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The Felon Echoes Nixon's Racist Strategy

If one takes the time to read Project 2025, it becomes clear that the endeavor is a white "Christian" nationalist plan to drag America back to the 1950's, include instituting Jim Crow 2.0 curtailment of the rights of blacks and racial minorities, erasing LGBT civil rights, and eroding the rights of women among other nefarious goals. The Felon, of course, lied about knowing anything about Project 2025 even as he has implemented it step by step after taking office.  At its core, Project 2025, is an effort to restore white supremacy which plays well with working and lower class whites who seemingly are desperate to be able to look down on and discriminate against others.  Indeed, this desire for a license to discriminate to boost a sense of superiority - which the Felon has openly embraced - has lead to such individuals voting Republican even as the GOP agenda is hostile to the financial wellbeing of these voters. All of this is part of a tend within the GOP that traces back to Richard Nixon and his "Southern Strategy" that sought to attract southern whites who were hostile to racial minorities - principally blacks - having voting protects and equal treatment under the law. Sadly, the extremists on the U.S. Supreme Court are all in on this effort to erase the rights of blacks, other non-whites, the LGBT community and others.  A piece at Salon looks at this ugly agenda and the Felon's willingness to fan open racism:

Anyone who’s observed the Supreme Court over the past few years knew it was pretty much assured that the conservative majority would gut the Voting Rights Act the first chance they got. But the anticipation made the Court’s 6-3 decision in Louisiana v. Callais no less shocking and appalling for having been anticipated. 

The conservative justices paved the way for the massive redistricting of Southern states that is already transpiring only days after the ruling. These actions will almost certainly eliminate most of the South’s Black representation, leaving those states essentially where they were before the Civil Rights Movement. 

After the Voting Rights Act was passed by Congress and signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965, Republicans set out to maintain and solidify control of the South. The operation went into full force in 1968 when historian and political scientist Kevin Phillips took note of Alabama Gov. George Wallace’s success in embedding racist-coded “law and order” messages in his campaign for the Democratic nomination for president, and he persuaded GOP candidate Richard Nixon to follow suit. The GOP’s “Southern Strategy” was born. 

As the historian Rick Perlstein laid out in “Nixonland,” his epic history of the period, Phillips and Nixon understood something about the American cultural upheaval that most of the people in the media and elite institutions did not. White working-class and precarious middle-class voters were alarmed not only at the upending of the racial caste system but also at what they saw as an unraveling of society in general. The Vietnam War was raging, there were protests in the streets and their own kids were repudiating many of their values. The changes felt chaotic and overwhelming, so when Nixon promised “law and order,” they embraced it. In this sense, the Southern Strategy was about much more than just the Southern states — and remains so today.

As Perlstein wrote in the opening pages, “The main character in Nixonland is not Richard Nixon. Its protagonist, in fact, has no name — but lives on every page. It is the voter who, in 1964, pulled the lever for the Democrat for president because to do anything else, at least that particular Tuesday in November, seemed to court civilizational chaos, and who, eight years later, pulled the lever for the Republican for exactly the same reason.”

Despite the fact that Donald Trump thinks he invented the phrase “law and order,” the truth is that virtually every Republican candidate for president and Congress has used that slogan in the 60 years since — and everyone has always known exactly what they meant by it.

But in another important way Trump’s Southern Strategy is even more nefarious and blatant than Nixon’s, and it’s far older than the one Phillips imagined in the 1960s. The [Felon] president is reaching back to the really bad old days of the late 19th and early 20th centuries for inspiration. As the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Will Bunch observed on May 3, the Justice Department, which has had a tough time prosecuting revenge cases against the president’s perceived enemies, has apparently realized that it would have more success bringing them in the solid Southern GOP states. 

Bunch notes that the recent case brought against former FBI Director James Comey was rejected by prosecutors and the courts in Virginia, which has trended Democratic in recent elections. But it was taken up by the very Trumpy U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina without any reported qualms. . . . . Federal prosecutors were able to get an equally absurd case handed down against the Southern Poverty Law Center in Mississippi by fatuously claiming that because the organization had paid informants to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan and other hate groups, it was supporting terrorism.

The late Republican strategist Lee Atwater famously laid out the Southern Strategy tactics years ago when he said that, in the past, politicians could just scream racist epithets and that would be enough. But he realized the GOP needed to be more subtle as the years went by. The results were coded tropes involving “law and order,” “welfare queens” and other veiled appeals that their racist base would understand, while not offending suburban whites who weren’t comfortable with overtly crude rhetoric. 

Starting with Nixon, virtually all GOP politicians skillfully deployed that tactic keeping the coalition of big and small business, evangelicals and anti-communists in the tent alongside true believers in the South’s “Lost Cause” myth. But [the Felon] Donald Trump is now on the verge of jettisoning that aspect of the strategy once and for all. 

As the Republican Party becomes more and more alienated from the white suburbs that no longer back its candidates — largely due to Trump’s grotesque behavior — they are finding they no longer need to hide their true agenda. It looks like the old Confederacy is making another run at it — this time with a loud-mouthed New Yorker at the helm and a Supreme Court majority ready to do its dirty work.

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Trump’s “Affordability Hoax” May Doom the GOP

It's another day and the Iran war continues - with no victorious  exit for the Felon in sight - oil prices remain high, the increased cost of energy is driving up consumer prices (my firm uses FedEx and the cost of sending packages has increased significantly due to s fuel surcharge) , and increased fertilizer costs mean food will be more expensive as well. Through all of this the Felon claims that price increases and "affordability" are a "hoax" fabricated by Democrats. Recently, he even called concerns about prices and affordability "bulls*it" to a crowd in Florida. As always, I cannot comprehend how people believed the Felon's lie that if elected he would lower costs "on day one" even as he offered tariffs as a silver bullet that would save the economy.   Warnings were everywhere that tariffs would increase consumer prices, not lower them, yet individuals chose to believe a pathological liar who cares nothing for citizens unless they are ultra wealthy or billionaires. Insanely, with his poll numbers on his handling of the economy dipping below 30%, the Felon is only doubling down on his lies and claims that the economy is doing well, with frequent efforts to blame everything on Joe Biden even though the Felon has been in office for 16 months now.  And then, there's his foolish war of choice in Iran which has given the Iranians a stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz.  A piece in Salon looks at the Felon's fantasies on the economy:

[The Felon] Donald Trump has a difficult relationship with the truth. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that at a time when his approval ratings on the economy are slipping into the 20s, he would double down on his insistence that the economy is actually exploding — and anyone who says otherwise is a liar. On May 4 he made an appearance at The Villages, the community in central Florida restricted to people over 55, where he told his assembled fans, “You know, it’s amazing. I come into office and I say ‘Wow, look how high these prices are,’ and the Democrats start screaming ‘Affordability! Affordability!’ They’re the ones that caused the problem! I’ll tell you one thing: They got one good line of bulls**t. That’s one thing I’ll say about ‘em.”

Those comments marked an unusual step for him: He admitted there was a problem. Yes, there was that week when he was touting himself as “THE AFFORDABILITY PRESIDENT.” But really, ever since he returned to the White House, Trump has been trying to persuade the public that what they say they’re feeling — rising prices, economic unease, anxiety about the future — is nothing more than a Democratic hoax. Now he’s just taken to throwing out nonsense about the American economy being “the hottest in the world,” his favorite line, and “roaring.” 

Few believe that. The latest Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll showed that only 23% believe the president is doing a good job on the cost of living, and his approval rating on inflation fell to 27%. These numbers make his overall number on the economy — 34% — look good.

If affordability is a hoax, a whole lot of people seem to have bought into it. Despite the administration’s tiresome habit of saying that everything is Joe Biden’s fault, people have good reason to blame Trump himself for what’s happening today. The president promised to fix the economy on day one. He’s now been in office for 16 months. 

When he was quizzed during the 2024 campaign about his plans to confront inflation and the cost of living, Trump always said that his tariffs would fix everything and that growth would be so strong that the federal government would be in a position to pay for everything from childcare to medical insurance for the whole country. It was absurd, of course, but a lot of people bought it.

Taking him at his word that the economy over which he presided in his first term was “the greatest economy the world had ever known” — it was not — voters, then, turned against Joe Biden (and later, Kamala Harris) and Democrats in 2024 largely out of anger and frustration over inflation, which had spiked during the Covid-19 pandemic and its aftermath. Trump has only made it worse. 

Plenty of people who warned Trump and the GOP. Economists of all stripes said that tariffs would almost certainly raise inflation, and while nobody expected the president would start a war with Iran, everyone knows that shocks and disruptions in the oil markets cause prices to rise. Anyone would have assumed that Trump would move heaven and earth to avoid that in the middle of an already-precarious economic recovery, but hey — he marches to his own drummer.

According to the March 2026 consumer price index, overall inflation currently stands at 3.3% — up from 2.4% in March 2025. The price of energy has increased by 12.5%, and gasoline prices are up by a staggering 18.9%. Economists have predicted a rise in the second quarter of 2026.

One would think it’s surprising that since Trump was an adult businessman during the 1970s, when we last experienced similar economic problems, he would have known this. But the president’s grasp of history, even a period he has lived through, is always tenuous at best. During this era, when he and his father were being sued for discriminating against prospective Black and Puerto Rican rental applicants, the country was suffering from stagflation, a condition caused by stagnant growth, high unemployment and soaring inflation, which started in 1973 and clocked in at 13.5% by 1980. The parallels to today, while not exact, are interesting; along with the Iran hostage crisis, stagflation ended up destroying Jimmy Carter’s presidency.

The problem was finally resolved after Federal Reserve chair Paul Volcker threw the country into a brutal recession by raising interest rates to over 20% by mid-1981, causing nearly 11% unemployment.

That was the last time the U.S. experienced any notable inflation until it shot up to just over 6% in 2022, which came as a shock to many consumers. Unlike Americans in the 1980s, they expected prices to come back down, but that will likely not happen. As the data analyst G. Elliott Morris recently wrote, it will take a long time before people have fully adjusted. Memories of the before-time are just too fresh. 

[E]conomist Robert Frank argued that inflation isn’t the villain. Instead, he wrote, “the real culprit was, and remains, something that neither Democrats nor Republicans have shown any willingness to tackle seriously: unprecedentedly high and growing levels of income and wealth inequality.” Frank believes that lavish spending by the wealthy is distorting both the economy and society-at-large, affecting everyone up and down the income ladder — and contributing to this ongoing sense of dissatisfaction and frustration. 

The problem is big and has been building for years; it won’t be solved by a return to 2% inflation or a rise in consumer confidence. And it certainly won’t change because Trump is pushing the bogus claim that America has entered a “golden age” and demanding that people believe him rather than their own lived experiences. 

Affordability is more than a political slogan. It’s a long-term global problem that’s getting worse every day, and Trump and Republicans look set to pay the price in November.

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The Iran War Is Smashing the Felon's Fossil Fuel Dreams

Both the Felon and much of the GOP are beholden to the fossil fuel industries - oil and coal - and have been relentless in their efforts to undermine the development of renewable energy sources, principally wind and solar, in order to please big oil in particular.  With the USA now a net exporter of oil and gas, the Felon seemingly viewed America as being immune to shortages and soaring gas prices that a closure of the Strait of Hormuz might bring.  Now, it is becoming clear that the Iran war - a war of choice for which the Felon is solely responsible - is driving other nations to accelerate efforts to reduce reliance on oil and gas energy sources in favor of wind and solar power. Who benefits from this effort to shift from hydrocarbons?  China, of course, which has come to dominate both the wind and solar energy industries even as the Felon's regime has undermined American efforts to grow both industries. This is yet another of the Felon's strategic failures.  A piece at The New Republic looks at how the Felon's war of choice is backfiring and another in the New York Times looks at how China stands to profit from the efforts of other nations' efforts to build renewable energy sources.  Meanwhile, dominance in both industries has allowed China to lessen its vulnerability to foreign oil sources.  First, here are highlights from TNR:  

The Strait of Hormuz is still closed, and it isn’t poised to open anytime soon. Donald Trump signaled on Wednesday that he intends to keep the U.S. blockade in place until Iran cries “uncle” and says, “We give up.” The longer the strait stays closed, the less likely any sort of return to normalcy gets.

Soon, this mounting human and economic disaster will crash into another climate-changed summer. Fatih Birol, the head of the International Energy Agency, warned last week that the world faces “the biggest energy security threat in history.” Surging jet fuel prices and shortages threaten everything from commercial air travel in Europe to fighting wildfires in the western United States. Making matters worse, a potential super El Niño could trigger heat waves across Asia, further increasing demand for air conditioning and, accordingly, fossil fuels. Droughts or flooding from that weather pattern could force hydropower stations to shut down or reduce output, compelling hydropower-dependent regions to increase their demand for increasingly scarce, pricey supplies of oil and gas. The combination of extreme weather and shortages of gas-derived fertilizers that typically flow through the Strait of Hormuz stands to exacerbate a looming, climate-fueled global food crisis.

While the Trump administration certainly doesn’t seem too concerned about the crises its reckless, illegal war of choice is exacerbating in other parts of the world, the war is continuing to influence one of the few things Trump genuinely seems to care about: gas prices. In the U.S., they have soared to almost $4.30 per gallon. For the U.S., though, war in Iran risks a lot more than pissing off voters who are paying more at the pump. As the war drags on, more countries are souring on the idea that oil and gas are reliable and necessary ingredients for a thriving economy. The White House, meanwhile, is going to elaborate lengths to safeguard the fossil-fueled growth model its war is endangering.

Some nations are starting to chart out energy futures that depend less on fossil fuels and the U.S. Leaders from nearly 60 countries gathered this past week in Santa Marta, Colombia, to discuss getting off of fossil fuels. Part of the inspiration for the meeting was that powerful fossil fuel producing countries—namely Saudi Arabia, Russia, and the United States—have made such discussions virtually impossible at U.N. climate talks. . . . three-fourths of the world’s population live in countries that are net importers of fossil fuels. . . . “So today,” Hart continued, “the urgency of transitioning away from fossil fuels is no longer only a climate or environmental imperative. It is a security imperative, an economic imperative, and a development imperative.”

Wars in Russia and Iran, however, have helped underline the urgency of that message. Steep declines in the price of renewable energy—thanks largely to China—have made it much more possible for even fast-growing countries to reduce their reliance on imported hydrocarbons in key sectors like power and transportation. For the first time last year, renewables provided more power than coal worldwide.

The war in Iran has helped accelerate shifts that were already underway—and confirmed any and all suspicions that the U.S. is an unreliable partner for energy security. . . . Whether consciously or not, the Trump administration is resorting to increasingly desperate measures to ward off a future where its carbon-intensive products are less important. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has now spent nearly $2 billion bribing developers to ditch offshore wind projects.

The continued closure of the Strait of Hormuz is driving up fuel and commodity prices, forcing drillers to halt production, pushing governments and consumers alike to consider lower-carbon alternatives, and endangering what not too long ago had been considered promising growth markets for U.S. companies. In attempting to cling onto U.S. hegemony and global energy dominance, Trump might be ending both.

These highlights from the Times piece look at how China is pulling far ahead of the USA in the wind and solar energy industries:

As the war in Iran threatens to choke off oil and gas supplies from the Persian Gulf, China is seizing the moment to extend its dominance in wind power.

Across China, hilltops are dotted with wind turbines, and long rows of them span many miles in western deserts. Ultrahigh-voltage power lines carry electricity thousands of miles to the energy-hungry factories along China’s coast.

Last year, China installed three times as much wind power capacity as the rest of the world combined, even as its turbine exports jumped. The global industry’s center of gravity has shifted decisively: All of the world’s six largest wind turbine manufacturers are Chinese, displacing once-dominant European firms and companies like General Electric.

The war has made China’s investments in wind look prescient. Its Asian neighbors, long reliant on Middle Eastern oil and gas, are struggling to secure fuel supplies. Meanwhile, China, with its massive reserves and modern electric grid, is better positioned to weather the energy crisis

The contrast with the United States is stark. Under President Trump, energy policy has swung back toward oil and natural gas. In the past six weeks, the Trump administration has moved to spend nearly $2 billion reimbursing energy companies for abandoning plans to build offshore wind farms. This week, a leading renewable energy group said the administration has stalled more than 150 wind farm projects by delaying military reviews once considered routine.

The United States, the world’s largest producer of oil and natural gas, has the luxury of relying on fossil fuels. China, the largest importer, does not. It is moving to reduce its exposure, motivated by concerns over national security, economic stability and climate change.

With the Strait of Hormuz, a critical artery for oil and gas shipments, largely closed for two months, China’s top leaders have grown more emphatic. “Energy is a strategic issue in development — our pioneering development of wind power and solar technology has proved to be forward-looking,” Xi Jinping, China’s top leader, said in late March, three weeks after U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran began.

Wind supplied 10 percent of China’s electricity last year, a share that is growing about one percentage point annually. Coal still accounts for just over half, but its share is slipping a couple of percentage points each year.

China is ramping up wind equipment exports in a hurry, unnerving competitors in the West and India. Exports of wind turbines and components to the European Union jumped 66 percent last year, while shipments to developing countries in China’s Belt and Road Initiative climbed 74 percent.

Chinese manufacturers, led by Envision Energy, are also gaining ground in India. . . . The standoff in Iran and the resulting spike in oil and natural gas prices have accelerated demand. Global wind turbine orders surged this spring, building on a 40 percent increase last year. Vietnam, for example, canceled plans for a major gas plant to focus instead on wind and solar.

Two decades ago, the wind industry was dominated by non-Chinese manufacturers: Vestas, General Electric, Germany’s Enercon, Spain’s Gamesa and Suzlon.

That began to change in 2005 when Beijing issued a directive, known as Notice 1204, requiring China’s wind farms to source at least 70 percent of their equipment domestically. Beijing’s top economic planning agency warned that projects failing to meet this threshold would not be approved.

Vestas, General Electric, Gamesa and Suzlon responded by building factories in China. Gamesa, which then held a 30 percent market share, localized nearly all its production. By 2009, its turbines for China were assembled with 95 percent Chinese components.