If we can't stop this disintegration of trust in America & the ability to reform & make our government work for all people, apathy will turn us over to the hard right, ending the American experiment.

There's been quite an outbreak of rightwing radicalism in America recently, much of it organized on and amplified by social media and all of it working to tear apart Americans' trust in their government and each other.

As a result, we watched during the Trump years as the United States began the shift from a representative democratic republic toward an authoritarian oligarchy, as has already happened in Hungary, South Sudan, Turkey, Ethiopia, The Philippines, Venezuela, and a handful of other nations in the past few decades.

The GOP, as we saw from their announcement last weekend about "legitimate political discourse," are still in thrall to this anti-democratic shift.

Read more at HartmannReport.com.

-Thom

Wednesday's Daily Stack

Article: "Unmasked: The Horrible Lesson Rightwing Radicalism has Taught America" by Thom Hartmann.

Article: "Is America Having a Foreign-Led "McCarthy Moment"?" by Thom Hartmann.

Article: "Trump's "Shared Psychosis" Is Destroying the Fabric of Society" (adrenochrome) by Thom Hartmann.

Book: "Gangsters of Capitalism: Smedley Butler, the Marines, and the Making and Breaking of America's Empire" by Jonathan M. Katz.

Book: I Paid Hitler by Fritz Thyssen.

Article: "The hacked account and suspicious donations behind the Canadian trucker protests" by Anya van Wagtendonk, Benjamin Powers, Steve Reilly.

Article: "Denmark's Hard Lessons About Trust and the Pandemic" by Rebecca Adler-Nissen, Sune Lehmann and Andreas Roepstorff.

Article: "The Covid Policy That Really Mattered Wasn't a Policy" by Ezra Klein.

Article: "Erik Prince Helped Raise Money for Conservative Spy Venture" by Mark Mazzetti and Adam Goldman.

Article: "Photo shows Amish who drove 2.5 hours with the "Freedom Convoy" to cook them food at their next stop." by Ciara O'Rourke.

Article: "BUSTED: American conservatives caught spreading lies about Canada's trucker convoy" by Bob Brigham.

Article: "Fact Check-Photo shows Russian protest in 1991, not Canadian anti-vaccine rally" by Reuters.

Article: "Fact check: Video shows South Carolina truckers during Special Olympics parade" by Chiara Vercellone.

Article: "Fact check: Video shows rally in support of Brazilian leader, not Canadian 'Freedom Convoy'" by Bayliss Wagner.

Article: "These countries are losing their freedoms fastest" by John McKenna.

Quote: "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub" by Grover Norquist.

Site: Resistance & Reinvention.

Article: "Ottawa truckers' convoy galvanizes far-right worldwide" by Mark Scott.

Article: "Tow-truck companies refuse to haul away large trucks gridlocking Ottawa" by Laura Osman.

Article: "How Mark Zuckerberg helped Dems sway the 2020 election " by New York Post.

Tweet: "This is amazing - an actual Canadian website calling out truckers aligning with foreign trolls and American rightwingers with the so-called "convoy." https://convoytraitors.ca" by Thom Hartmann.

Site: Ottawa Omicronvoy.

Article: "Conservative justices rescue Alabama's racially discriminatory map" by Steve Benen.

Article: "Truckers misrepresenting employers by joining Ottawa protest, companies say" by Julie Ireton.

Article: "US could be under rightwing dictator by 2030, Canadian professor warns" by Richard Luscombe.

Article: "The American polity is cracked, and might collapse. Canada must prepar" by Thomas Homer-Dixon.

Article: "Inoculating against misinformation: Finland's efforts to bring media literacy to the classroom" by Nada Zohdy.

Hour Two: "Stop the Steal" Trumpster candidates gone wild in Wi
- Ben Wikler, Chair - Wisconsin Democratic Party (WisDems)

Quote: "Long-term survival of American democracy depends on Wisconsin" - WisDems.

Article: "Wisconsin President Results 2020" by CNN.

Article: "2016 Wisconsin Results" by NYT.

Article: "2022 Wisconsin gubernatorial election" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Wisconsin elections, 2022" by BallotPedia.

Video: As GOP seeks to usurp control of elections, Wisconsin Democrats are mobilizing locally.

Article: "Wisconsin Is Ground Zero for the MAGA Effort to Steal the Next Election " by Andy Kroll.

Article: "Green Bay City Council will now see 10 contested races in spring elections" by Natalie Eilbert.

Article: "Transcript: The Rachel Maddow Show, 2/8/22" (w/ Ben Wikler).

Article: "Is Trump Losing His Base? New Poll Suggests Otherwise." by Ed Kilgore.

Article: "Republicans back Pence rebuke of Trump on overturning 2020 election" by Mychael Schnell.

Site: On the Media.

Book: The Hidden History of American Oligarchy: Reclaiming Our Democracy from the Ruling Class by Thom Hartmann.

Article: "John Birch Society" by Wikipedia.

Case: "Brown v. Board", 1954.

Article: "Former racist-in-chief Trump tells Joe Rogan to 'stop apologizing' for using the N-word" by Rebekah Sager.

Article: "Trump took multiple boxes of White House documents, including letters from Kim Jong Un and Barack Obama, to Mar-a-Lago: report" by Grace Panetta.

Article: "Kimmel Spots Legal Fine Print That Could Keep 'Pathetic' Trump Out Of Office" by Ed Mazza.

Article: "Melania Trump NFT purchased by its creators" by Christopher Hutton.

TAKING OUR COUNTRY BACK - Oregon: Rural Progressive Dem Takes On A Corporate Blue Dog Dem
- Jamie McLeod-Skinner, Democrat for Oregon's new 5th District - challenger to Congressman Kurt Schrader (D-OR, 5th District)

Article: "Kurt Schrader" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Kurt Schrader" by Ballotprdia.

Article: "Daily Kos Elections Live Digest - Jamie McLeod-Skinner" by Jeff Singer.

Article: "Endorsements" by Jamie McLeod-Skinner.

Article: "Stephen F. Hayes" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Stephen Hayes, Who Quit Fox News Over Tucker Carlson's 'Dangerous' Coverage, Joins NBC News" by Aidan McLaughlin.

Article: "Jonah Goldberg" by Wikipedia.

Article: "'Never Trump' Jonah Goldberg picked up by CNN after resigning from Fox News" by Valerie Richardson.

Site: The Dispatch.

Article: "John Fetterman" by Wikipedia.

Hour Three: Conversations With Great Minds: Gangsters of Capitalism
- Jonathan M. Katz, Journalist / Author of 2 books including his latest, Gangsters of Capitalism: Smedley Butler, the Marines, and the Making and Breaking of America's Empire / Check out his newsletter, The Racket

Article: "Haiti" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Nicaragua" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Cuba" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Philippines" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Business Plot" (1933, Smedley Butler) by Wikipedia.

Article: "Smedley Butler" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Trump admits his intention to overthrow government in a coup" by Mark Gruenberg.

Book: War is a Racket: The Antiwar Classic by America's Most Decorated Soldier by Smedley D. Butler.

Article: "American Liberty League" by Wikipedia.

Article: "New Deal" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Counterinsurgency" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Wisconsin's Johnson not fighting to get South Carolina jobs " by Scott Bauer.

Video: "Reagan: Government is not the solution to our problem government IS the problem".

Article: "The Gettysburg Address" by President Abraham Lincoln, November 19, 1863.

Article: "James E. Van Zandt" by Wikipedia.

Book: The Fourth Circle of Hell by Gary Rappard.

Article: "Canadian provinces begin backing off vaccine mandates amid lingering Freedom Convoy protests" by Jon Brown.

Article: "Michael Flynn" by Wikipedia.

Bible: "Matthew 7:5". "You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. "

Book: "None Dare Call It Treason" by John A. Stormer.

Quote: "WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives." - Smedley Butler.

Article: "Monroe Doctrine" by Wikipedia.

Quote: "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others." - Winston S. Churchill .

Article: "Government Reveals Trove of Evidence in First Jan. 6 Trial" by Alan Feuer.

Thursday on The Thom Hartmann Program, 12-3pm ET

I'll be talking with Economist Dr. Richard Wolff, Co-founder, Democracy At Work / Author of numerous books - his latest is The Sickness is the System (now also available as an eBook)

Plus, Conversations with Great Minds: I'll be talking with Johann Hari, Journalist & Author of 3 books including his latest, Stolen Focus / Johann studied Social and Political Science at King's College, Cambridge, and graduated with a Double First.

And, the best of the rest of the news along with your calls right here on...

The Thom Hartmann Program, Occupying The Media 3 hours a day 5 days a week for "we the people"

And don't forget...Democracy is NOT a spectator sport...it begins with you...

Will America Learn From Rightwing Radicalism Or Perish?

Who Is Paying Off "Stop the Steal" Organizers?

Is Big Money Behind Book Banning Frenzy?

Will Schools Out Queer Students To Parents?