Newsletter # 9: What You Can Do to Resist

Happy 1k Day? | Maybe Some Helpful Thoughts | Lots of New Orleans

By the time you read this, I’ll likely be over 1,000 subscribers. Or damn close.

So, first off, I want to THANK every single one of you who found what I write worthy of your inbox. This whole thing has been a really cathartic, and great experience for me.

If you have your own Substack you’re probably getting a ton of marketing messages about how to gain followers, etc. I’ve read some of them, but not many. I did find a study that says the usual time period to reach 1k subscribers (if you’re an “unknown” like me) is eight months.

So, I must be doing something right — even if promoting myself feels a little weird and is probably annoying. I justify it by believing that in our influencer/consumption culture I’m probably pretty low on the ladder of crass consumerism and assholeness.

Let’s get to it!

What We Can Do: Push Dems & Spread the Truth

There are two real categories that I think we need to be focusing on.

The first is keeping Democrats in line — pushing them to take their rhetoric out of the comfort zone of their individual lives.

With Senate Minority Leader Schumer and nine other Democrats last week, that obviously failed, and in maybe a catastrophic way. I guess we’ll see. And while that vote was deeply disturbing, there was some silver lining there.

This ISN’T now a fight between the liberal and conservative wings of the Democratic Party. I spent most of my adult life thinking I was a moderate, but then the whole political spectrum went off the Nazi deep-end, so I guess now, I guess, I’m a Communist.

This is way beyond all that.

This is a fight between Democracy and Dictatorship, and the vast majority of unelected Democrats know that, and the majority of the elected stripe do too. If they didn’t before last Friday, they do now.

If you’d like to read my very unfiltered rant on that CR vote, you can find it here.

And we need to keep up that pressure, online, on the phone, and in person.

These two memes (out of upwards of 100 or so I’ve made and shared) both EXPLODED. On BlueSky and Substack this stuff is taking off. And while I know this is preaching to the choir that is what we need to do.

As bad as the CR vote was, we’ve crossed the Rubicon.

The Democratic Party is on one side and timidity and weakness are on the other and there’s no going back. If Chuck Schumer doesn’t retire AOC will beat him in a primary and win that seat. So, while we have to keep the pressure coming so Dems stay on the right side of history, there’s been a shift and everyone can see it.

Now, we need to start getting the word out to the family and friends who we know can still be saved. And, sadly can still be saved is I think is the terrible truth.

But, I think it’s better than we may think.

Spreading the Truth

Never underestimate the power of propaganda.

Fox News has been the leader in cable news almost since its inception in 1996. And being number one has had a domino effect in our culture. Beyond your mom, dad, aunt and uncle, we all know that Fox is the default cable news you see almost anywhere in public — from restaurants and bars to your doctor’s office and the auto shop where you got new shocks.

But, it’s also important to remember that even given its ubiquity, not everyone who watches Fox is a full-on MAGA cult member. There are millions that keep a somewhat open mind even given the non-stop tilt of the channel that has turned into pure propaganda during the Trump years. The kind of propaganda that found the channel guilty of lying to the public about the 2020 election and fined them almost $800 million.

That didn’t stop them, just made them more careful to not libel an individual company.

Take the economy.

Those of us that live in the world of facts know that President Biden and his significant policy achievements put the United States at the top of the heap following the global chaos created by the pandemic. By every measurable metric the US was the envy of the world — including the best performance lowering inflation which affects the lives of every non-rich American.

From inflation and unemployment rates, manufacturing jobs, deficit to GDP, and countless others, these are facts, not political opinions. And while Fox did cover them, albeit briefly, they then spent the next 23.5 hours of every day shooting holes in them. Putting those facts in the worst possible light.

Maybe that was too many jobs and could raise inflation even more. Are manufacturing investments driving all this inflation? Gas prices went up a nickel, let’s go live to our reporter at a local BP station to get reaction from real people suffering pain at the pump...

This non-stop, coordinated shitting on the economy had the desired effect. Don’t get me wrong, while economic health is an aggregate science, that doesn’t mean there aren’t always people who are legitimately hurting, and prices were high, although that was never put in the true global context.

There’s no doubt that the economic pessimism was in itself enough to swing 200,000+ that Trump needed to win. And now that false narrative continues. Trump and his minions are trying to blame current (and ominous) economic numbers on the disaster of Biden. But they’re not going to stop there.

Cuts in the federal workforce, cuts in important investments that stimulate growth, idiotic trade wars, all these things are going to hurt our macro economy and individuals. But, they’re going to try to shift the blame.

And we can’t let them.

That’s where you, where we all come in.

There are many ways that we as individuals can work to try to stop (or slow) the Trump regime agenda and put MAGA down, once and for all. From joining resistance groups and participating in marches and demonstrations — that are going to be bigger and more frequent in the near future — to all the ways to help in 2026 elections, there’s going to be real work to do. And I for one want to be not only do it, but spread the word to mobilize as many people as possible.

But, spreading truth is something that we can do right now and every day, in our own lives.

That’s why I started my Anatomy of a Lie series and an upcoming Under the Radar series to arm people with facts that can be shared with family, friends, and co-workers who are able to be reached.

We all know people in our lives who aren’t cult members but who are susceptible to propaganda and disinformation. And we know best how to communicate with them. Whether it’s countering social media lies, or simply talking in person, good people who have gone astray can be persuaded and brought back.

On social media, I would suggest muting or blocking the real MAGA cult members. It’s not worth the fight and they’re never going to come back to the light. That goes for X/Twitter as a platform. It’s lost and not worth the stress. But if you’re still on Facebook I say stay, and try to spread the truth in the most effective way possible.

This goes way beyond the economic example. If your uncle is a vet, let him know that federal job cuts are hurting vets more than any other demographic. When services are cut at the VA — as they will be — make sure you (at least) share that if not tag uncle or talk to him at the next birthday party.

How each of us does that is a delicate balance in finding those pressure points and knowing how much to push them. But, we need to do it more than ever. We can’t draw back into the safety of our own political bubble. It took years of Fox news disinformation and billions of lies shared on social media to get us where we are.

This may seem small and stupid, but it’s not. Just like a new semiconductor chip plant has a positive rippling effect throughout the economy, spreading the truth changes minds, even if you may not see the results.

So, seek out the truth, from whatever trusted resources you rely on. Share that article, have that gentle conversation. And remember, you don’t have to be an expert to engage people.

The TRUTH is on our side!

A Few Political Notes:

I still think this Senate floor speech by Chris Murphy is worth watching and sharing if you haven’t. Even if you think you’re keeping up with the abject corruption on a daily basis, you’re missing context, and it’s much worse than you think. Watch it here.

Many of you only touch Substack via this newsletter. I don’t think you need to join to hang, but this space is a great zone to read notes/posts that are a longer and more reasoned. I write in a bunch of stuff that never makes the newsletter. Decided to collect it, mostly so I don’t forget about what I could expand on. Not like finding something to write about is hard now. Either way, collecting my notes here.

So, the Trump Regime is officially ignoring the courts on an immigration issue. That’s where they think they have the most public leverage. But, make no mistake, they are pushing and prodding on every single front. The Project 25/Heritage folks aren’t going to let courts stop them. I don’t want to not celebrate any given win, but context. Dystopian court battle here.

Culture Club: Mother Nature + SNL + The Ultimate NOLA Playlist!

With our Democracy Dumpster Fire only getting worse, I haven’t had much time to do fun writing — the kind of stuff that pops in my head when I’m snow blowing or mowing the yard.

But, I did recently jot down some thoughts on the grocery store reviews I keep seeing when I’m ordering online…

The Reviews are in: Mother Nature Sucks!

Who are the people giving fucking vegetables bad reviews?

One of the things that continued after COVID for us is getting groceries delivered. I’ve always hated grocery shopping, so it’s been well-worth the $10 monthly charge to have them delivered to the door.

I also justify the charge because I’m likely spending less by not grabbing things I don’t really need. I’m a terrible impulse shopper.

In all this time I had never really noticed the product “reviews” or given it much thought.

Until I did.

Now I can’t shop for groceries without forever wondering who is giving all these vegetables consistently bad reviews. The Kroger rating system is only a star system. There really aren’t full “reviews” per se. But, man, I would love to see them.

Don’t get me wrong, there can be vegetable issues. Mostly that Kroger might be pushing products that are (or are going) bad. I’m no big fan of corporate grocery stores, but, as someone who buys vegetables each and every week I can tell you that this isn’t the case. When we lived in Detroit we sometimes shopped at a grocery store down the road that did consistently sell half bad veggies on the regular. That’s not the case here.

So what is it?

Are people pissed that asparagus is making their pee smell funny? Do some of the potatoes have bad spots? I mean, welcome to the world of vegetables, people!

I hope that Americans aren’t so dumb that they don’t know that nature and farming is not a world of perfection — even if those vegetables are being picked by dreaded “illegal” immigrants.

Then again, the general populace is pretty damn dumb.

My guess is that it’s a mix of pure stupidity and the law of online toxicity. Most of the masses simply can’t bring themselves to anonymously write ANYTHING online that isn’t mean, nasty, and probably racist.

Maybe it’s good that Kroger doesn’t allow for written reviews. Who would want to monitor that stupidity as a job? Based on doing the in-store scanning and checking ourselves, it would likely be a “community” based reviewing system anyway.

And who needs to read about how woke and terrible Mother Nature is and how we need to all be on a brain meat and raw milk diet? It’s bad enough knowing that our institutions have failed us.

I thought vegetable could let me sleep at night.

SNL 50 Years/Sketches

Like so much in life, I’m amazed at randomly finding a sketch from 2008 and thinking it was five years ago.

Five more, here.

#9 Bonus!

Thinking that this is my 9th newsletter all week has put this song in my head ever since. Lennon had a fascination with the number. Thought I’d throw this in for fun. IMO Instant Karma was his best-ever single. That is a damn groove.

New Orleans + Spotify

I’ve been trying to find something to say about New Orleans music for two weeks in anticipation of this trip and culling this playlist.

I will say this.

I think New Orleans is the best music city in America.

Nashville has country. Detroit has Motown and techno. New York and LA have (and will always be) recording capitals.

But what you get here is, first and foremost, Jazz — the quintessential American music form. Shipped to Chicago and Kansas City. Injected here at home with Dixie, the Second Line Brass tradition then injected again with soul and hip hop. Then Zydeco not far away. It’s an amazing amalgamation — a gumbo if you will — of musical styles that no other city touches.

We went to see Kermit Ruffin in Treme tonight. Arguably the best trumpet player in the city for many years. Amy and I saw him years ago with a full horn section at the Maple Leaf.

He was stoned out of his gourd tonight. He wasn’t anything (performance-wise) like last time. But he had a hand in the butter beans we all got. Who care. It’s a thing. It’s a work in progress. This city just oozes everything good about music.

As for this mix, I did some arranging, but it turned into an almost whole day gig. Enjoy!

*Note: Likely more mistakes in this “edition” than others. No Amy proofreading.