It’s not communism or even socialism: it’s social democracy, and most modern nations practice it to some extent or another, in spite of the hegemony that US tech giants force upon us.
I continue to find myself nodding along to your work. Please keep it up.
I wrote recently—in “What Makes a Person”—about the challenge of getting candidates on the ballot willing to run on a platform that neuters the very corporate and elite interests that own elections today. It’s a bootstrap problem. Demonstrations with clear demands to get money out of politics seems like part of the solution, but you’re 100% correct that it goes nowhere without a massive shift in the DNC party line. I wish I could envision the steps to that.
PS - I’m a Rawls fanboy, so much so that I wrote a parable about it, followed by this piece where I tried to make an accessible summary of his ideas: https://666673.substack.com/p/justice-as-fairness
Brent, As always, love your ideas, but as you said early on in this piece: "But I am one of millions who can’t wait years for Trumpian damage to innocent livelihoods to stop."
Highly recommend the following interview w/Anand G & Sara Nelson, "Is it general strike o'clock?"
Brent Giannotta is right—waiting until 2026 is morally bankrupt. But the urgency he expresses runs headfirst into a hard truth:
The constitutional remedies he lists (impeachment, the 25th, resignation) are all blocked or lead to worse outcomes unless we first replace the Speaker.
If you want to act now, there’s only one constitutional move that matters: find 6–7 House Republicans with vestigial spines willing to replace the Speaker with a centrist or independent. That won’t fix everything—but it:
Slows the bleeding,
Breaks Trump’s authoritarian line of succession,
And puts someone acceptable third in line—not a man who sees himself as Moses.
Without that shift, removal just swaps Trump for Vance, and Musk for Thiel.
A real path forward exists—but it starts with the gavel, not the throne.
We need to stop giving billions of dollars in subsidies to billionaires. We should subsidize more start ups not people who buy other peoples great ideas and leverage them to enrich themselves. I mean come on that's just absurd. We need to rework so much. Throw out Citizens United. That was one of the worst decisions the Supreme Court ever made. We need a redo and maybe that means starting fresh with new people in all the high places and term limits for all roles in government too. We need to rework the system to be more resilient to narcissistic sociopaths and any other would be dictators that emerge. I like the vision. You need a plan to go with it. This is definitely the base of a plan. The left needs more planners and visionaries and they then need to listen to them. They really suck at listening to people they are threatened by. A hierarchy that operates on seniority instead of good and feasible ideas is a terrible model for a political party.
You are crazy if you think that that is a platform that would win. First we need to talk about getting the debt down (for real—not the Musk hack fest to steal data), restoring the dollar as the world currency (which it is about to lose), trying to ré-establish our relationship with former allies, rebuilding the economy that Trump is destroying, and restoring funding for so many federal agencies that were gutted.
Then, maybe we can talk about try to create a more just and equitable society. Few people care about equity when they are worried about their own futures!
To reduce the debt we should tax billionaires, not just their income but all their wealth. Call it a corporate accountability tax. Since corporations are people we should be able to tax them accordingly. No more loopholes for tax evasion either. We also need to stop giving contracts and corporate hand outs to billionaires. If we want to subsidize innovation which is the key to progress and wealth generation we need to award contracts to people with brilliant and novel ideas not rich men who buy those ideas to enrich themselves. Restoring the dollar will not happen so easily because we just alienated all our historic allies but overtime if we stabilize our nation we can stabilize our currency too. We do also need to find a way to enfranchise the American people more into the processes that drive that stability so they can take pride in that project. Right now people just feel shame or resentment and there is no trust because unfortunately our leadership is not trustworthy.
May your dreams come true!
It’s not communism or even socialism: it’s social democracy, and most modern nations practice it to some extent or another, in spite of the hegemony that US tech giants force upon us.
Elbows all the way up!
💪💪🇨🇦
I continue to find myself nodding along to your work. Please keep it up.
I wrote recently—in “What Makes a Person”—about the challenge of getting candidates on the ballot willing to run on a platform that neuters the very corporate and elite interests that own elections today. It’s a bootstrap problem. Demonstrations with clear demands to get money out of politics seems like part of the solution, but you’re 100% correct that it goes nowhere without a massive shift in the DNC party line. I wish I could envision the steps to that.
PS - I’m a Rawls fanboy, so much so that I wrote a parable about it, followed by this piece where I tried to make an accessible summary of his ideas: https://666673.substack.com/p/justice-as-fairness
Omgosh, thank you so much
I like that vision of government as hardship alleviation but many people are reflexively against it.
Brent, As always, love your ideas, but as you said early on in this piece: "But I am one of millions who can’t wait years for Trumpian damage to innocent livelihoods to stop."
Highly recommend the following interview w/Anand G & Sara Nelson, "Is it general strike o'clock?"
https://the.ink/p/watch-union-leader-sara-nelson-on?r=181ue8&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
Thank you!
Brent Giannotta is right—waiting until 2026 is morally bankrupt. But the urgency he expresses runs headfirst into a hard truth:
The constitutional remedies he lists (impeachment, the 25th, resignation) are all blocked or lead to worse outcomes unless we first replace the Speaker.
If you want to act now, there’s only one constitutional move that matters: find 6–7 House Republicans with vestigial spines willing to replace the Speaker with a centrist or independent. That won’t fix everything—but it:
Slows the bleeding,
Breaks Trump’s authoritarian line of succession,
And puts someone acceptable third in line—not a man who sees himself as Moses.
Without that shift, removal just swaps Trump for Vance, and Musk for Thiel.
A real path forward exists—but it starts with the gavel, not the throne.
We need to stop giving billions of dollars in subsidies to billionaires. We should subsidize more start ups not people who buy other peoples great ideas and leverage them to enrich themselves. I mean come on that's just absurd. We need to rework so much. Throw out Citizens United. That was one of the worst decisions the Supreme Court ever made. We need a redo and maybe that means starting fresh with new people in all the high places and term limits for all roles in government too. We need to rework the system to be more resilient to narcissistic sociopaths and any other would be dictators that emerge. I like the vision. You need a plan to go with it. This is definitely the base of a plan. The left needs more planners and visionaries and they then need to listen to them. They really suck at listening to people they are threatened by. A hierarchy that operates on seniority instead of good and feasible ideas is a terrible model for a political party.
Loved being surprised with some zombies 🧟 🧟♀️
You are crazy if you think that that is a platform that would win. First we need to talk about getting the debt down (for real—not the Musk hack fest to steal data), restoring the dollar as the world currency (which it is about to lose), trying to ré-establish our relationship with former allies, rebuilding the economy that Trump is destroying, and restoring funding for so many federal agencies that were gutted.
Then, maybe we can talk about try to create a more just and equitable society. Few people care about equity when they are worried about their own futures!
To reduce the debt we should tax billionaires, not just their income but all their wealth. Call it a corporate accountability tax. Since corporations are people we should be able to tax them accordingly. No more loopholes for tax evasion either. We also need to stop giving contracts and corporate hand outs to billionaires. If we want to subsidize innovation which is the key to progress and wealth generation we need to award contracts to people with brilliant and novel ideas not rich men who buy those ideas to enrich themselves. Restoring the dollar will not happen so easily because we just alienated all our historic allies but overtime if we stabilize our nation we can stabilize our currency too. We do also need to find a way to enfranchise the American people more into the processes that drive that stability so they can take pride in that project. Right now people just feel shame or resentment and there is no trust because unfortunately our leadership is not trustworthy.