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The GOP desperately needs an intervention: Trump’s CPAC speech showed clear signs of major cognitive decline — yet MAGA cheered

Salon – Opinion

Trump’s CPAC speech showed clear signs of major cognitive decline — yet MAGA cheered

Chauncey DeVega – February 26, 2024

Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images

Donald Trump was in his full glory over the weekend at the annual Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) conference. For his MAGA people, Republicans, and other neofascists and followers, Trump is like a father figure, preacher, teacher, confessor, lover, and god messiah prophet all in one person. In that way, CPAC is Donald Trump’s “church family” – only the church is full of fascism, hatred, wickedness, cruelty, and other anti-human values, beliefs, and behavior. Trump masterfully wields and conducts this energy.

Donald Trump’s speech at this year’s CPAC was truly awesome. As used here, “awesome” does not mean good, but instead draws on the word’s origins as in “inspiring awe or dread.” In his keynote speech on Saturday, Trump said that America is on a “fast track to hell” under President Biden and the Democrats and that “If crooked Joe Biden and his thugs win in 2024, the worst is yet to come. Our country will sink to levels that are unimaginable.”

He continued with his Hitler-like threats of an apocalyptic end-times battle between good and evil and that the country would be destroyed if he is not installed in the White House. Of course, Trump continued to amplify the Big Lie about the 2020 election being “stolen” from him and the MAGA people. He also made great use of the classic propaganda technique, as though he learned it personally from Nazi Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels: Accuse your opposition of that which you are guilty of.

The New York Times detailed Trump’s ominous speech as follows:

If Mr. Biden is re-elected for a second four-year term, Mr. Trump warned in his speech, Medicare will “collapse.” Social Security will “collapse.” Health care in general will “collapse.” So, too, will public education. Millions of manufacturing jobs will be “choked off into extinction.” The U.S. economy will be “starved of energy” and there will be “constant blackouts.” The Islamist militant group Hamas will “terrorize our streets.” There will be a third world war and America will lose it. America itself will face “obliteration.”
On the other hand, Mr. Trump promised on Saturday that if he is elected America will be “richer and safer and stronger and prouder and more beautiful than ever before.” Crime in major cities? A thing of the past.
“Chicago could be solved in one day,” Mr. Trump said. “New York could be solved in a half a day there.”

Donald Trump has repeatedly shown himself to be a malignant narcissist and white victimologist. In his CPAC speech, he compared himself to pro-democracy activist Alexei Navalny, who died under the authority of Putin’s regime last week. Trump also continued to threaten his and the MAGA movement’s “enemies” with prison or worse as they meet their “judgment day”:

“I stand before you today not only as your past and future president, but as a proud political dissident….“For hard-working Americans Nov. 5 will be our new liberation day — but for the liars and cheaters and fraudsters and censors and impostors who have commandeered our government, it will be their judgment day…. Your victory will be our ultimate vindication, your liberty will be our ultimate reward and the unprecedented success of the United States of America will be my ultimate and absolute revenge.”

Here, Donald Trump sounded like an evil version of President Thomas Whitmore in the 1996 movie “Independence Day.”

He also used stochastic terrorism to encourage violence by his MAGA followers and other supporters with the lie that they are somehow being “victimized” or “persecuted” in America: “I can tell you that weaponized law enforcement hunts for conservatives and people of faith.” Echoing those themes, Trump, who believes that he is above and outside the rule of law, described his finally being held responsible for his many obvious crimes against American democracy and society as “Stalinist Show Trials,” as The Guardian further details:

Facing 91 criminal charges in four cases, Trump projected himself as both martyr and potential saviour of the nation. “A vote for Trump is your ticket back to freedom, it’s your passport out of tyranny and it’s your only escape from Joe Biden and his gang’s fast track to hell,” he continued.
“And in many ways, we’re living in hell right now because the fact is, Joe Biden is a threat to democracy – really is a threat to democracy.”
Speaking days after the death of the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, Trump hinted at a self-comparison by adding: “I stand before you today not only as your past and hopefully future president but as a proud political dissident. I am a dissident.”
The crowd whooped and applauded. Trump noted that he had been indicted more often than the gangster Al Capone on charges that he described as “bullshit”. The audience again leaped to their feet, some shaking their fists and chanting: “We love Trump! We love Trump!”
Trump argued without evidence: “The Stalinist show trials being carried out at Joe Biden’s orders set fire not only to our system of government but to hundreds of years of western legal tradition.
“They’ve replaced law, precedent and due process with a rabid mob of radical left Democrat partisans masquerading as judges and juries and prosecutors.”

Trump is an expert on leveraging everyday people’s pain points and personal fear. In his CPAC speech, Trump triggered this by focusing on real economic anxieties and feelings of vulnerability and precarity about rising energy costs, the cost of living, and the “American Dream” more broadly.

To this point, President Biden and the Democrats have not been able to effectively counter such attacks by Donald Trump and his spokespeople and other agents. Appeals to the facts about how historically great Biden’s economy is, are no salve for how everyday people are experiencing hardship and increasingly view Donald Trump and Trumpism as a viable alternative to the Democrats and “democracy.”

Trump also spun up a horror story version of the United States as a country overrun by black and brown migrants and “illegal” immigrants who are like the cannibalistic serial killer Hannibal Lecter from the film “Silence of the Lambs.” Trump’s solution: mass deportations and concentration camps.

During his speech, Donald Trump would continue to valorize the Jan. 6 terrorists who attacked the Capitol as fascist saints and martyrs of the MAGA movement – a group who Trump vowed to pardon when/if he takes power in 2025. They will in turn become his personal shock troops. Trump’s megalomania and claims to god-like power, were on full display during his speech on Saturday, where the ex-president, described himself in the third person, telling the audience that “Trump was right about everything.”

In an excellent article at Mother Jones, Stephanie Mencimer shared what she learned from embedding herself at last week’s CPAC conference (she did not attend as a credentialed reporter) and how in the Age of Trump and American neofascism that event is a festival of extreme right-wing politics and the hatred and intolerance that are among its most defining features:

Exiled from the press pen, I was just part of the audience, a space previously off-limits to reporters. To say the least, it was enlightening. On Friday, for instance, I listened to a main-stage speech from Chris Miller, a Republican running for governor of West Virginia. Because of its tax-exempt status, CPAC bans speakers from openly campaigning there, so he was listed on the program simply as “businessman.”
Like virtually every other speaker at the event, Miller devoted several of his allotted five minutes to railing against transgender healthcare. “Woke doctors are literally making boys into girls,” he declared. “They’re practicing mutilation, not medicine. They should be in prison.” At that point, a burly man in a giant black cowboy hat sitting next to me leaned over conspiratorially and proclaimed, “I think we should hang them all! I really do.” And he laughed like we were in on the same joke. I confess that I was too cowardly to tell him I was with the left-wing fake news.
Later, during a speech by South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, I was sitting next to a woman in full-on MAGA gear. When Noem declared, “There are some people who love America, and there are some people who hate America,” my neighbor gave me a small heart attack. “Get the FUCK OUT!” she yelled furiously, ready to rumble. “Get the FUCK OUT!” Meanwhile, the old man in the camo Trump hat next to her had somehow fallen asleep.

Mencimer then reflected on the devolution of CPAC, describing it as, “[W]hat passed for policy discussions at CPAC this year was largely limited to mass deportations and attacks on trans athletes. The sober panels about the national debt, balancing the budget, or Social Security reform that once commanded top billing were a relic of another era before CPAC became an extension of Trump Inc., devoted to all the MAGA grievances like racial equity, the evils of windmills, or bans on gas stoves.”

During his CPAC speech, Trump continued with his often incoherent and confused way of speaking, rambling(s), memory lapses, and extreme tangents. Trump defended his apparent speech challenges, saying that, “And by the way, isn’t this better than reading off a fricking teleprompter…’They’ll say: he rambled. Nobody can ramble like this….Probably I won’t get the best speaker this year because I went off this stupid teleprompter.”

Trump’s CPAC speech appears to be further evidence of what psychiatrist John Gartner concluded “appears to be … gross signs of dementia. This is a tale of two brains. Biden’s brain is aging. Trump’s brain is dementing.”

However, one must be cautious and understand that Trump’s apparent mental, emotional, and overall cognitive decline, and other indications of a damaged mind, are largely irrelevant to his followers. Donald Trump is a symbol more than a man. His MAGA people and other loyalists and voters ignore, reconcile, and more generally make sense of Trump’s apparent cognitive and speech difficulties by telling themselves that he is “just like them” and “speaks a language they can understand” because he is “authentic” and “not a traditional politician.” By definition, the Dear Leader is infallible. Fake right-wing populism can be bent and shaped to accommodate any absurdity.

Donald Trump’s speech at CPAC is but more evidence that he is giving his MAGA people and other followers and supporters in the Republican Party and the larger right-wing and “conservative” movement what they want. Public opinion polls and other research have consistently shown that there are tens of millions of Americans who yearn for an American dictator or others strongman-type leader, who will “break the rules” to “get things done” for “people like them.” In addition, Republican and other Trump voters specifically support his taking power as a dictator and ending democracy. And as has been widely documented, a significant percentage of white voters do not support democracy if it means that their “racial” group does not have the most influence and power and privilege in American society as compared to black and brown people.

Donald Trump and today’s Republican Party and the larger right-wing and neofascist movement have successfully tapped into what is a centuries-old vein of white supremacist herrenvolk nightmare dreams and white rage in American society and life. The CPAC conference featured speakers and panels that reinforced that today’s Republican Party and “conservative movement” have rejected multiracial pluralistic democracy and seek to replace it with a White Christofascist Apartheid plutocracy.

In contrast to Donald Trump’s awfully awesome speech at CPAC on Saturday, President Biden solemnly warned reporters, again, that the 2024 Election is an existential battle for the country’s democracy and the soul of the nation where our most fundamental freedoms as Americans are imperiled.

In a recent essay here at Salon, Brian Karem reflected on his personal experience with such peril:

The most disturbing thing I’ve ever heard a president say did not come from Donald Trump.
It came from Joe Biden. Speaking with reporters in California on Thursday, the president said this about Donald Trump. “Two of your former colleagues not at the same network personally told me if he wins, they will have to leave the country because he’s threatened to put them in jail,” Biden told Katie Couric. “He embraces political violence,” Biden said of Trump “No president since the Civil War has done that. Embrace it. Encourages it.”
Perhaps I should have been shocked at the revelation that Trump, should he return to power, would jail reporters. I wasn’t of course. I had to fight him (and beat him) three times in court during his first administration to keep my White House press pass. I had already privately heard Trump’s threats. It was just disturbing to hear Joe Biden confirm it publicly. …
That is why the world cannot see Trump back in the White House. He knows nothing but divisiveness. And Biden was right to point out that Trump wants to jail reporters.
Trump supporters don’t care. But I’ve eaten Texas jail food, so I do.
When Einstein fled Germany he fled the poison of nationalism and longed for a country of civil liberty and tolerance. The closest he found was here in the United States. Where is it today? More importantly, where will it be after the November general election?

As always, believe the autocrat-dictator or other such political thug. He or she – in this case Donald Trump – is not kidding or joking.

Echoing Karem’s experience, I have talked to members of the pro-democracy movement (specifically journalists and reporters), and they have shared with me how they are in the process of deciding if they will stay here in the United States or flee the country if Dictator Trump and his regime takes power in 2025.

On Election Day, which will be here very soon, the American people have a choice to make. Last weekend’s CPAC conference was just one more escalation in the direct and transparent threats and dangerousness of Trumpism and American neofascism. If Trump wins on Election Day, the American people cannot say they were surprised by the hell he and his regime and followers will unleash on the country. The American people were told repeatedly what would happen and through both their active and tacit support for Trumpism and neofascism (indifference or otherwise not voting for President Biden and by implication American democracy in this decisive moment) allowed it to happen. How great is the American people’s drive to self-destruction? We will soon find out in eight or so months.

Anthropologist: CPAC displays how Trump’s base believes he is a savior

UPI – Opinion

Anthropologist: CPAC displays how Trump’s base believes he is a savior

Alexander Hinton, Rutgers University – February 26, 2024

Former President Donald Trump acknowledges applause as he arrives at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Saturday. Thousands of conservative activists, elected officials and pundits gathered to hear speakers with this year’s theme “CPAC: Where Globalism Goes to Die.” Photo by Mike Theiler/UPI

Feb. 26 (UPI) — What is happening in the hearts of former President Donald Trump’s supporters?

As an anthropologist who studies peace and conflict, I went to the annual meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, to find out. I wanted to better understand the Make America Great Again faithful — and their die-hard support for Trump.

The event began on Feb. 21, in National Harbor, Maryland, with Steve Bannon’s routine, untrue banter about how President Joe Biden stole the 2020 election, and it peaked with an angry speech from Trump three days later. In between, I sat among the MAGA masses listening to speaker after speaker express outrage about American decline — and their hope for Trump’s reelection.

Everywhere I turned, people wore MAGA regalia — hats, pins, logos and patches, many with Trump’s likeness. I spent breaks in the exhibition hall, which featured a Jan. 6 insurrection-themed pinball machine featuring “Stop the Steal,” “Political Prisoners” and “Babbitt Murder” rally modes and a bus emblazoned with Trump’s face. Admirers scribbled messages on the bus such as, “We have your back” and “You are anointed and appointed by God to be the President.”

Those on the left who dismiss the CPAC as a gathering of MAGA crazies and racists who support a wannabe dictator do not understand that, from this far-right perspective, there are compelling and even urgent reasons to support Trump. Indeed, they believe, as conservative politician Tulsi Gabbard stated in her CPAC speech on Feb. 22, that the left’s claims about Trump’s authoritarianism are “laughable.” This is because CPAC attendees falsely perceive President Joe Biden as the one who is attacking democracy.

Here are my top three takeaways from CPAC about Trump supporters’ current priorities and thinking.

1. There’s a Reagan dinner – but CPAC is Trump’s party

Former President Ronald Reagan runs in CPAC’s DNA. Reagan spoke at the inaugural CPAC in 1974 and went on to speak there a dozen more times.

In 2019, the conservative advocacy group the American Political Union, which hosts CPAC, published a book of Reagan’s speeches with commentary by conservative luminaries. In the preface, Matt Schlapp, the head of the American Political Union, says he often asks himself, “What would Reagan do?”

CPAC’s pomp gala, held Friday, is still called the “Ronald Reagan Dinner.” But Reagan is otherwise hardly mentioned at the conference.

Reagan’s ideas of American exceptionalism have been supplanted by Trump’s populist story of apocalyptic decline. Reagan’s folksy tone, relative moderation and clear quips are long gone, replaced by fury, grievance and mean-spirited barbs.

2. There’s a method to the madness

Many commentators and critics, including groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center, view CPAC as a frightening or bizarre gathering of white nationalists who have a nativist agenda.

In 2021, commentators said the CPAC stage was shaped like a famous Nazi design called the Othala Rune, which is a hate symbol. Schlapp denied this claim and said that CPAC supports the Jewish community, but various commentators took note of the uncanny resemblance.

This year, CPAC refused to give press credentials to various media outlets, including The Washington Post, despite the organization’s emphasis on free speech.

Some speakers, including Trump, have been known to regularly voice support for white nationalism and right-wing extremism, including speakers who promote the false idea that there is a plot to replace the white population. I discuss this idea in my 2021 book, “It Can Happen Here: White Power and the Rising Threat of Genocide in the US.”

Indeed, the U.S.-Mexico border was a constant topic at this year’s CPAC, which included controversial anti-immigrant speakers such as the head of Spain’s far-right Vox party and a representative of Hungary, whose leader stated at the 2022 CPAC that Europeans should not become “mixed-race.” Hungary will also host a CPAC meeting in April 2024.

Many of the sessions have alarming titles like, “Burning Down the House,” “Does Government Even Matter” and “Going Full Hungarian.” There are right-wing, populist speakers like Bannon and U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz.

Overall, the program is informed by a conservative logic that largely boils down to God, family, tradition, law and order, defense and freedom.

Of these, God looms largest. As a result, CPAC’s hardcore conservative Christian orientation is anti-abortion rights, homophobic and oriented toward traditional family structure and what it considers morality.

Schlapp co-wrote a book in 2022 that warns of the dangers of “evil forces” — what he considers to be progressives, the radical left and American Marxists. Schlapp’s book title even dubs these forces “the desecrators.” Such inflammatory language is frequently used at CPAC, including by Trump during his Saturday speech.

3. Trump believers think he is their savior

CPAC’s love of Trump is shocking to many on the left. But at CPAC, Trump is viewed as America’s savior.

According to his base, Trump delivered on abortion by appointing Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade. They believe that, despite evidence of mixed results, Trump had wide successes at securing the border and creating jobs. For example, during Trump’s time as president, the U.S. economy lost nearly 3 million jobs, and apprehensions of undocumented migrants at the border rose.

Trump’s CPAC speech, like his campaign speeches, harped on such supposed achievements — as well as Biden’s alleged “destruction” of the country.

Conservatives roll their eyes at liberal fears of Trump the despot. Like all of us, they acknowledge, Trump has flaws. They say that some of his comments about women and minorities are cringeworthy, but not evidence of an underlying misogyny and hatefulness, as many critics contend.

Ultimately, CPAC conservatives believe Trump is their best bet to defeat the radical-left “desecrators” who seek to thwart him at every turn — including, as they constantly complained at CPAC, social media bans, “fake news” takedowns, rigged voting, bogus lawsuits, unfair justice, and lies about what they call the Jan. 6, 2021, “protest.“

Despite these hurdles, Trump battles on toward the Republican nomination for presidential candidate — the hero who CPAC conservatives view as the last and best hope to save the USA.The Conversation

Alexander Hinton is a distinguished professor of anthropology and director of the Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights at Rutgers University – Newark.

Thousands of student-loan borrowers are set to get emails from Biden that their balances are wiped out. Here’s what happens next.

Business Insider

Thousands of student-loan borrowers are set to get emails from Biden that their balances are wiped out. Here’s what happens next.

Ayelet Sheffey – February 21, 2024

Biden announced $1.2 billion in student-debt cancellation for 153,000 borrowers.
It’s a result of early implementation of a SAVE plan provision to shorten the timeline for debt relief.
Biden is notifying impacted borrowers on Wednesday, and it could take a few weeks for servicers to apply the relief.

Student-loan borrowers, check your emails — you might find a message from President Joe Biden in your inbox telling you that your debt is canceled.

On Wednesday morning, the White House and Education Department announced it would be canceling $1.2 billion in student debt for 153,000 borrowers — the result of early implementation of a provision in the SAVE income-driven repayment plan that shortens the timeline for borrowers to see relief.

Specifically, borrowers who originally took out $12,000 in loans or less and have made as few as 10 years of qualifying payments are becoming eligible to have their remaining balances wiped out.

Beginning on Wednesday, borrowers in the first batch of relief will receive emails from Biden stating: “Congratulations—all or a portion of your federal student loans will be forgiven because you qualify for early loan forgiveness under my Administration’s SAVE Plan.”

“I hope this relief gives you a little more breathing room,” the email, a draft of which was reviewed by Business Insider, said. “I’ve heard from countless people who have told me that relieving the burden of their student loan debt will allow them to support themselves and their families, buy their first home, start a small business, and move forward with life plans they’ve put on hold.”

A White House fact sheet stated that the shortened timeline to forgiveness will especially help “borrowers with smaller loans and put many on track to being free of student debt faster than ever before.” Additionally, per the fact sheet, 7.5 million borrowers are enrolled in the SAVE plan, and 4.3 million of them have a $0 monthly payment.

Here’s what will happen next for borrowers who are, or hope to be, eligible for SAVE plan relief.

Next steps for SAVE plan debt relief

Biden’s email noted that the Education Department has already informed impacted borrowers’ loan servicers that they are eligible for relief. The relief will happen automatically, and borrowers who are notified will not need to take any action.

Servicers will notify borrowers that their forgiveness has been applied, but “it may take some time for your account with your servicer to reflect this change,” per the email. It recommends borrowers wait at least 21 days after being notified of the relief to contact their servicers if they still do not see the relief applied to their accounts.

The Education Department also said that beginning next week, it will start emailing borrowers not currently on the SAVE plan that they could become eligible for relief if they enroll. Borrowers already enrolled in SAVE but not included in the first batch of debt relief will have their loans automatically discharged once they meet the criteria, and the department will continue evaluating borrowers’ accounts “on a regular basis,” per its press release.

Biden’s email also cautioned borrowers to watch out for scams and said that any notification regarding debt relief would come from noreply@studentaid.gov, noreply@debtrelief.studentaid.gov, or ed.gov@public.govdelivery.com.

More upcoming student-debt relief

While the relief announced on Wednesday was a result of early implementation, other provisions of the SAVE plan will be going into effect in July. Those include cutting payments for undergraduate loans in half and allowing periods in deferment of forbearance to count toward forgiveness progress.

Beyond the SAVE plan, the Education Department is also planning to complete its one-time account adjustments for borrowers on income-driven repayment plans and Public Service Loan Forgiveness by July 1. The adjustments have so far given thousands of borrowers relief, but the department recommends borrowers who are not in the federal direct loan program or have federally-held loans in the Federal Family Education Loan program consolidate their loans by the end of April to benefit from the adjustment.

More broadly, on February 22 and 23, the department is holding its final negotiation session with stakeholders to help craft its second attempt at student-debt relief after the Supreme Court struck down the first plan. Once negotiations conclude, the department will prepare proposed text on the borrowers it’s seeking to include in this new relief plan.

Presidential greatness is rarely fixed in stone – changing attitudes on racial injustice and leadership qualities lead to dramatic shifts

The Conversation

Presidential greatness is rarely fixed in stone – changing attitudes on racial injustice and leadership qualities lead to dramatic shifts

George R. Goethals, University of Richmond – February 18, 2024

A statue of Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, sits in the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. Historians consistently have given Lincoln, the Great Emancipator, their highest rating because of his leadership during the Civil War. <span>Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images</span> — A statue of Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, sits in the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. Historians consistently have given Lincoln, the Great Emancipator, their highest rating because of his leadership during the Civil War. Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Every American president has landed in the history books. And historians’ assessments of their performance have been generally consistent over time. But some presidents’ rankings have changed as the nation – and historians themselves – reassessed the country’s values and priorities.

Historians have been ranking presidents in surveys since Arthur Schlesinger Sr.’s first such study appeared in Life magazine in 1948. The results of that survey categorized Presidents Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson as “great.”

At the other end of the ranking, Presidents Ulysses S. Grant and Warren Harding were labeled “failure.”

There have been numerous surveys ranking presidents since then, including a 1962 survey by Arthur Schlesinger Jr., which showed Jackson dropping into a “near great” category.

Changing views shift rankings

While the surveys point to Americans’ evolving social attitudes, with implications for our electoral politics and governance, they don’t always ask historians the same questions. Some simply ask them to rank presidents. Others ask them to also judge specific aspects of leadership, such as economic policy or international diplomacy.

Despite the relative stability of the ratings across surveys – especially at the top, where Lincoln, Washington and Roosevelt consistently hold sway – there have been some dramatic changes. C-SPAN’s four surveys on presidential leadership, for example, show some shifts in historians’ ranking of presidents over time.

Since 2000, the cable network has polled prominent historians every time there has been a change in administrations. So, C-SPAN conducted surveys in 2009, 2017 and 2021 as well.

The surveys offer not only an overall ranking of presidents, but also rankings in each of the following 10 categories: public persuasion, crisis leadership, economic management, moral authority, international relations, administrative skills, relations with Congress, vision and agenda setting, pursuance of equal justice for all, and performance within the context of the times.

While Lincoln has ranked at the top of each survey, the two presidents who served right before him – Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan, both sympathetic to slavery – and his immediate successor, white supremacist Andrew Johnson, have consistently ranked at the bottom. Donald Trump debuted in C-SPAN’s 2021 survey near the bottom. He was ranked 41st of 45 presidents.

A suited man, with ear-length hair, sits with his left hand resting on a side table. — Andrew Johnson was Abraham Lincoln’s vice president and successor. As president, he vetoed legislation designed to help African Americans during Reconstruction. The Print Collector/ Hulton Archive via Getty Images

What is a good leader?

As a social psychologist and leadership scholar at the University of Richmond’s Jepson School of Leadership Studies, with long-standing interests in presidential leadership, I believe these surveys can be best understood in terms of psychologist Dean Keith Simonton’s model of evaluating presidents.

He maintains that historians generally view leaders, including presidents, positively to the extent that they fit a deeply ingrained image of someone who is strong, active and good. And that image comes to mind when they think of attributes and events linked to a president that suggest he was a good leader. Examples include how long he served, whether he was a war hero and whether he was assassinated, and in that sense, was a martyr.

On the other hand, historians also easily recall scandals, such as Richard Nixon’s Watergate and Harding’s Teapot Dome. These detract from these presidents’ “good” image, as evidenced by Nixon’s and Harding’s rankings of 31st and 37th, respectively, in C-SPAN’s 2021 survey.

Race matters

In recent years, presidents’ positions on race and racism have been important factors in historians’ evaluations of their records. For example, Wilson’s rather startling efforts to segregate federal offices and the military are becoming more widely known as scholars explore that aspect of his presidency.

His actions in that regard may overshadow his international idealism, which favored morality over materialism and has been viewed positively. He is no longer considered one of our “great” presidents. In Schlesinger Sr.’s 1948 survey, he ranked fourth of 29 presidents. But in 2021, historians ranked him 13th of 45 for C-SPAN.

Jackson dropped the most in C-SPAN’s surveys, from 13th in 2000 to 22nd in 2021. His commitment to Indian removal from Southern and Midwestern states, not unique for the time, and the resulting Trail of Tears – the forced and violent relocation of Native Americans from their homelands – are important topics in today’s political discussions.

A suited man stands with a top hat in his right hand as his left hand rests on a side table dressed in a table cloth. — President Grover Cleveland, in office from 1885 to 1889 and 1893 to 1897, opposed efforts to integrate schools or give African Americans, whom he considered inferior to white people, voting rights. Library of Congress/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images

Several other presidents who lost ground, including James Polk, Zachary Taylor, Rutherford B. Hayes and Grover Cleveland, were associated with efforts to extend slavery or with failure to protect African Americans following Reconstruction.

Then there is the case of Grant. Ranked at the bottom as a failure in the mid-20th century, he had the largest ranking change of any president in the C-SPAN surveys. He jumped 13 places from 33rd in 2000 to 20th in 2021. He had already moved up from second-to-last place in the 1948 and 1962 Schlesinger surveys to somewhere in the bottom quartile in 2000, to a position in 2021 where more presidents ranked worse than he did.

The 2021 C-SPAN survey ranks Grant sixth on “pursued equal justice for all,” behind only Lincoln, Lyndon Johnson, Barack Obama, Harry Truman and Jimmy Carter. Given the centrality of equal justice, which may overshadow whatever connection Grant may have had to scandals in his administration, such as Crédit Mobilier and the Whiskey Ring, Grant rises in historians’ overall evaluation.

Moral authority

This all suggests historians have quite simple ways of evaluating presidents. We have an image of the ideal leader. Just a few pieces of information relating to that ideal make a big difference in whether we view presidents as fitting or not fitting that image. This is particularly true of our perception of how good they were. Presidents’ moral commitments speak loudly to whether or not we view them as good.

Interestingly, on the quality of “moral authority” in the C-SPAN surveys from 2000 to 2021, Grant’s ranking rose 14 rungs, from 31st to 17th, even more than it did on “pursued equal justice for all,” where it rose 12 rungs, from 18th to sixth. Wilson and Jackson dropped 13 and 18 places, respectively, on “moral authority.”

Clearly, moral judgments loom large in historians’ assessments of presidential leadership.

A bearded man, dressed in a suit, sits with his right leg crossed over his left. His left hand rests on a book, atop a side table. — Ulysses S. Grant, once ranked poorly by historians, now gets high marks. His advocacy for African American voting rights stands out among his efforts for the freedmen during Reconstruction. Print Collector/Hulton Archive via Getty Images

New presidential rankings place Obama in top 10, Reagan and Trump below Biden

Fox News

New presidential rankings place Obama in top 10, Reagan and Trump below Biden

Michael Lee – February 18, 2024

A new ranking of presidents by a group of self-styled experts determined that Abraham Lincoln is America’s greatest president, while Donald Trump ranks last.

Lincoln topped the list of presidents in the 2024 Presidential Greatness Project expert survey for the third time, following his top spot in the rankings in the 2015 and 2018 versions of the survey.

According to a release from the Presidential Greatness Project, which touts itself as the “foremost organization of social science experts in presidential politics,” the 154 respondents to the survey included “current and recent members of the Presidents & Executive Politics Section of the American Political Science Association…as well as scholars who have recently published peer-reviewed academic research in key related scholarly journals or academic presses.”

PRESIDENTIAL DEPRESSION AND ABRAHAM LINCOLN’S STRUGGLE WITH ‘MELANCHOLY’: WHAT HISTORIANS KNOW

Split image of Obama, Reagan, Trump, and Biden — Former Presidents Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump, and President Biden

The respondents were asked to rank presidents on a scale of 0-100, with 0 being a failure, 50 being average and 100 being great. Rounding out the top five in the rankings were Franklin Delano Roosevelt at number two, George Washington at three, Theodore Roosevelt at four, and Thomas Jefferson at five.

Trump was ranked in last place in the survey, being ranked worse than James Buchanan at 44, Andrew Johnson at 43, Franklin Peirce at 42, and William Henry Harrison at 41.

Respondents were also tracked by their political affiliation and ideology, which the release argues did not “tend to make a major difference overall” in the rankings, though there were some outliers, mainly with recent presidents.

Lincoln portrait — Abraham Lincoln topped the list of presidents once again.

HOW ABRAHAM LINCOLN WAS SAVED BY HIS SON TAD — AND GAVE US ‘A HOLIDAY TRADITION’ TO REMEMBER

Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush and Trump were more likely to be ranked higher by conservatives or Republicans, with Reagan being ranked an average of 5th by Republicans respondents, Bush 19th and Trump 41st. Among Democrat respondents, Reagan was rated an average of 18th, Bush 33rd and Trump 45th.

A similar partisan divide was noticeable for Barack Obama and President Biden, who ranked an average of 6th and 13th, respectively, among Democrat respondents, and 15th and 30th by Republicans. Bill Clinton, a Democrat, was ranked higher by Republican respondents (10th) than he was by Democrats (12th).

Obama speaks at podium — President Obama

The divide resulted in an overall ranking of 7th for Obama, 12th for Clinton, 14th for Biden, 16th for Reagan and 32nd for Bush.

Why I Am Now Deeply Worried for America

The New York Times – Opinion

Why I Am Now Deeply Worried for America

By Paul Krugman – February 12, 2024

An American flag in murky water. — Credit…Damon Winter/The New York Times

Until a few days ago, I was feeling fairly sanguine about America’s prospects. Economically, we’ve had a year of strong growth and plunging inflation — and aside from committed Republicans, who see no good, hear no good and speak no good when a Democrat is president, Americans appear to be recognizing this progress. It has seemed increasingly likely that the nation’s good sense would prevail and democracy would survive.

But watching the frenzy over President Biden’s age, I am, for the first time, profoundly concerned about the nation’s future. It now seems entirely possible that within the next year, American democracy could be irretrievably altered.

And the final blow won’t be the rise of political extremism — that rise certainly created the preconditions for disaster, but it has been part of the landscape for some time now. No, what may turn this menace into catastrophe is the way the hand-wringing over Biden’s age has overshadowed the real stakes in the 2024 election. It reminds me, as it reminds everyone I know, of the 2016 furor over Hillary Clinton’s email server, which was a minor issue that may well have wound up swinging the election to Donald Trump.

As most people know by now, Robert Hur, a special counsel appointed to look into allegations of wrongdoing on Biden’s part, concluded that the president shouldn’t be charged. But his report included an uncalled-for and completely unprofessional swipe at Biden’s mental acuity, apparently based on the president’s difficulty in remembering specific dates — difficulty that, as I wrote on Friday, everyone confronts at whatever age. Hur’s gratuitous treatment of Biden echoed James Comey’s gratuitous treatment of Clinton — Hur and Comey both seemed to want to take political stands when that was not their duty.

Yes, it’s true that Biden is old, and will be even older if he wins re-election and serves out a second term. I wish that Democrats had been able to settle on a consensus successor a year or two ago and that Biden had been able to step aside in that successor’s favor without setting off an intraparty free-for-all. But speculating about whether that could have happened is beside the point now. It didn’t happen, and Biden is going to be the Democratic nominee.

It’s also true that many voters think the president’s age is an issue. But there’s perception and there’s reality: As anyone who has recently spent time with Biden (and I have) can tell you, he is in full possession of his faculties — completely lucid and with excellent grasp of detail. Of course, most voters don’t get to see him up close, and it’s on Biden’s team to address that. And yes, he speaks quietly and a bit slowly, although this is in part because of his lifetime struggle with stuttering. He also, by the way, has a sense of humor, which I think is important.

Most important is that Biden has been a remarkably effective president. Trump spent four years claiming that a major infrastructure initiative was just around the corner, to the point that “It’s infrastructure week!” became a running joke; Biden actually got legislation passed. Trump promised to revive American manufacturing, but didn’t. Biden’s technology and climate policies — the latter passed against heavy odds — have produced a surge in manufacturing investment. His enhancement of Obamacare has brought health insurance coverage to millions.

If you ask me, these achievements say a lot more about Biden’s capacity than his occasional verbal slips.

And what about his opponent, who is only four years younger? Maybe some people are impressed by the fact that Trump talks loud and mean. But what about what he’s actually saying in his speeches? They’re frequently rambling word salads, full of bizarre claims like his assertion on Friday that if he loses in November, “they’re going to change the name of Pennsylvania.”

Not to mention confusing Nikki Haley with Nancy Pelosi and mistaking E. Jean Carroll for one of his ex-wives.

As I also wrote last week, Trump’s speeches make me remember my father’s awful last year, when he suffered from sundowning — bouts of incoherence and belligerence after dark. And we’re supposed to be worried about Biden’s mental state?

Over the past few days, while the national discussion has been dominated by talk about Biden’s age, Trump declared that he wouldn’t intervene to help “delinquent” NATO members if Russia were to attack them, even suggesting that he might encourage such an attack. He seems to regard NATO as nothing more than a protection racket and after all this time still has no idea how the alliance works. By the way, Lithuania, the NATO member that Trump singled out, has spent a larger percentage of its G.D.P. on aid to Ukraine than any other nation.

Again, I wish this election weren’t a contest between two elderly men and worry in general about American gerontocracy. But like it or not, this is going to be a race between Biden and Trump — and somehow the lucid, well-informed candidate is getting more heat over his age than his ranting, factually challenged opponent.

As I said, until just the other day I was feeling somewhat optimistic. But now I’m deeply troubled about our nation’s future.

Paul Krugman has been an Opinion columnist since 2000 and is also a distinguished professor at the City University of New York Graduate Center. He won the 2008 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his work on international trade and economic geography.

While men ran for cover, women rose and stared down Donald Trump

The Charlotte Observer – Opinion

While men ran for cover, women rose and stared down Donald Trump | Opinion

Gene Nichol – January 27, 2024

I’m much taken with a particular photograph of Nancy Pelosi. It’s from October 2019. In it, Pelosi stands across the White House Cabinet Room pointing an accusing finger at a seated Donald Trump. The president and the speaker are only a few feet apart. Still, Pelosi is resolute, undaunted. Punctuating a heated foreign policy disagreement, she was reportedly saying that, with Trump, “all roads lead to Putin.” Frosty and fearless.

But that’s not what I find most remarkable about the photo. Pelosi and Trump were not alone in the room. They were surrounded by executive officials and congressional leaders. None, except Pelosi, seemed comfortable with the turn of events. The AP reported:

“Eyeballs – most belonging to men – are averted. Heads are bowed around the table, including those of Joint Chief of Staff Chairman, Mark Milley and House Republican Whip Steve Scalise. House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy’s eyes are closed. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell is leaning back, a few chairs down from Trump.”

As the males looked for cover, Pelosi rose, and led.

It reminded me of video clips I’d seen from the Oval Office. President Trump would meet in the lavish room with Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to hammer out their multifaceted differences. Schumer might be energetic and forceful at the press conference afterwards, beyond the confines of the famous building. But when sitting across from Trump, Schumer seemed afraid to look him in the eyes. Only Pelosi fixed her gaze on the bully. Brave, resolute, mission-driven. Never, even for a moment, contemplating fear. Courage occupied only one seat in those meetings. And it wasn’t companion to the males.

The picture I describe points to a growing reality – the outsized role of women in modeling courage, teaching fearlessness, in the new American battle for democracy. We’ve all seen this, thought of it, been marked and altered by it.

Liz Cheney stood not only against Trump, but almost every shamed and humiliated enabler of her caucus and political party. She put her leadership position and her congressional seat on the line in favor of her sacred oath and love of country. She did it all knowingly, without a conceivable doubt about what was to come. I can’t forget the words:

“Tonight I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible. There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.”

Nathan Hale had nothing on Liz Cheney.

Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, election workers from Fulton County, Georgia, refused to surrender to the intimidation, slanders, and threats of Rudy Giuliani in one of modern America’s starkest contests between good and unrelenting evil. Their prior lives and attachments to beloved community had been sundered by darkness. Trump boasted on a fateful call to Brad Raffensperger that “Freeman’s reputation is done – she is known all over the internet for fraud.” But unlike the fabulist of Mar-a-Lago, Freeman and Moss’ character abides. It gleams. And teaches.

Cassidy Hutchinson, with astonishing stoicism, quietly insisted on the truth, under unspeakable pressure, as Mark Meadows hid, dissembled and conceded his powerlessness before the master — as if gutlessness is all one can expect from human beings.

And E. Jean Carroll, an 80-year-old sexual assault survivor, reclaimed her life, amid continuing taunts by Trump, even at the cost of having to face down her vile assailant. It’s not right to force “a woman to be quiet,” she explained. Even if supposed toughs depend on it.

If we see more women leaders, we’ll see more courage.

Contributing columnist Gene Nichol is a professor of law at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

Back in the USSR: New high school textbooks in Russia whitewash Stalin’s terror as Putin wages war on historical memory

The Conversation

Back in the USSR: New high school textbooks in Russia whitewash Stalin’s terror as Putin wages war on historical memory

Anya Free, Arizona State University – January 23, 2024

Hey, kids, meet Josef Stalin.

New Russian high school textbooks – introduced in August 2023 on the instruction of President Vladimir Putin – attempt to whitewash Stalinist crimes and rehabilitate the Soviet Union’s legacy. While schools and teachers previously could pick educational materials from a variety of choices, these newly created textbooks are mandatory reading for 10th and 11th graders in Russia and occupied territories.

As a scholar of Russian and Soviet history, I see the new books as just another example of state-sponsored efforts to use history and scholarship to serve Putin’s agenda and goals.

Other recent attempts along these lines include the establishment in November 2023 of the National Center of Historical Memory, tasked with preserving “traditional Russian spiritual and moral values, culture and historical memory”; the creation of a sprawling network of historical parks called “Russia: My History,” with new branches in occupied Ukrainian cities Luhansk and Melitopol; and the 2023 publication of a collection of archival documents called “On Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians.”

These projects not only demonstrate Putin’s desire to control the historical narrative but to serve the goal of promoting Russian cultural and educational imperialism.

Putin’s efforts to redeem the Soviet past may help explain why Stalin is up in the polls, with 63% of Russians asked in June 2023 expressing a positive attitude toward the Soviet dictator behind widespread purges, mass executions, forced labor camps and policies leading to the deaths of millions of his own compatriots.

But Stalin’s place in history remains divisive within the nations he once ruled over, especially where Russia retains significant political and cultural influence.

Russian President Vladimir Putin walks by the grave of Soviet leader Josef Stalin on June 25, 2015, in Moscow. <a href= — Russian President Vladimir Putin walks by the grave of Soviet leader Josef Stalin on June 25, 2015, in Moscow. Sasha Mordovets/Getty Images

In January 2024, a newly installed icon honoring Stalin in his homeland of Georgia was defaced – an act exposing deep divisions.

The number of privately funded monuments to the dictator is increasing, while the memorials to victims of political repression in Russia are disappearing. Yet, activists are still fighting to commemorate those who perished.

Whitewashing history

Putin, famously obsessed with history, has been talking about the creation of national history textbooks since 2013. In August 2023, Putin’s wish was finally granted when one of his closest associates, former Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky, presented new textbooks for 10th and 11th grade students: two in Russian history and two in World history. Medinsky co-authored all four.

The 10th grade textbooks cover the period from 1914 to 1945. The 11th grade textbooks cover history from 1945 to the present day and include sections on the current Russian-Ukrainian war, called in Russia a “Special Military Operation” as an official euphemism.

Warping historical narratives

The new school textbooks maintain some nuance in their coverage of Stalinism, yet that nuance can be described as “yes, but,” which makes it even more effective in warping the historical narrative.

The 10th grade Russian history textbook, for example, briefly mentions the dramatic consequences of collectivization of Soviet agriculture, including the 1932-33 man-made famines in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, North Caucasus and other regions. Yet it puts the blame exclusively on the poor harvests and mistakes of the local leadership rather than the Stalinist policies that caused and exacerbated the famines. Ukraine’s great famine, or Holodomor, in particular is considered by many historians and international organizations to be a genocide.

Mugs decorated with images of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Soviet leader Josef Stalin are seen on sale among other items at a gift shop in Moscow on March 11, 2020. <a href= — Mugs decorated with images of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Soviet leader Josef Stalin are seen on sale among other items at a gift shop in Moscow on March 11, 2020. Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP via Getty Images

Additionally, in the section on World War II, the students learn that the “collective feat of the peasantry” during the war would have been “impossible in the case of the domination of the private landholdings” – in other words, it was only possible under the Soviet system.

The Russian history textbook briefly mentions the “Great Terror” of 1937-38, in which millions were arrested and an estimated 700,000 to 1.2 million were executed. Mention is also made of the personal role of Stalin, while also emphasizing the role of private denunciations and authorities of various Soviet republics and regions. But the creator of the Soviet secret police and an architect of the post-revolutionary “Red Terror,” Felix Dzerzhinsky, is praised for his role in “combating counter-revolution,” “creation of the professional educational system” and “restoration of the railroads.”

All national histories are inherently biased, even in democratic societies. Medinsky’s textbooks are, however, a distortion of history. The authors lose any attempt at objectivity while discussing Soviet foreign policy as always defensive and serving to protect everyone whom the USSR occupies and annexes.

The whitewashing of Stalin and his crimes is, I believe, crucial for understanding Putin’s creep toward ever more imperialist ideology and goals. In 2017, Putin participated in the opening ceremony for the memorial to the victims of political repressions in Moscow, during which he acknowledged the violence of Stalin’s terror and argued that it cannot be “justified by anything.” Yet his obsession with World War II led him to just that.

Putin and ideologists in the Russian leader circle have increasingly asserted that Stalin’s foreign policy and his leadership in World War II supersede his crimes against his own people. In his 2020 article in the U.S. journal National Interest, Putin praised Stalin for his great “understanding of the nature of external threats” and actions that he undertook to “strengthen the country’s defenses.”

The war on historical memory

The more aggressive Russia’s politics are, the more protective the state is over the Soviet historical legacy. Since 2020, Moscow authorities have not allowed demonstrations traditionally held in Moscow on Oct. 29 to commemorate victims of the Great Terror of the 1930s.

In December 2021, Russian authorities ordered the “liquidation” of the human rights group Memorial , fully unleashing the war on historical memory. The organization, which was among the three recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022, was blamed by the Russian Supreme Court for “distorting memory about the War,” “rehabilitating Nazis” and “creating a false image of the USSR and Russia as terrorist states.” It is not a coincidence that an attack on the organization that for decades documented the Soviet terror came in the midst of the anti-Western and anti-Ukrainian hysteria and right before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Memorial, however, still stands, despite immense pressure from the authorities, attesting to the great power of resistance.

In the newly written Putinist narrative of history, the state and its expansion is always at the center, just as it was during Stalinism. The people are treated according to a proverb favored by Stalin, which sums up his attitude toward the ruthless and brutal measures he imposed: “When the wood is cut down, the chips are flying.”

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and analysis to help you make sense of our complex world.

Trump Chooses Absolutely Baffling New Topic For Latest Rambling Aside

HuffPost

Trump Chooses Absolutely Baffling New Topic For Latest Rambling Aside

Ed Mazza – January 22, 2024

Donald Trump’s speech on Sunday took an unexpected turn when he went on a tangent about the names of U.S. military installations.

“We won world wars out of forts,” he said at an event in Rochester, New Hampshire. “Fort Benning, Fort This, Fort That, many forts. They changed the name, we won wars out of these forts, they changed the name, they changed the name of the forts. A lot of people aren’t too happy about that.”

Trump then essentially repeated what he’d just said.

“They changed the name of a lot of our forts. We won two world wars out of a lot of these forts and they changed the name,” he said. “It’s unbelievable.”

Nine U.S. military installations named for Confederate generals have been renamed to honor people who didn’t fight against the United States.

The Fort Benning that Trump mentioned was named for Henry L. Benning, who NPR noted was not just a Confederate general but a “virulent white supremacist.”

The Georgia installation was renamed Fort Moore last year in honor of Lt. Gen. Hal Moore and his wife, Julia Compton Moore, whom Military.com called “one of the Army’s most influential couples.”

Trump’s critics on X, the former Twitter, noted the strange digression:

Paul Waldman: Understand that Trump is mad because military facilities named for treasonous white supremacist slavery advocates who waged war against the United States were renamed to honor actual American heroes. That’s what he and his audience are pissed about.

Sophie Persists: We can’t forget the brave soldiers stationed at Fort This.

Chris Taylor: I was stationed at Fort This in 2009. They wanted to transfer me to Fort That. Lol a commander in chief that can’t even remember the names of the bases, yet he’s so upset the names were changed.

Bryan: I know by now I shouldn’t be surprised at his ignorance. Yet here we are…

Rick Wilson: Grandpa Ranty’s Ahistorical Ignorance Tour, 2024 edition.

Ron Filipkowski: Attached to this post is an excerpt from the speech Henry Benning made at the Virginia convention with his reasons for secession. Trump is bemoaning not having a base named after him. https://t.co/c6HaYsrGa9

Wu Tank is for the Children: Stay in school kids…there is so much insanity in this clip

Pro Lib: “Where were you stationed?” “Fort This, you?” “Fort That!” “Oh weird!”

Sue Z: Good God. And you MAGA people still love him. He’s an incoherent buffoon.

Keith Edwards: Trump is experiencing huge mental decline. The media has to start taking this seriously.

The ‘old American Dream died,’ Realtor details salary needed to buy a home, afford a middle class life in 2024

Fox Business

The ‘old American Dream died,’ Realtor details salary needed to buy a home, afford a middle class life in 2024

Kira Mautone – January 15, 2024

Americans now need to make $120K a year to afford a typical middle-class life and qualify to purchase a home, one expert discusses.

“I think most of us in America would define the middle class as somebody who can work a 40-hour-a-week career and can have the income to purchase the average home in America,” Freddie Smith, an Orlando realtor and TikTok creator, told Fox News Digital.

The TikToker, whose videos explore millennial and Gen Z struggles to afford a home and the general cost of living in today’s economic climate, dissected the common factors of living a middle-class existence.

“A lot of us grew up middle class, and we watched what middle class was in the 80s and 90s as millennials. And nowadays, what has moved the goalpost more than anything is the housing market,” the relator said.

Home in Summerville listed for $765,000.

Smith explained how, just a few years ago, $60-$70K a year would have been sufficient to qualify for a home.

With the average cost of a house being around $400K-$420K in 2024, people’s salaries would need to be around $120K a year for people to even qualify, Smith explained.

The realtor highlights how this wage-to-housing gap has forced many people to rent for a longer period.

“Rent prices are taking up 30-40% of people’s income, making it harder for them to save for a house. So it’s this perpetual cycle that is keeping people out of the middle class,” he explains, noting this trend has been continuing at a rapid pace over the last few years.

Smith also explained how a $120K salary, even without children, becomes a far lower number when confronted with the crippling debt most Americans are facing today.

“Most people are carrying student loan debt, which is at an all-time high, and the average payment in the country is $500 a month for your college degree. [There are] some people I’m seeing in my comment section saying ‘$500, I wish, it was $1,200 a month for me’,” said Smith.

Credit card debt is also at a record high in America, and while Smith acknowledges that reckless spending could be a factor, he has learned from many Americans commenting on his posts that many are forced to use their cards for groceries because they ran out of money.

According to DQYDJ, the average American income in 2023 was roughly $69K a year, with only 18.8% percent of Americans reaching $100K or more a year. According to the same source, the top 10 percent of individual earnings started at $135,605 a year.

The middle class is in a segmented state, Smith argues, largely determined by how much debt one finds themselves in.

“If you are someone who bought a house before 2020 and you have it paid off or you have a 3% interest rate, you are not burdened by the housing costs like the 2024 adults are now,” the relator said, explaining how debt, especially college debt, housing costs and childcare are burdening millennials and Gen Zers starting their lives.

home with sold sign in front — A sign outside a home for sale in Atlanta, Georgia, on Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2023. Home prices in the US climbed for a fifth month as buyers competed for deals in the least affordable market in decades.

“People are spending about $1,200 to $1,500 a month on daycare, and I’ve even heard it as much as $3,000-$4,000. So when you add in somebody who’s renting for $2,500, $2,000 for daycare, $1,000 for two college loans, just that alone, you need $100,000 as an income just for that,” said Smith.

For slightly older individuals who had a chance to pay off their debt and have grown-up children, $70K remains a comfortable middle-class wage to them.

“‘These millennials are whining. These Gen Zers just work harder.’ If you bought your house before and don’t have those other payments, that’s really the three-layered cake. Housing, college [debt] and daycare” explained Smith, highlighting these three factors greatly determine your middle-class placement.

As a result of high housing costs, many young people are choosing to stay at home with their families to save funds. Smith explains how he is seeing communal living go even further in Florida, where separate families are choosing to live under one roof.

“Many families [with] 3 or 4 adults and [say] five children, they all split a big house, and they all take care of each other. You can see that they have a lot of toys and they’re pooling their money,” Smith detailed.

A house is for sale in Arlington, Virginia, July 13, 2023.

The TikToker enumerates how millennials and older Gen Zers had a “difficult” hand dealt to them. Younger Gen Zers, however, have a lot of “opportunity” to “crush in today’s economy” if they plan carefully to avoid debt and make smart financial choices.

“The millennials, they’re the pinched generation where college essentially stopped working for most. The debt piled up, and the old American dream died, and we got left holding the bag,” he said.

The creator said that through posting on TikTok, he has learned a tremendous amount about the everyday struggles real Americans are facing through his comment section.

“People in America, real society, are sharing all this with me. And I’m learning at a rapid pace from all different individuals. It’s not just googling it, or asking 100 college students what they think. It’s thousands and thousands of people sharing what’s going on,” said Smith.

The realtor discussed how there is a “bigger conversation” around an evolving American Dream that we’re likely to see take place over the next few years.

“We’re basically redefining the American dream from top to bottom, like the way that we see work and work-life balance,” said the creator, explaining how the idea of owning a home might grow old alongside past generations.

“I don’t even know if millennials and Gen Zers want to follow that path of buying a house and living in it for 40 years and staying at the same job for 40 years. I don’t think creatively, work-life balance wise, is also what our long-term play is,” he said.