Free Republic

MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace said Monday on “Deadline” that it is important to study MAGA to expose “the movement’s vulnerability” and defeat it. Wallace said, “I think the study of MAGA is essential to defeat MAGA. Right? And if you want to go to the country in four years with the political movement that defeats MAGA, you have to understand MAGA. And so to me this is a story that is, the personalities in conflict, you just can’t look away, right? But the idea that one figure, and I think it’s Bannon in this case, is trying to preserve something...

WASHINGTON — Lawyers and pro-democracy advocates are in the early stages of building a nationwide network of specialists aimed at defending and protecting people who may be targeted for retribution once President-elect Donald Trump takes office, according to multiple people involved in the effort. The sprawling initiative is intended to go far beyond legal assistance for those potentially subjected to criminal or civil investigations in a new Trump administration. Those working to create the infrastructure said that in addition to lawyers, they are recruiting accountants to help people who may find their taxes under audit, employment experts to advise those...

Thursday on CNN’s “News Central,” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) called President-elect Donald Trump a “carnival barker” making “ridiculous” threats. When asked about Trump’s recent comments on the Panama Canal and Greenland, Wasserman Schultz said, “It is utterly preposterous to suggest that we are going to send our military in to Panama to, quote, take back the Panama Canal. As I said, we have a treaty with Panama, we have a free trade agreement with Panama. We are no more going to take back the Panama Canal than Panama is going to come in and try to take the Mississippi...

Former Rep. Max Rose (D-NY) claimed Wednesday on “MSNBC Reports” that the “nature’ of the MAGA base was “very angry, aggressive” and disregarded facts. Guest host Yamiche Alcindor said, “So, congressman, what do you make of this support for Matt Gaetz among Trump allies and do you think he will be able to really have a run for office especially after now this report comes out with all of these allegations?” Rose said, “This is pretty sick and disturbing thing to think about. That, one, there could be clear evidence that someone did these things while they were a member...

Food workers in Washington, D.C., pledged to refuse service and cause other inconveniences for members of the incoming Trump administration when they dine out over the next four years. Industry veterans, bartenders and servers in the nation's capital told the Washingtonian that resistance to the Republican figures in the progressive city was inevitable and a matter of conscience. [snip] "There’s a lot of opportunities for us as workers to feel like we’re taking our power back, while not necessarily ruining someone’s life. Giving them a subtle inconvenience feels like a little bit of a win for us," she continued. Nancy...

I've lost count on how many Rosie O'Donnell meltdowns we've had just one month post-Trump victory, but this one is immediately the leader in the clubhouse. Frankly, I'm not sure how Rosie's gonna top it. She's so unhinged, and so insane, that I almost don't want to give her any free airtime. BUT, when she hops on the internet with what she describes as a possible case of the herpes, and proceeds to blast MAGA voters, I simply have to write about it. Sorry, it's in the handbook. You can't give the Libs an inch. If you do, they'll walk...

Donald Trump’s victory splintered the already fractured Never Trump movement into shards and further boxed out his MAGA outcasts, leaving some of his most prominent Republican critics scrambling for relevance in a reordered GOP. In recent days, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley ripped into two of the president-elect’s top appointees, Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., on her radio show. Former Virginia Rep. Barbara Comstock skewered Trump’s nominees as a Cabinet of “Putinists and pedophiles.” And former Vice President Mike Pence attempted to rally anti-abortion conservatives against Kennedy as Trump’s Health and Human Services secretary. Trump’s convincing win allowed...

Of all the promises, from quixotic to horrifying, that Donald Trump has made about the next four years, the one that seems least likely to be fulfilled is his vow to “defeat anti-Semitism.” He has nominated a slew of cranks who have dabbled in the oldest conspiracy theory of them all, a belief that Jews control the world. Over the past decade or so, pernicious lies about Jewish villainy have drifted into the mainstream of American life. That’s a fact Trump acknowledges when he talks about his plans to “defend Jewish citizens in America.” But he tends to focus on...

Many supporters of Donald Trump will die sooner than the elites they hate, author David Brooks writes in his essay for The Atlantic — “How the Ivy League Broke America” — and it’s by design. “The diploma divide is driving American politics,” Brooks writes in a newsletter to promote his piece. “Donald Trump surged back into power with the support of millions of high-school-educated voters who are furious at the college-educated elite.” He adds: “High-school-educated people die eight years younger than college-educated people, on average.

A thousand miles from the austere buildings where Washington runs, Donald Trump’s transition team in his Mar-a-Lago resort has begun what a close ally calls a hostile takeover of the federal government.Since his victory, Trump has ignored many of the rules and practices intended to guide a seamless transfer of power and handover of the oversight of 2.2 million federal employees. Instead, the president-elect, who has pledged to fire thousands of civil servants and slash billions of dollars in spending, has so far almost fully cut out the government agencies his predecessors have relied on to take charge of the...

Michael Moore is blasting Americans as a collective ... saying electing Donald Trump is the latest in a laundry list of problematic behavior -- and the country's populace is inherently bad. The controversial filmmaker took to his website to share his thoughts on the most recent election ... and, he let American society have it -- saying past atrocities like slavery and the genocide of Native Americans have led directly to installing a convicted felon and alleged rapist as the next POTUS. Moore also sees problems with Kamala Harris' campaign ... admitting they cheered when people like Dick Cheney --...

Voters in liberal strongholds across the country, from city centers to suburban stretches, failed to show up to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris at the levels they had for Joseph R. Biden Jr. four years earlier, contributing significantly to her defeat by Donald J. Trump, according to a New York Times analysis of preliminary election data. The numbers help fill in the picture of Mr. Trump’s commanding victory, showing it may not represent the resounding endorsement of his agenda that the final Electoral College vote suggests. Mr. Trump won the White House not only because he turned out his...

He also spoke about the “grief and the fear” that people in the audience were feeling, “because I know I am.” “We got our asses kicked. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. But sometimes you have to spend a little time in bed before it happens,” he said. “It was hard to come here honestly.” “We suffered a great loss, it’s a loss that touches deeply on so much of what we’ve worked for and we’ve hoped for and dreamed of for such a long time now,” he said. Then Ruffalo urged audience members to stand and hug the...

There have been a thousand warnings about former President Donald Trump. If polls are to be believed these warnings have fallen on deaf ears. What accounts for this imperviousness despite clear evidence of his dangerous and egregious flaws? This question has stumped many. As a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who has long worked with complexities of mind, let me offer psychological explanations then suggest remedies that could help permeate this apparent impenetrability. He offers a sense of omnipotence. Trump makes it seem like nothing is hard, meaning it's easy to be all powerful....... He helps people deny painful realities and threats,...

Donald Trump’s rhetoric during his 2024 campaign has been the darkest in modern memory. He has emphasized grievance and demagoguery ever since he first ran for president, most infamously with his build-up to the January 6 insurrection. But in recent months he has gone to new extremes. In numerous speeches and media appearances, he has peddled false conspiracy theories about the two assassination attempts against him and stoked fear and anger nonstop about an alleged “invasion” of murderous migrants, who he claims are “poisoning the blood of” America and “conquering” cities and towns nationwide