the middle class opportunities to improve their condition. The founders also believed that democracy is incompatible with the concentration of wealth in an oligarchy that can use its wealth to control the legislative process and generally to subvert democracy. 

Throughout American history, progressive reformers have argued that for these reasons, Congress has a duty to enact legislation to prevent the rise of an oligarchy and to provide security and opportunity to the middle class. The protection of voting rights and campaign finance reform may obviously be justified in this way, but Congress’s responsibility to maintain a broad middle class and to prevent the rise of an oligarchy could also provide a basis for enacting a wealth tax or for expanding Social Security. 

The same logic may be used as a part of the justification for a national healthcare system. Today, healthcare emergencies are the most common cause of personal bankruptcies in the United States, and even in the absence of bankruptcies, the cost of health insurance weighs heavily on our middle class and limits the ability of middle-class people to take advantage of opportunities to get ahead. Thus, the lack of a national healthcare system threatens the structural foundations of our political system, and therefore, our government must provide a national healthcare system in order to preserve the structural conditions without which the democratic political system established by our Constitution cannot survive.

The Constitution and Inclusion

Both the textual and the structural approaches may be used to support policies of inclusion. The general welfare should be seen to include the welfare of women and of racial and religious minorities, and we must see that if oligarchy is incompatible with democracy, an oligarchy of white men is unacceptable.

American Patriots Should Join Us

Thus, progressive values and progressive social and economic policies may be linked explicitly to the affirmative duties placed on Congress and the President by the Constitution. That is the way that fights for social justice were conducted in the Progressive Era and in the New Deal Era, and we can use the Constitution in today’s fights, too. If we do that, we will strengthen the appeal of our demands, and we will be able to say that supporters of our Constitution and all patriotic Americans should join us in making those demands.

What Should Americans Learn From the Holocaust?

 What Can We Learn?

The Holocaust in which six million Jews were murdered by the Germans between 1932 and 1945 is one of history’s great crimes, but what can it teach us? What can we learn from it that we can apply to our own country?

Ordinary People Can Do Great Evil 

One lesson we can learn is that ordinary people will do awful things to protect themselves and their families and to advance their careers. Most of the officials who carried out the Holocaust were not ideologically committed Nazis. They did not hate the Jews enough to kill them. The perpetrators of the Holocaust were just soldiers or civil servants who followed orders. That does not absolve them from responsibility, but it helps us to see that as individuals they were not all monsters. They were mostly people who were trying to pursue their own interests in an evil system.

Today, in the United States, we can see a similar process at work. The masked ICE thugs who sweep people up off the streets of American cities are probably not exceptionally cruel or brutal individuals, but ICE offers them a chance to advance their careers and to provide for their families. When they find themselves on a street in Los Angeles or Chicago, they do what the German soldiers did. They cooperate with the orders of their commanders, and they help their comrades to carry out the task they have been assigned. They follow orders. Our people are not different from the Germans. Ordinary Americans caught up in an evil system are capable of doing awful things.

Great Evil Develops Gradually 

Another lesson that we can draw from the Holocaust is that that extreme evil develops gradually. Over time, people come to support more and more extreme policies of violence. When Hitler was elected in 1932, most of his supporters probably did not envision the violence of 1938’s Kristalnacht when synagogues all over Germany were attacked. Those who participated in those attacks cannot all have envisioned the murders of tens of thousands of Jews in Poland, Ukraine and Russia by the Einsatzgruppen after 1939, and even most members of the Einsatzgruppen did not foresee the deadly efficiency of the Final Solution to the Jewish Problem as carried out from 1942-45. Those who voted for Hitler in 1932 certainly did not foresee Auschwitz, Treblinka or Sobibor.

We should apply this lesson to the violence currently being perpetrated by ICE in the United States.  ICE started out by arresting people at the border who had crossed into the United States illegally. They then progressed to conducting street raids using masked gangs of agents in cities far from the border. Then the masked gangs started to raid workplaces. A recent raid on a construction site in Georgia netted hundreds of people. Then, a few days ago, a masked gang of Border Patrol agents conducted a raid at night on an apartment building in Chicago. According to Time magazine,

At around 1 a.m. on Tuesday morning, armed federal agents rappelled from helicopters onto the roof of a five-storey residential apartment in the South Shore of Chicago. The agents worked their way through the building, kicking down doors and throwing flash bang grenades, rounding up adults and screaming children alike, detaining them in zip-ties and arresting dozens, according to witnesses and local reporting.

This raid was a textbook example of the unreasonable searches and seizures that are banned by the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. Apparently, the raid was conducted without a warrant. Our government is using a claim that national security is endangered and that therefore, the president may take such extraordinary steps to protect the country. However, the claim has never been substantiated, and it appears to be no more than a pretext to ignore the Constitution. 

We Should Expect an Escalation of Violence

We should expect that, unless the national security claim is rejected by the Supreme Court, the use of unconstitutional violence will grow because the method that Trump is currently using to arrest and deport immigrants is far too slow and requires far too much manpower. He cannot achieve his goal by using the method he is now using. He will have to escalate to more extreme methods just as the Nazis did.

The gradual escalation of violence leading to the death camps of the Final Solution came about because eliminating millions of people is not easy. Shooting people - even in fairly large groups - is much too slow and requires far too much manpower. So, the Nazis invented an efficient industrial solution: Jews were shipped to the death camps by trainloads, and they were gassed and cremated when they arrived.

Trump's program of deporting undocumented immigrants faces the same problem that the Nazis faced. He cannot achieve his goal of deporting all of our undocumented immigrants by the end of his term using the method he is currently using. There are estimated to be at least ten million undocumented immigrants in the United States. How can so many people be arrested and deported? Can the president's current method achieve his goal? A little arithmetic will show that the current method cannot succeed.

The raid in Chicago mentioned above netted 37 people, and some of those were American citizens who had to be released. If the raid netted 30 candidates for deportation, how many such raids would be needed to deport all of our undocumented immigrants?

If we divide our 10 million undocumented immigrants by 30 (the number netted in the raid), we will see that at least 333,000 such raids would be required to arrest and deport all of our undocumented immigrants. However, Trump will continue as president for only a little more than three years - let us say 1200 days - and if ten such raids were conducted every day, he would have carried out only 12,000 raids by the end of his term, and he would have arrested only about 360,000 immigrants. Even if we doubled that number to 720,000, he would still have deported less than 10 percent of the undocumented immigrants in the United States. 

Clearly, he will have to find a more efficient solution to his problem. He will have to resort to more egregious violations of our constitutional rights, and he will have to use more extreme violence to achieve his goal. His policy of replacing officials who question his methods with people who are loyal to him is designed to facilitate his use of ever more extreme methods, and he will find as the Nazis did that plenty of good people trying to advance their careers will be available to carry out his program. We cannot allow that to happen.

We must resist!

Gaza And The End of the Zionist Dream

The End of the Free and Democratic Jewish State?

The war in Gaza will put an end to the Zionist dream of a free and democratic Jewish state. The State of Israel has always been an imperfect realization of that dream, but the war will definitely end it. I write this in sorrow because I am and have always been a supporter of Israel, but we must face reality. I hope that the State of Israel will continue to survive and prosper, but it cannot do so as a purely Jewish state.

Why must the Zionist dream end here? To answer that question, we need to understand the contradiction at the heart of Zionism and indeed of all nationalism.

Zionism - the Jewish Nationalist Dream

The Birth of Jewish Nationalism

Zionism was born in a political world in which nationalist demands underlay many of the political issues of the time. The First World War was triggered by a Serbian nationalist, and nationalism underlay the creation of countries like Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia from the remains of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The national aspirations of people in many parts of the world led to the collapse of the British and French colonial empires after WWII. 

European Jews took the nationalist idea and applied it to themselves. They said, “We, too, are a people, and we too have a right to a country of our own,” and they founded the Zionist movement. The Zionists were young and enthusiastic. They were political leftists and envisioned a socialist society in the new country that they were building. The collective farms (kibbutzim) that they founded were expressions of their vision. They also felt themselves to be renewing themselves and the Jewish people.  A song sung by the early settlers says, "We came to the Land to build and to be built."

The Contradiction at the Heart of Nationalism

The Zionists, like all other nationalists, ignored the contradiction at the heart of nationalism. Nationalism says that a national state is the political expression of a single “people” who share a common language, cultural heritage and biological ancestry. For example, a nationalist would say that France is the political expression of the French people. In reality, France is not the simple and natural expression of a culturally unified people. French culture was imposed on a diverse population. The French language started out as the language of the area around Paris, and at the time of the French Revolution, the language was spoken by less than 10% of the people of France. The French national school system, along with military conscription spread the language to all parts of France. All modern countries have similar histories. Their national cultures have been imposed on diverse populations. So, the idea that a national state is the natural expression of a culturally unified people is false.

The Blind Spot in Nationalism

Nationalists, including Zionists, are blind to this reality, and that blindness has led to harsh and brutal conflicts everywhere. The United Kingdom was created by suppressing the independence of the Welsh and the Scots. The recent Basque struggle for independence from Spain produced a long and bloody civil war. Today, Indian Hindus attack Indian Muslims. The Burmese massacre the Rohingya, and the Muslims of Northern Sudan massacre the Christian and Animist peoples of Southern Sudan. Tribal conflicts are endemic in many parts of Africa. Mexico oppresses the indigenous people in the southern part of the country. The United States was created by the extermination of most of the native peoples of its territory. The creation of the State of Israel has inevitably involved repeated conflicts with the Palestinians. 

A Bi-National State

The war in Gaza is a culmination of those conflicts, but it cannot resolve them. Some people still talk of a two-state resolution of the conflicts, but the time when that solution was possible is long past because today, nearly half a million Israeli Jews live in the West Bank. Some Israelis would like the Palestinians living in Gaza and the West Bank to move to other countries, but no country has offered to take the Palestinians in. They have nowhere to go. Nevertheless, it is pretty clear that the State of Israel would like to annex Gaza and the West Bank.

If Israel annexes Gaza and the West Bank, it will acquire approximately 4.5 million new Palestinian citizens in addition to the 2.5 million Palestinians who already live in Israel proper. The total Jewish population of Israel is about 7.6 million. Thus, if Israel annexes the West Bank and Gaza, the Palestinians will constitute almost half of the country's population, and Israel will inevitably become a bi-national state like Belgium. It will be impossible to maintain the purely Jewish character of the State of Israel except through an unsustainable and morally unacceptable level of suppression of the Palestinians. ,

If for some reason, Israel does not annex the West Bank and Gaza, the conflict with the Palestinians will continue, and Israel's democracy will continue to be eroded. Israel's oppressive rule in the West Bank and the continuing horror in Gaza are incompatible with a democratic society and contrary to basic Jewish values.  

So, the Zionist dream of a free, democratic and Jewish state ends here.

A Dangerous Lie

Trump Says That We Have Lost Wars Because of Woke Thinking

Recently, our Grifter-in-Chief (GC) told one of the most dangerous and misleading lies that he has told in a political career based mainly on lies. He said, 

We won World War II. We won everything before, and as I said, we won everything in between, … And [after WW II] we were very strong, but we never fought to win. We just didn’t fight to win.” He added, “We could have won every war, but we really chose to be very politically correct, or ‘wokey,’ and we just fight forever.

In other words, our military forces could have won if they had not been betrayed and constrained by “woke” politicians. At first glance, this appears merely uninformed, but don't be fooled. It is dangerous. It is dangerous because it leads to the idea that if we had just “fought to win,” we would have won in places like Viet Nam and Afghanistan. It tells us that if we go to war with a more positive attitude, we will be sure to win.

The Truth About Vietnam and Afghanistan

Anyone who is old enough to remember the wars in Viet Nam and Afghanistan knows that this is false. We lost in those places not because our troops failed in the field but because the goal of our intervention was a goal that could not be reached by military means. In Afghanistan, for example, our troops defeated the Taliban militarily and thereby bought time for the Afghan government to solidify its position, but the Afghan government was corrupt and unpopular and could not solidify its position. No amount of positive thinking on our part could convert a weak, corrupt and unpopular government into a strong, popular, democratic government.

The same thing happened in Viet Nam. Our troops fought heroically and bought time for the Vietnamese government to become a popular, democratic government, but - like the Afghan government – the Vietnamese government was weak, corrupt and unpopular. It could not compete with the patriotic appeal of Ho Chi Minh. In both places, we lost because weak, corrupt and unpopular governments could not become strong, popular, democratic governments that could stand on their own. They could survive only as long as we propped them up, and eventually, we came to the unavoidable conclusion that the cost of propping them up was too great. "Wokey" thinking had nothing to do with the outcomes of those wars.

A Disaster in the Making

The GC’s claim that our armed forces were betrayed by “woke” politicians is similar to the myth that was propagated by German conservatives after their country's defeat in World War I.  That myth claimed that the German army did not really lose. It was stabbed in the back by socialists and Jews.  The myth served the purposes of Germany’s conservative politicians and provided one of the bases of the popularity of the Nazi Party. Our GC undoubtedly intends to use his myth for a similar purpose, and we must not let him do that. We must expose his claim for the lie that it is. The German myth ultimately produced a disaster for Germany. By the end of World War II, the country was completely in ruins, and the scholars who had made Germany the world's leader in the natural and social sciences had almost all left the country. The new myth will very likely produce a similar disaster for us if we allow it to spread. We cannot allow that to happen.