TUESDAY: Nutball calls for deportations!

TUESDAY, JULY 14, 2026

President follows suit: With respect to calls to arms by the sitting president, it just was another day ending a Y. 

That said, we'd describe the Truth Social post in question as the fruit of normalization. 

When the sitting president floats suggestions like the one described below, no one says a word about it at this point in time. No one bats an eye. 

A society like that has given up. Somewhat imprecisely, Mediaite's Sean James starts to explain:

Trump Boosts Right-Wing Pundit Calling for ‘Hardcore Communist Bastards’ Like Mamdani to Be Deported

President Donald Trump shared a video on Sunday from conservative pundit Michael Savage calling for the U.S. to criminalize and deport “hardcore communist bastards” like New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D).

Trump posted the video on Truth Social as he has been ripping socialism and communism over the last month. The president continued that trend this weekend with a few posts on Truth Social where he warned Democrats they were stupidly letting “unattractive” socialists like Mamdani—and several other democratic socialist candidates who won primaries recently—“take over” the party.

Savage went even further in the searing 49-minute rant that Trump posted on Sunday.  

Say what? The president posted a videotape calling for the mayor of New York City to be deported? 

At present, we're forced to say that it seems that he did! But here's the way the Savage podcast starts, title included:   

DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM MUST BE CRIMINALIZED; LEADERS DEPORTED  

Right now in America, politically, we are in the late stage of the disease of Communism. The smirking con man from Uganda had the audacity to sit behind George Washington's desk in New York City the other day, basically declaring a revolution on America, surrounded by no Americans, none of them were citizens. 

These were all invaders.  

 I'm going to tell you a story today about a little man just like this smirking bastard in New York City named Pol Pot...  

That's the start of a 49-minute podcast. The tape was reposted by the sitting president on his Truth Social site. 

Savage was talking about Mayor Mamdani's July 4 address. As he starts, he refers to Mamdani as "the smirking bastard in New York City." He also says that Mamdani is "just like Pol Pot."   

For what it's worth, we thought the tone of the mayor's July 4 address was perhaps a bit off-putting. Opinions will differ on that.

Opinions will differ about the tone of the holiday address. But just to establish the factual record, Mamdani was "flanked by [ten] newly naturalized US citizens" as he spoke—and that's the New York Post we're quoting, not some "lunatic lefty" rag.   

The New York Post (correctly) described the onlookers as citizens. To Savage, they were something different. To Savage, they were "invaders."   

In what world has it ceased to be news when a sitting president posts something like that on an official site? It has ceased to be news in the world in which we all fitfully dwell, waiting for the president's formal address to the nation this Thursday night.

As he continues his report for Mediaite, James offers a further account of the podcast the president chose to repost:

[continuing directly from Mediaite report]
The veteran radio host said Americans should not be fooled by Mamdani—whom he called a “smirking bastard”—and the other democratic socialists who are rising through the Democratic ranks.

Savage argued those candidates may talk about turning the U.S. into a socialist utopia by launching a bunch of “free” programs, but in reality they are more like Pol Pot—the communist leader who engineered the Cambodian genocide that killed 1.5 million to 2 million people.

“That is exactly what Mamdani and the Democratic Socialists will do to you,” Savage said. “Forget the smirks, forget the smiles, forget the b*llshit that it’s like Denmark and Norway. These are hardcore communist bastards who must be stopped, criminalized and deported. I’m clear as a bell on this.”   

We haven't watched the full tape yet. Based on what we've seen, we'll guess that James's account of the material Trump will turn out to be all too accurate.   

The sitting president reposted the Savage tape. "Nothing to look at," our Blue news orgs said.  

Conduct like this on the part of the president was normalized a long time ago. This is a note about a land which has possibly, without even knowing it, already become a failed state.

NO PEOPLE...: Flipped on Biden, fell in with Trump!

TUESDAY, JULY 14, 2026

Of whom, what did we know? "No people are uninteresting," Yevtushenko said (in translation). 

The poem in question starts off like this:  

People   

No people are uninteresting.
Their fate is like the chronicle of planets.

Nothing in them is not particular,
and planet is dissimilar from planet.

And if a man lived in obscurity
making his friends in that obscurity
obscurity is not uninteresting.

To each his world is private,
and in that world one excellent minute.

And in that world one tragic minute.
These are private.   

To this day, we don't know why we find those lines so moving. But they hit us that way every time.

For each person, those moments are private! Then too, there are the people who largely live their lives in in the public sphere. Of whom, what do we really know?  

[continuing from above]  
In any man who dies there dies with him
his first snow and kiss and fight.
It goes with him.

There are left books and bridges
and painted canvas and machinery.
Whose fate is to survive.

But what has gone is also not nothing:
by the rule of the game something has gone.
Not people die but worlds die in them.

Whom we knew as faulty, the earth’s creatures
Of whom, essentially, what did we know?  

Of whom, what did we know?   

In the first hour of today's Morning Joe, Mike Barnicle expressed a bit of puzzlement about the late Lindsey Graham. He referred to Graham's videotaped statement about Joe Biden, the remarkable statement we quoted in full in yesterday's report.

At the time, Biden was sitting vice president. This morning, here's what Barnicle said:  

BARNICLE (7/14/26): He once said, about Joe Biden, that if you could meet a person—that God never created a better person than Joe Biden. And yet he said some horrible things about Biden during Biden's presidency, and just quite recently. And I've never been able to juggle that. 

What went on in Lindsey's head?   

"Access to power," Joe Scarborough said—and he said that Graham would admit it. 

Scarborough knew Graham better than most. That dated to their entry into the House in 1995, following the 1994 wave election which gave the GOP control of the chamber for the first time in forty years.

Speaking this morning to Barnicle, Scarborough said he could never understand Graham's decision to be "a shapeshifter" (Scarborough's term). But he also said this:

"You can trace the fall of the Republican Party" to Graham's peregrination from a feisty opponent of Speaker Gingrich to an admiring sidekick to John McCain, then on to his role as a prime supporter of President Trump, who he had once denounced.   

For the record, that "fall of the party" leaves President Trump in place in the White House. No one has the slightest idea what may be planned for this fall's elections There will be more than two years of his presidency left after that, and no one has the slightest idea what those years might hold.

"No people are uninteresting?" We're going to guess that what you see in this report isn't what Yevtushenko meant:   

Trump Will Use Primetime Speech to Claim Newly-Declassified Intel Reveals Foreign Plot...

President Donald Trump will reportedly use his primetime address on Thursday night to push specific new claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

On Monday afternoon, Trump announced on Truth Social that he’d be giving a Thursday speech... 

On Deadline: White House, MS NOW’s Nicolle Wallace revealed Trump’s speech would focus on the six-year-old election—citing a report from the network’s Jake Traylor. Specifically, the president will reportedly point to newly-declassified reports he claims will show foreign interference in the 2020 election.   

That isn't quite what Traylor's report actually said, but it's in the ballpark. Traylor's report came in the form of a tweet. You can read it here.  

"No people are uninteresting?" Some people are dangerous—you might say potentially menacing. 

If Traylor's report is correct, the sitting president is gathering the nation on Thursday night to advance his obsessive belief about the 2020 election again. 

No people are uninteresting? On this campus, we're inclined to assume that the sitting president is (clinically) delusional. We further assume that we're describing a tragic but dangerous state of affairs.  

Back in 2015, Lindsey Graham said that God never made a better person than Biden. He also said this, near the end of that year, during an appearance on CNN:  

GRAHAM (12/16/15): I want to talk to the Trump supporters for a minute. I don’t know who you are, and I don't know why you like this guy....

Here’s what you’re buying: He’s a race-baiting, xenophobic religious bigot. He doesn’t represent my party. He doesn't represent the values that the men and women who wear the uniform are fighting for.  

"Yet scarcely two months after Mr. Trump’s inauguration [for his first term], a grinning Mr. Graham could be found in the office of the White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, chatting with Kellyanne Conway, one of the president’s top advisers," the New York Times later reported.  

In November 2020, he was on the phone to Brad Raffensperger in Georgia, assisting Trump in questioning Candidate Biden's win in the state. On January 6, 2021, there was his instant denunciation of that day's attack, followed by a fairly speedy reversal.

Thursday night, the president's delusion may be back, at the heart of a national address. No one knows what may be planned for the days and years to come.

Senator Graham died this weekend. Of whom, what did we know?

MONDAY: "Ain't it wonderful, Jim," she said...

MONDAY, JULY 13, 2026

"...how much [we] can mean to each other?" Actually, no, we aren't "well read." But there's a line from My Antonia that seems to speak to us, loud and clear, at this dangerous, barely sane time.  

(This "barely sane" time? See the story the president told about the late Lindsey Graham's one, lone, solitary 40-minute mistake. Also, continue to see the way the high-end press will keep disappearing the president's fairly obvious state of illness.)  

Back to My Antonia:

We're fascinated by the way high-end commentators skip past the most intriguing part of Willa Cather's profoundly autobiographical novel. We refer to the way she gender-switched her narrator—letting Jim Burden (male) stand in as a substitute for her own (female) self.   

As described in Cather's novel, Jim Burden's life is Cather's life. We learn that in the first paragraph of Burden's narration:   

BOOK I. The Shimerdas

I

I first heard of Ántonia on what seemed to me an interminable journey across the great midland plain of North America. I was ten years old then; I had lost both my father and mother within a year, and my Virginia relatives were sending me out to my grandparents, who lived in Nebraska. I travelled in the care of a mountain boy, Jake Marpole, one of the ‘hands’ on my father’s old farm under the Blue Ridge, who was now going West to work for my grandfather. Jake’s experience of the world was not much wider than mine. He had never been in a railway train until the morning when we set out together to try our fortunes in a new world.

By the norms of literary logic, the young Jim Burden's railroad trip, from Virginia to Nebraska during his childhood, is the real-world railroad trip of the young Willa Cather. She chose to gender-switch her narrator for reasons which are tragic but also understandable and, one assumes. which are also perfectly obvious.    

We think the gender-switch does undermine the ardor expressed at the end of the book. Decades earlier, when she's still "barely 24," the novel's Antonia says this to Jim Burden:   

BOOK IV. The Pioneer Woman’s Story   

[...]

She asked me whether I had learned to like big cities. ‘I’d always be miserable in a city. I’d die of lonesomeness. I like to be where I know every stack and tree, and where all the ground is friendly. I want to live and die here. Father Kelly says everybody’s put into this world for something, and I know what I’ve got to do. I’m going to see that my little girl has a better chance than ever I had. I’m going to take care of that girl, Jim.’

I told her I knew she would. ‘Do you know, Ántonia, since I’ve been away, I think of you more often than of anyone else in this part of the world. I’d have liked to have you for a sweetheart, or a wife, or my mother or my sister—anything that a woman can be to a man. The idea of you is a part of my mind; you influence my likes and dislikes, all my tastes, hundreds of times when I don’t realize it. You really are a part of me.’

She turned her bright, believing eyes to me, and the tears came up in them slowly, ‘How can it be like that, when you know so many people, and when I’ve disappointed you so? Ain’t it wonderful, Jim, how much people can mean to each other?'...

In fact, she hadn't been his sweetheart or wife. We think the ardor he displays at the end of the book is undermined by that fact.

Still:

Ain’t it wonderful, Jim, how much people can mean to each other? At this very dangerous time, we Americans, Red and Blue alike, badly need to relearn the skill of meaning things to each other.   

"No people are uninteresting," the poet improbably said.

NO PEOPLE...: Long ago, and quite far away...

MONDAY, JULY 13, 2026

...Graham heaped praise on Joe Biden: "When a person dies, what has gone is not nothing..."  

That's the way we've always remembered the lines (in translation) from Yevtushenko—lines we came upon a very long time ago. That isn't the way the lines truly read, but we've always remembered them that way. 

We came upon the poem in question in Deschooling Society, "a 1971 book written by Austrian priest Ivan Illich that critiques the role and practice of education in the modern world." (So says the overview offered by the leading authority.)

Late in the book, Illich included the entire poem (in translation). We remember nothing about the book, but we've never forgotten, or given up on, the thrust of the memorable poem. 

"No people are uninteresting," the poem says as it starts. The poem moves us, very deeply. To this day, we don't know why.

Also, Senator Graham suddenly died this weekend. One time, in 2015, that very same person had this to say about the sitting vice president:

GRAHAM (undated, 2015): The bottom line is, if you can't admire Joe Biden as a person, then it's probably—you've got a problem! 

You need to do some self-evaluation. Because, what's not to like?   

The statement was made during an interview with HuffPost, back when Graham was running for president. The interview was videotaped. Here's the text of the longer chunk regarding Vice President Biden:   

GRAHAM (continuing directly): Here's what I can tell you— 

Life can change just like that [snaps his fingers]. Don't take it for granted. Don't take relationships for granted. 

I called him after Beau died and he basically said, "Well, Beau was my soul." We talked for a long time. 

He came to my [military retirement?] ceremony and said some of the most incredibly heartfelt things that anybody could ever say to me. And, um [pauses]— He's the nicest person I think I've ever met in politics.  

INTERVIEWER: Is that right?  

GRAHAM: He is as good a man as God ever created, and we don't agree on much, but I think he's been dealt a really gut blow. I think he focuses on what he's got to do, not on what he lost.   

There's a bit more to the videotape as it was originally presented. As you can see by clicking here, HuffPost placed it on YouTube under this heading:   

Lindsey Graham Chokes Up Talking About Joe Biden    

"Life can change just like that," Senator Graham said that day. "Don't take it for granted." 

He also said that Vice President Biden was "as good a man as God ever created." 

A lot has changed since the day when that interview took place. Joining Jeffrey Rosen, we aren't sure that our flailing nation will be able to find a way out of our current state.

"No people are uninteresting," Yevtushenko wrote. "Their lives are like the chronicle of planets..."   

We can't say that we really think that Graham's statement was interesting. The same is true of the predictably ugly statement Katie Miller made, just yesterday, about that same Joe Biden.

As people, we live in a world of people. We've shown you what Graham once said. This week, we'll briefly look at some of the people now crowding our failing public discourse. 

A type of democratization has occurred in the past (let's say) forty years. As a result, the discourse is open to many people who possibly shouldn't be there.

Tomorrow: "Communist bastards," he said

In translation, also this: "Not people die but worlds die in them / Whom we knew as faulty, the earth's creatures..."

SATURDAY: At the Atlantic, they say no names!

SATURDAY, JULY 11, 2026

The refusal to serve is general: "Back out of all this now too much for us?"  

As we've noted in the past, that's the opening line of Frost's difficult poem, Directive. We often think of that line in these extremely dark days. 

The poem—it's a difficult poem—starts exactly like this:   

Directive

Back out of all this now too much for us,
Back in a time made simple by loss
Of detail, burned, dissolved, and broken off
Like graveyard marble sculpture in the weather,
There is a house that is no more a house
Upon a farm that is no more a farm
And in a town that is no more a town.
The road there, if you'll let a guide direct you
Who only has at heart your getting lost,
May seem as if it should have been a quarry -
Great monolithic knees the former town
Long since gave up pretense of keeping covered.
And there's a story in a book about it...

And so on, at length, from there.   

It's a difficult poem. With that acknowledgment, we now offer a question:

Do we Americans now find ourselves in "a house that is no more a house, upon a farm that is no more a farm and in a town that is no more a town?"  

If so, there are very few stories in books about it, in part because of what happened when Jeffrey Rosen's promising essay in The Atlantic moved past its promising start.   

Judged by the norms of the established world, Rosen is very sharp. At this point, we remind you of the things we showed you earlier in the week:  

Jeffrey Rosen (legal academic)  

Jeffrey Rosen (born February 13, 1964) is an American legal scholar, journalist, and author.

Rosen is a law professor at The George Washington University, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) and the author of nine books, including New York Times bestsellers. He served as the President and CEO of the National Constitution Center from 2013 to 2026, where he is now CEO Emeritus. Rosen is a contributing writer for The Atlantic. 

[...]  

Rosen attended the Dalton School, a private college preparatory school on New York City's Upper East Side, and graduated in 1982 as valedictorian. He then studied English literature and government at Harvard University, graduating in 1986 with a Bachelor of Arts, summa cum laude. He was subsequently a Marshall Scholar at Balliol College, Oxford, in philosophy, politics, and economics, from which he received a second bachelor's degree in 1988. He then attended the Yale Law School, where he served as a senior editor of the Yale Law Journal...  

As CEO of the National Constitution Center, he has produced a long series of outstanding public forums—public forums which operate on what is seen as the culture's C-Span-adjacent high end.  

Over here in Blue America, we've been told that we should respect and admire "contributing writers for The Atlantic." At present, we especially recommend the work of that magazine's Helen Lewis, but there's something even she may be doing—or may be agreeing not to do.   

There's something they've all agreed not to do? We'll turn to Frost again:

The Gift Outright 

[...]   

Something we were withholding made us weak
Until we found out that it was ourselves
We were withholding from our land of living,
And forthwith found salvation in surrender.

Something we were withholding made us weak? We've quoted that line before. Here's why we quote it today:

At present, here in Blue America, our journalistic and academic leaders refuse to "say their names." That is what is being withheld in this discourse which is no more a discourse in a nation which is perhaps no more a nation and which may almost seem to be perhaps going down.   

We agree with Rosen! The advent of various new technologies has turned our nation, which is now barely a nation, into a modern-day Babel. Putin smiles on a summer night as he sees Charlie Hurt, guest hosting on Jesse Watters Primetime, litter the landscape this way:

HURT (7/9/26): So Democrats finally got their pervy Platner off their back, but he's the least of their worries. Ranks of Commie radicals worse than the Nipple Nazi are mobilizing across the country, positioning for their takeover. 

[Photo of Abdul El-Sayed]

This Commie doc without a medical license is running for Senate in Michigan, and he's already hard at work indoctrinating your kids...   

(For the sake of the record: According to the leading authority, El-Sayd "is an American epidemiologist, politician, and former public health official and academic. He was the director of the Department of Health, Human, and Veterans Services of Wayne County, Michigan, from 2023 to 2025.")

You see there how Hurt started. After he cited the "pervy Platner," producers played tape of the "Commie doc" telling a bunch of pre-school kids that they should share their cupcakes. 

That was the Commie indoctrination to which Hurt referred. Viewers were even told that this "Commie doc" is worse than "the Nipple Nazi!"  

This intellectual squalor only got worse as the guest host continued—this guest host on the second most-watched "cable news" show in this, our nation which is perhaps no more a nation.     

Along the way, viewers were told that Brad Linder, the former comptroller of New York City, "went full Commie in his victory speech" after winning a Democratic Party primary last month. He'd been endorsed by "Commie Mamdani," viewers were pleasingly told.  

Eventually, the guest host read this copy, smirking as he went:   

HURT: The collapse of the media, and the lack of clear leadership in the Democrat [sic] Party, or a hopeful vision for the country, allowed an army of Commie radicals to take over the Democrat [sic] Party. 

The Commies are organized, they're mobilized, and they've just rolled out their takeover course of action. Project 2029. It's a ready-to-go, governing blueprint for their Commie leader in the White House... Desperate Democrats like Kamala see the end, and she's hopping on the Commie express train before it's too late.

It was low-IQ squalor like that, read from prompter by the constantly smirking Hurt. 

For the record, Project 2029 is the work of a liberal policy journal, not of the Democratic Party. As Hurt read his Commie-rich copy, the chyrons were saying this: 

HERE COME THE COMMIES! 
COMMIE QUACK IS FOR THE KIDS  
BRAD LANDER GOES FULL COMMIE
DESPERATE DEMS HOP ON THE COMMIE EXPRESS 
THE COMMIES ORGANIZE AND MOBILIZE  
COMMIES INFILTRATE THE DEMOCRATS

Enjoyable copy like that.

For the record, there's plenty that can be criticized about the Democratic Party and about some of its candidates. At this site, we've sometimes criticized Senator and then Vice President Harris, though we're going to guess that she hasn't "hopped on the Commie express" at this point in time.

There's plenty that a sensible person—a person who is still a person—might critique or criticize about the party in question. Instead, Hurt was offering a braindead imitation of human political discourse—of a discourse which is no more a discourse in a town which is no more a town.

It was a braindead imitation of life—unless you read Jeffrey Rosen's essay in the Atlantic. In his essay, Rosen declines to say the names of people like Hurt—of the types of corporate messaging agents who are no longer persons. 

Nor does he say the name of the Fox News Channel, or of "cable news" in general. It's an essay in which a highly promising, insightful start rapidly disappears.  

No, Virginia! No nation can remain a nation if it becomes a Babel—if it turns into a welter of competing voices feeding different tribal groups the stories they long to hear. 

As he starts, Rosen gives voice to a profoundly sensible fear—to the fear that our democracy (such as it is) may not "survive" the effects of the new technologies which have made every flyweight a king. 

Rosen's start is extremely strong, but then the withholding begins. He names "social media" and "the internet," but he doesn't mention cable news and he doesn't mention podcasts.   

Bowing to an intractable rule, he doesn't say the names of people like Charlie Hurt. He doesn't say the name of the ludicrous corporate messaging agent for whom Hurt was guest hosting. 

Rosen has been to what Dylan once mocked as "the finest schools," but he hasn't learned how to say their names—or it could be that his superiors at the Atlantic aren't willing to let him and others do that.  

"Something we were withholding made us weak," the poet Frost once wrote. Within the realms of Blue America's modern elites, we'll guess that the rewards are simply too damn high, and the risks are simply too great.

The celebrity and the salaries are too good to put at risk. No one wants to say the names of the modern-day jugglers and clowns who are devouring the present-day discourse.

At the New York Times, at MS NOW and CNN, but also at the Atlantic, they refuse to say the names of the people and the entities which are creating "all this"—all this which does indeed seem, as we slide toward the sea, to be "now too much for us."

They type from a realm which is no more a realm, producing a discourse which is something quite different.   

Frost ends the difficult poem Directive with these difficult lines:  

I have kept hidden in the instep arch
Of an old cedar at the waterside
A broken drinking goblet like the Grail
Under a spell so the wrong ones can't find it,
So can't get saved, as Saint Mark says they mustn't.
(I stole the goblet from the children's playhouse.)
Here are your waters and your watering place.
Drink and be whole again beyond confusion.

Under a spell so the wrong ones can't find it!  

"Drink and be whole again beyond confusion," Frost wrote as his closing line. Here in the present day, the ginormous confusion largely results from an amazingly systematic act of withholding.

As a group, they simply refuse to say their names! There is zero sign that this deception, this failure to serve, is ever going to stop.

LONG ENDURE: Rosen discerns the shape of the threat!

FRIDAY, JULY 10, 2026

Refuses to say their names: Can our form of government, can our nation, "long endure?"   

President Lincoln floated the question at Gettysburg. Today, we're involved in a great societal war which raises the question again.  

Will we be able to find our way "back out of all this now too much for us?" We've been asking that question for years at this site. 

As he starts this essay for The Atlantic, Professor Rosen joins us in not being real sure.  Just to refresh you, we'll show you his headlines again:  

IDEAS
American Democracy Wasn’t Designed for This
Can our 18th-century institutions survive 21st-century technology?

In his essay, Rosen suggests the possibility that our democracy won't survive the influence of a set of new technologies. We've been telling you that for years. We think his aim is true.

What's the nature of this existential crisis? As he starts, Rosen takes us back to the questions the founders asked when they decided to form a new nation. For starters, he quotes Hamilton saying this:

"The important question: whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice."  

Are we humans really capable of engaging in cool, clear reason? Rosen describes "a central premise of the Enlightenment," a premise he says the founders shared:

"Ordinary human beings are capable of recognizing truth on their own." 

According to Rosen, the founders generally believed that. We humans have the capacity to sit down and reason together.

Today, though, we're mired in a tribal propaganda war which has largely given the lie to that cheerful notion. We humans believe the darndest things:

Remarkably large percentages of the population have been persuaded, over the years, that Barack Obama was born in Kenya; that "death panels" were part of the Affordable Care Act; and that Hillary Clinton was involved in a pedophile ring which may have operated out of a Washington pizza shop.   

Before that, one of our nation's most famous Christian preachers had peddled a film which suggested that Bill and Hillary Clinton were involved in a long string of murders. In 1994, the nation's leading talk radio host had advanced the notion that Hillary Clinton was somehow involved in the death of Clinton aide Vince Foster. 

(On the Fox News Channel, the multimillionaire monster Greg Gutfeld continues to pimp that general framework today. He pimps it night after night.)  

How many of us "ordinary human beings" may come to believe such notions and claims? Below, you see the numbers from a recent survey concerning the most significant misapprehension of the past six years:

Half of Republicans say the 2020 election was rigged   

This week's Economist/YouGov Poll finds sharp divides in public confidence in U.S. elections, with Democrats and Republicans holding vastly different views on the legitimacy of the 2020 election, the credibility of Donald Trump's recent election-rigging claims, and expectations for the fairness of future elections.

28% of Americans—including half (50%) of Republicans and only 9% of Democrats—believe that the 2020 presidential election was "rigged." Republicans who identify as MAGA supporters are about twice as likely as non-MAGA Republicans to think the election was rigged (66% vs. 32%).  

As a result of persistent claims by President Trump, 50% of Republican respondents said they believe that the 2020 election was rigged.

The sitting president has had six years to produce evidence in support of this poisonous claim. Many Americans have failed to notice the fact that he has neglected to do so. And not only that—also this! 

[continuing directly from above]  
Trump recently claimed that this year's primary elections in California were rigged. One-third (33%) of Americans believe he has concrete evidence to support this claim; 67% think he is just trying to sow doubt in the legitimacy of the elections. Most Republicans (72%) think Trump has [concrete] evidence to support his claims of rigging in California. MAGA Republicans are far more likely than non-MAGA Republicans to believe Trump has evidence of rigging (84% vs. 51%). Only 3% of Democrats think Trump has concrete evidence of the elections being rigged.  

How about it? Did the president really produce "concrete evidence" in support of that additional claim? In this survey, 72% of Republicans said they believe that he did. 

In many cases, it's hard to prove that a given claim is false. (Old bromide: You can't prove a negative.)  Under current arrangements, it may not matter if you do manage to prove, or if you do manage to seem to prove, that a given claim is false.

Quite routinely, it won't matter if you show that some claim is bogus—and Rosen understands why that is. 

The founders were fearful of "factions," Rosen writes. (Today, such entities sometimes go by the name of "political parties.") 

In Professor Rosen's telling, "Madison believed that the tendency to form factions is 'sown in the nature of man.' " Rosen explains why Madison was optimistic in spite of that belief.

That said, it's plainly true! We humans seem to be wired to split off into rival tribes. And some modern technologies have created a world in which the tendency to split into tribes badly undermines our ability to reason together as an intelligent nation. 

He mentions the Internet, and he mentions social media. Such technologies have created an obvious problem, he says. He says the problem is this:

Democracy has been resilient for a long time, but that doesn’t mean it can’t reach a breaking point. Social media is an unprecedented challenge: In every way, it represents the Founders’ nightmare. ...More than any previous communications technology, social media has the effect of herding users into likeminded communities where they never have to hear an opposing point of view. In a 2020 article in Science, 15 psychologists and political scientists wrote that America’s political divisions were being amplified by “popularity-based algorithms that tailor content to maximize user engagement.” If the Founders had been able to spend an hour on X, they would have been a lot less optimistic about human beings’ capacity to govern themselves by reason rather than passion.   

According to Professor Rosen, "social media has the effect of herding users into likeminded communities where they never have to hear an opposing point of view." In other words, it has the effect of creating like-minded "factions"—including political parties in which 72% of members believe poisonous claims which almost surely aren't true.

According to Professor Rosen, social media has this effect more than any other new technology. We can't necessarily say that's true.

Unfortunately, and rather strangely, Rosen never mentions talk radio. Also, more tellingly, he never mentions "cable news." And he certainly never says the names of the players who, at present, are undermining the very chance of continuing with a successful version of government "by the people."

Rosen doesn't say their names! As you may have noticed by now, people of his professional class never do. 

Tomorrow, we'll explain what we mean by that unflattering comment. Also, we'll visit a world where the corporate messenger Charlie Hurt is eating away at the possibility that government of the people will survive—will long endure, won't "perish from the earth."

Tomorrow: They never say their names

THURSDAY: Is Candidate Talarico a demon?

THURSDAY, JULY 9, 2026

One co-host says yes: Is there any such thing as a demon?

How are we supposed to know? When it comes to the existence of demons, we aren't the right people to ask.

That said, some people do believe in demons (as is their perfect right), "and not in the metaphorical sense." In this new report at The Atlantic, Stephanie McCrummen discusses a woman whose bookstore became the focus of a somewhat unusual fight. Dual headline included:

The Demon Next Door
A growing number of charismatic Christians see themselves as waging a spiritual battle against the forces of Satan. Sometimes those forces are right across the street.  

[...]  

The owner was Lisa Misosky, and she was chatting with customers one afternoon when she found out that people in town were accusing her of demonic activity, and not in a metaphorical way.

Over the course of three decades in Maryville, [Tennessee] Misosky had made Southland Books and Cafe into a local institution, a sprawling maze of old bookcases where people could find a leather-bound Mark Twain, a paperback Charles Bukowski, shelves of military history, and flyers for a local mah-jongg group. Misosky had a bar downstairs where she hosted trivia nights, readings, all-ages punk shows, and fundraisers that sometimes involved drag performances. She occasionally provided space to the local Democratic Party. But none of that had drawn public protest until a new church moved in across the street. 

 “You’re not gonna believe this shit,” a friend texted her, and then sent the first of several videos posted by a man who introduced himself as Mike Brewer, the leader of an “apostolic hub” called the Well. Sitting at a desk, he explained in a calm and methodical manner that the bookstore had been identified as a “regional demonic stronghold.” A high-ranking demon named Lilith was involved, Misosky would learn, and the bookstore was being targeted for something called “strategic-level spiritual warfare,” the goal of which was to “remove the enemy.”   

Misosky had been born and raised in Maryville. She was 58, Catholic, and gay, and told me she was used to living among conservative Christians. Still, demonic came as a surprise. “This is probably the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” she remembered thinking after seeing the first video, not yet realizing that the church was part of the fastest-growing segment of Christianity in the country, or that the language she was hearing in the fall of 2022 was spreading across the Christian right and the wider political landscape. 

McCrummen goes on to discuss this "fastest-growing segment of Christianity," linking by way of background to this report in the Atlantic from June 2025. As she continues, she cites some recent high-profile statements and events:  

[continuing directly]
In the years ahead, Donald Trump would accuse the entire Democratic Party of being demonic. Tucker Carlson would claim that he had been mauled by a demon in his sleep. Steve Bannon would call Lutheran and Catholic activists who help immigrants demonic. A federal emergency-management official would speak of being teleported to a Waffle House 50 miles away, elaborating that he was not sure whether the transporting forces were “good” or “evil.” J. D. Vance would say of UFOs, “I don’t think they’re aliens. I think they’re demons.” And the same apostles and prophets who’d claimed that God had anointed Trump to be president would encourage him to see his war with Iran as a cosmic showdown with a demonic entity known as the Prince of Persia.

We cited Tucker Carlson's vivid report in real time. The recent event involving the Waffle House has gained a fair amount of exposure.  But we were especially struck by McCrummen's report because of a recent assessment Emily Compagno offered on the daily Fox News Channel program, Outnumbered, where she serves as co-host.

At Mediaite, Michael Lucianbo was watching Outnumbered, and then he typed it up. Mediaite's headline says this:  

Fox’s Emily Compagno Unleashes Wild Attack on James Talarico: ‘This Person Is a Demon in Human Skin’  

And yes, that's what Compagno said. 

You can read Luciano's full report by clicking this. Videotape of the discussion is provided, but here's the transcript of the place where the rubber met the road:

COMPAGNO (7/3/26): This is why all of that money should be spent on the GOP’s messaging, because every single voter there needs to understand exactly who they would vote in office, which is an anti-business, anti-commerce, anti-capitalist, anti-Texas Texan. So, if [Republicans] know what's good for them, it’s to permeate that messaging deep into the red state of Texas, so that, "Oh, it’s not just some Democrat. No, no! This person is a demon in human skin.” 

To our ear, that highlighted statement sounds a bit strange, even by Fox News standards.

Aside from her regular spot on Outnumbered, Compagno is a frequent co-host on The Five and a frequent Gutfeld! panelist. The Five is the nation's most-watched "cable news" show. Gutfeld! is the grimiest and the most misogynistic.

To see the full segment on Talarico that day, you can start by clicking here. For the record, there were quite a few misstatements in that longer set of attacks. There's no way to get to all the failings which can be found on the American "cable news" dial.

For all we know, Compagno may be the world's nicest person. We've said before, in other contexts, that we don't think she should be working as a commentator on American "cable news" shows.

LONG ENDURE: Can government "of the people" endure...

THURSDAY, JULY 9, 2026

...when "the people" align in tribes? Of the people? By the people? Can a government like that "long endure?"

Speaking at Gettysburg, President Lincoln understood that some observers around the world weren't especially sure. He closed his brief remarks that day by saying that those present should dedicate themselves to the task of ensuring that government of the people "shall not perish from the earth."   

Today, we're engaged in a great civil war—a tribal war marked by vast clowning. For an example of what we mean, consider what happened on CNN last night.

Midway through the 8 o'clock hour, Anderson Cooper spoke with a three member panel concerning Graham Platner's apparent withdrawal from the Maine Senate race.    

Cooper played substantial chunks of Platner's taped statement. He then threw to Gretchen Carlson, a former Fox News Channel host.

We the people should be grateful to Carlson. The leading authority explains:   

Gretchen Carlson   

Gretchen Elizabeth Carlson (born June 21, 1966) is an American broadcast journalist, writer, and television personality.

Carlson was born and raised in Minnesota. A talented youth violinist, Carlson competed in a number of music contests before becoming a beauty pageant contestant. After winning Miss Minnesota in 1988, Carlson became Miss America for 1989. She attended Stanford University and graduated in 1990. 

[...]   

In July 2016, Carlson filed a lawsuit against then Fox News chairman and CEO Roger Ailes, claiming sexual harassment. Subsequently, dozens of other women also stepped forward to accuse Ailes of harassment, and Ailes resigned under pressure. In September 2016 Carlson and 21st Century Fox settled the lawsuit reportedly for $20 million, and Carlson received a public apology. Carlson was one of the first high-publicity cases of 2016's #MeToo movement.

In 2019 she co-founded Lift Our Voices to work towards a ban on non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) and forced arbitration clauses in employment agreements. In February 2022, the U.S. Congress passed the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act, a law championed by Carlson which excludes sexual assault and sexual harassment complaints from arbitration clauses, including retroactively. On March 3, 2022, President Joe Biden signed the bill into law. On December 7, 2022, he also signed the Speak Out Act, another bill backed by Carlson. 

And so on, at length, from there. 

In our view, we the people should be grateful to Carlson. That doesn't mean that she has perfect judgment because, of course, nobody does.   

Last evening, Cooper threw to Carlson first. Below, you see what she said:  

COOPER (7/8/26): Gretchen Carlson, Platner still denies the allegations. How do you think his statement is going to be received? What do you— What are your thoughts right now?

CARLSON: That [videotaped statement] was a disgusting display of hubris that every woman and man in America should be incredibly upset about. Regular people do not abuse women. It's always somebody else to blame. It's typical cry of assaulters.

His own wife turned in text messages that he was having with other women. He posted on Reddit many years ago that he believed that women should be responsible for when bad things happen to them sexually.

Not to mention the Nazi tattoos and a myriad of other things. He is conflating tonight his candidacy of being popular with being an every kind of person [sic], with accusations of rape. 

That—those are two totally different things. And a real man would stand up and take accountability for what has happened here.

This movement has had immense progress over the last ten years and these women are believed. And I don't know what this display was in this video, but I wouldn't want the endorsement of Graham Platner, whoever the Democrat is, running in this race.  

Some of that was hard to follow, but that's what Carlson said. 

Brad Todd, a Republican strategist, was the third panel member to speak. Can the nation expect to long endure? This is what he said: 

TODD: Well, I think, by the way, the race should have gone to this spot a long time ago. I mean, all those things that Gretchen just outlined are exactly true about Graham Platner, and they were true before this weekend.

If you look back at The New York Times on June the 4th, he said that if someone broke in his house, he would rape them to show them he was dominant. So we heard he was physically abusive by a corroborated story from a longtime girlfriend. But Democrats in Washington and in Maine just ignored it.

The Sheldon Whitehouse, the Senator from Rhode Island, said, "Oh, those accusations came from a Republican operator." So he didn't think they were anything to worry about. Graham Platner has been bad all the way from the start. And the only difference was this week—is on this weekend, there were polling numbers came out that showed he might be losing to Susan Collins.

His cardinal sin to get dumped by the Democratic Party is looking like he might lose. And I think that, where this race goes from here—I mean, Maine Democrats are going to pick someone else awful. They're going to pick—they like Graham Platner because he's bad. They'll pick someone else because he's bad.

... I mean, it's really just come down to raw power. Democrats will tolerate anything for raw power in Maine.  

Democrats will tolerate anything, the Republican strategist said. He then made an amazing claim:

Democrats like Platner because he's bad!  Also, they'll pick someone to be his replacement because [that new person] is bad! 

They'll pick the new person because he or she is bad! That seems to be what Todd said. 

Can a government expect to endure in the face of such tribal vehemence? We aren't sure, but there was a blindingly obvious problem with what Todd said—and Democratic Party official Christine Quinn now stepped in to say it:   

COOPER (continuing directly): Christine, what do you think of what Brad said there?

QUINN: You know, first of all, I think on a day where a federal judge ordered President Trump to pay over $5 million to E. Jean Carroll for sexual assault, I just find it rich. 

These Republicans and Republican leaders who are now so concerned about sexual assault and rape, when they have stood by President Trump time and time again when he has been accused of horrible sexual misdeeds.

Maybe this is a moment where everyone will start to come together and hold everyone accountable and say no one is above the law, even if they are president of the United States. But I sincerely doubt that we will see that. I think we will continue to see hypocrisy on the part of the Republicans.   

It's what we mentioned yesterday, speaking about The Five. It's astounding to see people who have swallowed the sitting president's apparent sexual history suddenly expressing shock when Democrats show an inclination to look the other way regarding one of their own.   

Quinn pushed back against the one-way fury of Republican strategist Todd. Yesterday afternoon, on Fox, Jessica Tarlov pushed back against guest host Trace Gallagher in a similar way.   

Gallagher is a reliable (and highly skilled) partisan attack dog. As you can see at this Mediaite report, Tarlov abruptly told him this:

"The Democrats will not be lectured by the party of Donald Trump...about what good behavior is when it comes to how women are treated and questions of abuse. That is a non-starter here."  

Personally, we think the time has come for Tarlov to leave The Five—to stop agreeing to play the role of designated punching bag on that ludicrous imitation of a "cable news" TV program. 

That said, people like Gallagher have disappeared all manner of misconduct, sexual and otherwise, on the part of the sitting president. Their ability to blow past their double standard in this matter is truly astonishing, and Tarlov pushed back quickly and hard.

For what it's worth, we agree with something Todd said on CNN. We thought Senator Whitehouse was remarkably dismissive about earlier claims against Candidate Platner. 

We were amazed and disappointed by the frivolous tone he adopted, on The Last Word, toward the June 4 New York Times report. We think less of him because of the way he reacted, and we're sorry that we do.

That said, we the people now engaged in a great tribal war—a tribal war marked by the astounding true belief performed by many of the most watched stars in this nation's "cable news" industry. That brings us back to Professor Rosen's essay for The Atlantic, which bore this dual headline:  

IDEAS
American Democracy Wasn’t Designed for This
Can our 18th-century institutions survive 21st-century technology?

Even such as it has been, can our democracy expect to survive? Will it long endure?

Our guess:

Not in the face of the fury of Gallagher / Todd and so many others. Also, not in the face of what we'd call Professor Rosen's passivity.

Tomorrow: The constant refusal to speak 

WEDNESDAY: How well are America's schoolkids doing?

WEDNESDAY, JULY 8, 2026

There's no single way to tell: How well are America's children doing? Our 9-year-old students, let's say.  

There's no easy way to answer such a worthwhile question. That said, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tested a national sample of such kids last year.   

How strong are the skills of These Kids Today? Results may see to differ depending on where you start your comparisons, if you choose to approach things that way.   

For today, we'll go back a good long ways. The Long Term Trend version of the NAEP goes back a bit farther than we will, but this is how last year's numbers look as compared to the numbers from 1980 (reading) and 1982 (math):

Average scores, 9-year-old students  
Reading, Long Term Trend NAEP
1980 / 2025
All students: 215.04 / 218.39
Black kids: 189.35 / 204.62
Hispanic kids: 190.22 / 207.59
White kids: 221.34 / 224.79
Asian kids: 224.56 / 242.48

Average scores, 9-year-old students
Math, Long Term Trend NAEP 
1982 / 2025
All students: 218.98 / 237.67
Black kids: 194.94 / 220.19
Hispanic kids: 204.00 / 226.24
White kids: 223.95 / 245.82
Asian kids: 241.60 / 260.11

Now for the rest of the story:  

Average scores have risen since those early years, especially in math. For the record, we aren't cherry-picking those starting points. Math and reading were tested in separate years back in those earlier days.   

That said, how large are the academic gains suggested by those numbers? On the Main NAEP, it's often said, as a very rough rule of thumb, that 10-11 points on the NAEP scale is roughly equivalent to one academic year.  

You can start applying that (very rough) rule of thumb to the data shown above. At your favorite major news sites, you'll see no one try to inform you in more detail about the meaning of those statistical gains. In fact, no one cares about any of this, and no one ever has or ever will.   

Based upon last year's numbers, 9-year-old students have come a long way since the 1980 / 1982 testing. The Main NAEP shows similar progress when we go back that many years.  

To review the difference between the two different versions of the NAEP, you can just click here. 

For access to all data from the Long Term Trend NAEP, you can start by clicking this. From there, you're on your own

LONG ENDURE: Technologies threaten our cool reflection!

WEDNESDAY, JULY 8, 2026

So Rosen wisely says: No one's assessments are unassailable, perfect. But in our view, the inanity never stops at one of our struggling nation's three (3) major "cable news" channels. 

Last night, at 8:06 p.m., that channel's chyron said this:  

EVEN COMMIES WANT PLATNER GONE  

Yes, that's what it said.   

The channel to which we refer was the Fox News Channel. The show was Jesse Watters Primetime, the second most-watched "cable news" show within the American firmament.   

With Watters rumored to be vacationing in the south of France, Charlie Hurt was filling in as the program's host. He came on the air excitedly citing an actual news event:   

WATTERS (7/7/26): Welcome to a special edition of Jesse Watters Primetime. I'm Charlie Hurt, filling in for Jesse. 

We start with a Fox News alert:

Another bombshell scandal just blew up inside the Democrat tent. Graham Platner, who has been accused of outrageous drinking, manhandling women, and sexting outside of his marriage, has just been accused of sexual assault. 

It was an actual news event. Indeed, as Hurt continued, he offered his basic citation:  

[continuing directly] 
Lyndsey Fifield, at the center of last month's New York Times piece, just spoke to CNN, and she is accusing the Democratic Senate candidate from Maine of being hostile and violent towards women. She is speaking out just 24 hours after the first ex-girl friend spoke to CNN. 

A minor bungle is included in that brief overview. But this was an actual news event—a news event the Fox News Channel was able to discuss thanks to reporting provided by CNN. 

Indeed, all three major cable news channels opened their 8 p.m. program last night with this topic. That said, only one hurried to offer the braindead chyron we mentioned above. Let's ponder that chyron again:   

EVEN COMMIES WANT PLATNER GONE  

Yes, that's what the chyron said. You can't get dumber than these mofos are, but they'll surely continue to try.   

Three hours earlier, at 5 p.m., the nation's most-watched "cable news" show opened with the previous day's news about Platner. That news had also been broken by CNN.

The Five opened with that. One of its stars had returned from the south of France, but Jessica Tarlov was gone: 

The Five: Tuesday, July 7, 2026 
Kennedy: former MTV VJ 
Harold Ford: former congressman (D-Tenn.) 
Brian Kilmeade: co-host, Fox & Friends 
Dana Perino: co-host, The Five
Greg Gutfeld: host, Gutfeld!

We noted a type of irony as the four pro-MAGA players took turns saying the very same things, as they typically do.

On this evening, the four were shocked and appalled by the litany of accusations floating around Platner's head. No one mentioned an awkward fact: 

The president they treat as a successor to the sun god Ra has a gruesome record in this area—a record which matches, or even surpasses, that of Platner. But no such facts will ever be mentioned on this astonishing imitation of corporate propaganda messaging vehicle which poses as a news program. 

The four pounded away at Democrats who had supported Platner in spite of his record. They failed to note that they themselves are still adopting the same stance with respect to the record of sexual conduct surrounding Citizen Trump.

We move to a somewhat strange fact:

In his recent essay for The Atlantic, Jeffrey Rosen—he's very sharp—doesn't mention the Fox News Channel. Also, he doesn't mention MS NOW or CNN, or cable news in general.  

That said, he does mention some new technologies which have created, or so he says, a threat to the continued existence of our American democracy, imperfect though our democracy has always been.   

Rosen says it, and we believe it! Here's the heart of the way his essay starts, dual headline included: 

IDEAS
American Democracy Wasn’t Designed for This
Can our 18th-century institutions survive 21st-century technology?

In 1787, after the Founders signed the Constitution in Philadelphia, Alexander Hamilton wrote in “Federalist No. 1” that there was more at stake than the future of a single country. The American experiment would “decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force.”

The Founders were hopeful, in part because the information environment of the late 18th century was favorable to “reflection and choice.” A flourishing newspaper industry kept Americans informed and fostered vigorous debate...And at a time when nothing traveled faster than a horse or ship, the sheer size of the new country meant that news spread slowly, an obstacle to impulsive public decisions....

Today, those advantages have disappeared, thanks to a technological revolution the Founders could never have imagined.... As America approaches its 250th anniversary, the biggest question for our democracy is whether a system designed for the communications technologies of the 18th century can survive those of the 21st.  

Are we the people—we the humans—capable of making the kinds of judgments needed to maintain a "western democracy?" Are we "really capable of establishing good government" through widespread reasoned "reflection?"  

Are we the American people still capable of such acts? Professor Rosen says he isn't entirely sure. 

Quite correctly in our view, he says that certain new technologies are making that outcome much less certain. As his essay begins—in the deletions we have made—he specifically mentions the Internet and social media, with the onset of AI also mentioned.

Later, he specifically mentions podcasts—but he never mentions talk radio, and he doesn't mention cable news. Possibly stretching the term bit, it might be said those are two additional technologies which have transformed, and are continuing to transform, our "information environment." 

There's never been a time when foolishness didn't exist within the human environment. That said, today's technologies have created a world in which chyrons like the one cited above go out to millions of people, and they go out extremely fast.

EVEN COMMIES WANT PLATNER GONE!

That's what the silly/sad chyron sillily said. As we close for today, we'll borrow a word from the Atlantic headlines posted above:

Can our society expect to "survive" the round-the-clock, daily drubbing administered by the technologies now in play? 

Rosen says the answer may be no. We'll suggest that Rosen is giving voice to an extremely important point.

Tomorrow: One month plus three days

LONG ENDURE: "Our democracy wasn’t designed for this?"

TUESDAY, JULY 7, 2026

Who is Jeffrey Rosen? Inevitably, the initial segment on The Five began with the Communist / Commies rant.

The Fourth of July had come and gone. Yesterday, Dana Perino started the show by playing the relevant clips from the president's rain-drenched address:

PERINO (7/6/26): Hello, everyone. It's 5 o'clock in New York City and this is The Five.

President Trump, bringing the fight against Communism to America's 250th birthday celebrations...

PRESIDENT TRUMP (videotape): We don't want Communists in our country.

PRESIDENT TRUMP (videotape):  Communism is a loser and it always will be. The Communist system is the opposite of the American system and the Communist system has never worked. Our warriors did not fight Communism on battlefields across the world only to have that menace rear its ugly head right back here in America. We're not going to let it happen.   

So said the president on July 4, in a rainy-day address. Now, it fell to the stars of The Five to move the agitprop along. 

This being a summer holiday week, several of the program's top stars are off in the south of France. For that reason, a slightly second-string lineup was messaging the public this day:  

The Five: Monday, July 6, 2026 
Kennedy: former MTV VJ 
Jessica Tarlov: resident punching bag 
Joey Johnny Jones: co-host, The Big Weekend Show 
Dana Perino: co-host, The Five
Tom Shillue: comedian

That was yesterday's lineup. After Perino played videotape of the president's statement, something designed to resemble a discussion ensued. 

Before long, Perino threw to Shillue. Inevitably, he took the cake: 

SHILLUE (7/6/26): If you look at the Trump speech, he uses the "Communism" thing a lot, but he goes on several levels.  

So he says, "Oh, the Commies are coming. We beat them. We went to war against the Commies, and we would do it again, but we don't have to."   

And then he would say, "Never worked, never will." See, that's the message that young people need to hear...    

It's great the way he— You know, when he gives a speech, you can see the speech, and then you see the boldface [points]...then he has his asides. So he said his bit about Communism, then he said, "It never worked, it never will," and then he said, "Communism is for losers, we don't want it."    

So it's like working on many different levels.  

We don't understand that either. So many different levels! 

Let's be fair. As best we can tell, no one but Shillue stooped to talking about "the Commies" this day. But the messaging continued through the program's first half hour, with The MAGA Four all issuing C-bombs and with Tarlov being interrupted, as is the norm on this show.   

This is no country for intelligent discourse! Or at least, that's the impression we may get when we watch this top-rated "cable news" TV program. 

The viewership for The Five dwarfs that of corresponding programs on CNN and MS NOW. In our view, this helps explain the salience of Jeffrey Rosen's month-old essay for The Atlantic.

Rosen's essay appears beneath this dual headline. Who the heck is Jeffrey Rosen, and why is he saying these things?

IDEAS
American Democracy Wasn’t Designed for This  
Can our 18th-century institutions survive 21st-century technology?

Can our institutions survive? Who the heck is Jeffrey Rosen, and why is he asking a question like that?  

For today, we'll limit ourselves to your initial question. The leading authority starts its profile as shown:

Jeffrey Rosen (legal academic)  

Jeffrey Rosen (born February 13, 1964) is an American legal scholar, journalist, and author.

Rosen is a law professor at The George Washington University, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) and the author of nine books, including New York Times bestsellers. He served as the President and CEO of the National Constitution Center from 2013 to 2026, where he is now CEO Emeritus. Rosen is a contributing writer for The Atlantic. He was a longtime legal affairs editor of The New Republic and was a staff writer for The New Yorker. He was also a writer for The New York Times Magazine and many other outlets. 

[...]  

Rosen attended the Dalton School, a private college preparatory school on New York City's Upper East Side, and graduated in 1982 as valedictorian. He then studied English literature and government at Harvard University, graduating in 1986 with a Bachelor of Arts, summa cum laude. He was subsequently a Marshall Scholar at Balliol College, Oxford, in philosophy, politics, and economics, from which he received a second bachelor's degree in 1988. He then attended the Yale Law School, where he served as a senior editor of the Yale Law Journal and graduated with a Juris Doctor in 1991.  

He started as one of those "good grades" types, then seemed to mature from there. In our own experience—Attention, C-Span Viewers!—he's presented many worthwhile legal forums during his years at the National Constitution Center.

And now, this month-old essay appears.  

As we noted yesterday, President Lincoln wanted to know if a nation like ours could hope to "long endure." In his essay for the Atlantic, Rosen seems to be saying this:   

Maybe not!

Also, can our institutions survive? As you can guess from his the Atllantic's dual headline, Rosen seems to say the answer might be no.   

Why in the world is he saying such things? And in what way might an agitprop pig-pile like The Five be part of the ongoing story?

We think the gentleman's aim is true. Tomorrow, we'll start to explain.   

Tomorrow: Rosen lays out his key points

MONDAY: As you probably may have guessed...

 MONDAY, JULY 6, 2026

With the exception of this morning's report, the Fourth of July continues.

Tomorrow: Who is Jeffrey Rosen?

LONG ENDURE: Can some such nation long endure?

MONDAY, JULY 6, 2026

Jeffrey Rosen's concern: Yesterday, we tried to click our way through the sitting president's speech.

(You can start by clicking here.)   

We refer to his rain-delayed public address of July 4th of this year. Due to the lightning the gods sent down, he wasn't able to start until 11:16 p.m. local Washington D.C. time. When he finally started to speak, the sometimes-invaluable Rev lets us see that he started by saying this:

PRESIDENT TRUMP (7/4/26): Good evening, America! You think that was easy? It wasn't.  

AUDIENCE: Applause  

The president was referring to the chaos of the rain delay. Then, as he proceeded, he tossed out a number--a number he may have made up:   

PRESIDENT TRUMP (continuing directly):   And I want to thank everybody because they did the right thing...

And they estimated they had 375,000 people before everybody had to leave. And they now have 150,000 people. It's the craziest thing anyone's ever seen. At least!

When the president describes some alleged accomplishment or some event, the accomplishment is routinely said to be something "no one has ever seen before." An invented number will often be present, perhaps to be embellished at some later date.   

The initial number may be replaced by an even larger number! And so it went on this occasion, as Mediaite reports: 

‘422,000 People!’ Trump Makes Wild Claim About Crowd Size at His July 4 Event   

On Sunday, President Donald Trump revised his initial claim that 375,000 people gathered for the America 250 celebration on the National Mall before the crowd was forced to evacuate due to weather.

“We’re here, we’re here, we’re here. There’s no way we can be deterred. They estimated they had 375,000 people before everybody had to leave and they now have 150,000 people. It’s the craziest thing anyone’s ever seen,” Trump said during his speech that began after 11 p.m. Saturday.

Trump revised that [first] number upward on Truth Social Sunday afternoon.  

“The Crowd at 7:05 in the evening was 422,000 people! All were forced to leave because of the weather, the event was cancelled, and everyone was gone because of lightning,” Trump wrote.   

By now, the initial crowd was said to be substantially larger. To peruse the Truth Social post, you can just click here.

Back in real time, back in the actual speech on Saturday night, astounding flattery of us the people quickly began after that. He was flattering us the American people. Here's how the fluffing began:   

PRESIDENT TRUMP (continuing directly from above): And I want to just thank you, and I feel so badly about some people they left, and they couldn't get back. 

But you're very special people, and we have a very special country. Thank you very much.   

Those who stayed were "very special people." That's how the fawning began.   

That might have seemed like a sensible word of thanks directed at loyal followers. But as the president's speech continued, the delusional flattery grew. 

By the time it was 11:18, the president was saying this:  

PRESIDENT TRUMP: For two and a half centuries, our American Republic has stood as the crowning achievement of human history...And we're doing better now than we've ever done before.  

No people have done more good, shown more courage, made more progress, righted more injustice or achieved more greatness than you, the American people.  For 250 years, the United States of America has been the hope, the promise, the light, and the glory among all of the nations of the world. 

All over the world, they try and be like us. Nobody can be like us. And with God's help, we will always be this, or even better.   

Nobody can be [as good as] us, the president had now said. Later, on several occasions, he traveled that road again:   

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Americans must never forget that we are a historic and heroic people with a heroic spirit and a heroic purpose on this beautiful earth of ours.

We are made of the courage and the fire and the flesh and the blood of the best and the bravest people this world has ever produced. We are the bravest and the best.  

Tonight we pledge allegiance to the flag they gave us, and we say, "God bless the immortal patriots of 1776 and long live the cause of independence."  May it reign forever and ever and ever. We will always be on top. We will never let our country fall. We will always be the best. 

"We will always be the best," the president said. As he continued, he turned to this:  

PRESIDENT TRUMP (continuing directly): Our founders not only won our liberty, they secured it with the most righteous political document ever conceived. It's called the Constitution of the United States. Very special.   

And it's because of their genius that we remain the finest people on the planet after 250 years.   

We're the finest people on the planet! So this severely challenged, disordered person now said. 

The people who stayed to watch the speech heard themselves praised in such ways. Much later, the president added the strangest claim he's ever made--the strangest in a fifteen-year public career of extremely strange public assertions:  

PRESIDENT TRUMP: After two and a half centuries, this American republic still stands tall and strong and we love each other.  

Say what? Do we the people love each other? American citizens, please! 

As you can see by clicking this link, we love each other so much that this very same sitting president did this the very next day:   

Trump also posted a doctored picture of ex-President Barack Obama and ex-First Lady Michelle Obama boarding Air Force One; the pic showed “BLM” and Obama’s slogan “Yes We Can” spray painted onto the plane, as well as some Arabic writing. 

Another doctored photo--and how strange! In the rendering posted by the apostle of love, Arabic writing had been spray-painted onto the side of President Obama's Air Force One! 

You can see that post if you click that link. (If you do, you will also read about the latest insults the sitting president has directed at Giorgia Meloni, the Italian prime minister.)

As we've noted, we tried to click our way through the entire July 4 address. Eventually, what we took to be a succession of (tasteless) acts of "stolen valor" persuaded us to stop.    

We thought we were watching extremely tasteless behavior. Presumably, many of our fellow citizens didn't see it that way at all.  

Way back when, President Lincoln almost seemed to wonder if a nation constructed like ours could hope to "long endure." His famous speech started like this:   

PRESIDENT LINCOLN (11/19/1863): Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure...   

That nation has endured, right up to the present day. The population has actually grown, from something like 33 million back then to something like 345 million today.

Lincoln's nation has endured, in the most obvious sense. But in a recent essay for The Atlantic, Jeffrey Rosen suggests the possibility that the nation President Lincoln described may not endure much longer.  

Who the heck is Jeffrey Rosen? And why is he saying such things?  

We think his thesis is very strong. We also think it will be ignored, except right here at this site.   

Tomorrow: Who is Jeffrey Rosen?

SATURDAY: The messaging continued along...

SATURDAY, JULY 4, 2026

...right at the base of Mount Rushmore: In the last two weeks, we've alerted you to the rise of the sudden new messaging. 

Last night, the messaging continued. 

The sitting president was standing there, right at the base of Mount Rushmore. Sixteen minutes into the tapioca, he made an adjustment. 

All of a sudden, out of nowhere, at 9:21 p.m. Mountain Daylight Time, the messaging began:  

PRESIDENT TRUMP (7/3/26): You must love our country. There has never been anything like us anywhere on Earth, and we are not going to let anyone take that away.   

Yet as we approach this magnificent anniversary, we see our American identity under a renewed attack. A generation after we fought and won the Cold War against the menace of Communism, there is now a resurgence of the Communist menace in our land.   

With that, the messaging started. The president moved away from one childish theme—we're the best people who ever lived—directly to another.  

Shawn McCreesh was on the scene for the New York Times. In this morning's news report, he describes the sudden pivot:   

At Mount Rushmore, Trump Veers From Patriotism to ‘Communism’   

Four months before tough midterm elections, President Trump used the backdrop of Mount Rushmore one night before the nation’s 250th birthday to characterize his political opponents as “godless,” “evil” communists.

“We can only lose the midterms if we allow ourselves to lose the midterms, if we are foolish stupid and unwise,” he said...

The larger purpose of the speech wasn’t hard to miss. He was sharpening a line of attack that the White House has started to use to head off a newly insurgent progressive wing of the Democratic Party that appears to be resonating with liberal voters.  

Mr. Trump read from an apocalyptic script as the stony faces of Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln looked on. He said the word “communism” so many times, you might’ve thought the Cold War was still on.   

With respect to those stony faces, observers swore they saw a tear emerge from Mr. Lincoln's eye even as the current president executed two flyovers in his new Qatari jet.   

(Will he use the plane for personal travel if he actually leaves the White House? No one seems to have nailed down the answer, and our news orgs don't much seem to care.)   

Back to the president's address:  

Just exactly how many times did he say the word "Communism?" Moving one step beyond McCreesh, we offer a provisional word count:  

Word count, Mount Rushmore address
"Communist:" 6
"Communism:" 8 

By our preliminary count, that's 14 usages in the six minutes devoted to this part of speech, with one additional "Marxist" thrown in. 

(As best we can tell at this time, he didn't say the word "Commie.")  

For the record, who are the Communists creating the current Communist menace? On what basis was he assessing them to be Communists?

The president didn't say. But as the messaging spreads during the summer and into the fall, you aren't likely to see any serious discussion of that second question. Our national discourse simply doesn't function that way.   

We were struck by one part of the president's description of the Communist menace. No one believes that he's religious, but he stressed this set of claims: 

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Communism is the exact opposite of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." It's death, tyranny and the pursuit of evil.

The godless Communist morality states that anything is justified to bring about inhuman visions and to really propose [sic] what's good. They don't love God and they don't want God. They don't love religion and they don't want religion, and they won't have it. But we won't let them win.  

The unnamed foes aren't simply Communists—they're actually godless Communists. 

They don't love God and they don't want God. By prevailing rules of the messaging game, observers are supposed to believe that the sitting president does.   

Presumably, this will be the messaging as we move toward the mid-term elections. It wouldn't hurt for us Blues to recall the various ways, down through the years, that we helped create this mess.