https://znetwork.org/author/thomhartmann/ Independent Left News, Analysis, Vision and Strategy Fri, 19 Sep 2025 18:43:41 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://znetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/cropped-Z_logo_512-32x32.png https://znetwork.org/author/thomhartmann/ 32 32 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-second-amendment-was-created-to-put-down-slave-revolts/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-second-amendment-was-created-to-put-down-slave-revolts/#comments Fri, 19 Sep 2025 18:36:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1288788 One mass shooting after another, one accidental child death after another tears through this country on an almost daily basis. Once again, lawmakers hide behind “thoughts and prayers,” while clinging to an amendment that has been twisted beyond recognition. But to understand why the Second Amendment exists at all, we must strip away the myths [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-second-amendment-was-created-to-put-down-slave-revolts/feed/ 2 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/maha-madness-bob-kennedys-cruel-new-gospel-of-fitness/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/maha-madness-bob-kennedys-cruel-new-gospel-of-fitness/#comments Sun, 07 Sep 2025 15:33:03 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1288243 Former Republican strategist and operative Rick Wilson called out Bob Kennedy as a “heroin addict, sex addict, anti-vaccination lunatic and aspiring architect of millions of deaths” who’s dedicated to replacing real scientists with “radical eugenicists.” And why would Kennedy be doing this? Dr. Demetre Daskalakis — one of the top scientists and physicians who quit the CDC [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/maha-madness-bob-kennedys-cruel-new-gospel-of-fitness/feed/ 1 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-gops-new-civil-war-against-america-isnt-with-bullets-its-with-ballots/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-gops-new-civil-war-against-america-isnt-with-bullets-its-with-ballots/#respond Thu, 07 Aug 2025 16:34:06 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1287043 The Republican motto — since Nixon sabotaged LBJ‘s Vietnam peace negotiations and Reagan blew up Carter’s deal to get the Iranian hostages back — has been: “If you can’t win, cheat.” As Republicans rush to redistrict/gerrymander Texas, if enough Dems leave town there won’t be a quorum so the redistricting can’t happen. Which is why Texas Attorney [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-gops-new-civil-war-against-america-isnt-with-bullets-its-with-ballots/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/james-carville-is-right-to-panic-because-trumps-next-power-grab-doesnt-need-a-mob/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/james-carville-is-right-to-panic-because-trumps-next-power-grab-doesnt-need-a-mob/#respond Thu, 10 Jul 2025 15:52:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1286002 Forget Jan 6th. Trump’s next move is smarter, and far more dangerous: use the courts, AI & right-wing militias to erase millions of Americans from the vote — legally. It’s not a theory. It’s a plan. James Carville isn’t a man prone to panic, but when he says, “I would not put it at all [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/james-carville-is-right-to-panic-because-trumps-next-power-grab-doesnt-need-a-mob/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/alligator-alcatraz-isnt-just-a-prison-its-a-mirror-and-its-asking-us-who-are-we-really/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/alligator-alcatraz-isnt-just-a-prison-its-a-mirror-and-its-asking-us-who-are-we-really/#respond Fri, 04 Jul 2025 16:01:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1285814 When Louise and I lived in Germany in 1986/87, we visited Dachau with our family. The crematoriums shocked our children, but even more so because this was simply a “detention facility” and not one of Hitler’s death camps. The ovens were for those who had been worked to death or killed by cholera. The death [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/alligator-alcatraz-isnt-just-a-prison-its-a-mirror-and-its-asking-us-who-are-we-really/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/germans-hungarians-russians-italians-all-waited-until-it-was-too-late-are-americans-about-to-join-that-tragic-club/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/germans-hungarians-russians-italians-all-waited-until-it-was-too-late-are-americans-about-to-join-that-tragic-club/#comments Fri, 13 Jun 2025 16:01:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1284957 “The fog crept in on little cat feet.” — Carl Sandburg, Fog (1916) Eventually, people in countries that are in the process of flipping from democracy to fascism figure out that they’re now living in a dictatorship; by then, however, it’s usually too late. For people in Hungary, it was May, 2020 when Orbán started arresting people for [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/germans-hungarians-russians-italians-all-waited-until-it-was-too-late-are-americans-about-to-join-that-tragic-club/feed/ 3 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-dark-enlightenment-the-tech-oligarch-ideology-driving-doges-destruction/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-dark-enlightenment-the-tech-oligarch-ideology-driving-doges-destruction/#respond Mon, 24 Mar 2025 13:49:53 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1281468 The future of American democracy isn’t being dismantled by accident; it’s being systematically replaced to prepare the way for something entirely new. A radical ideology known as the Dark Enlightenment is fueling a billionaire-led movement to gut our government, erase democratic norms, and install a technocratic elite in their place. President Donald Trump and Elon Musk aren’t just tearing [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-dark-enlightenment-the-tech-oligarch-ideology-driving-doges-destruction/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/zvideo/the-real-reason-behind-trumps-calls-for-militant-extremism/ https://znetwork.org/zvideo/the-real-reason-behind-trumps-calls-for-militant-extremism/#respond Thu, 12 Dec 2024 16:46:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=video&p=1277010 Is Donald Trump recruiting violent extremist? Thom Hartmann explains the real reason Trump would do the pardons is because he’s recruiting. Armed rightwing militia groups in the United States have been on a recruiting jag of their own in anticipation of Trump’s presidency, according to press reports and terrorism experts. For example, Reuters notes:]]> https://znetwork.org/zvideo/the-real-reason-behind-trumps-calls-for-militant-extremism/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/will-trumps-return-coincide-with-the-death-of-progressive-media/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/will-trumps-return-coincide-with-the-death-of-progressive-media/#comments Sun, 24 Nov 2024 15:56:01 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1275893 Have you heard that Comcast is planning to sell MSNBC? Is Rupert Murdoch planning to buy it? Will America’s media landscape soon resemble those of Hungary and Russia? Without the rightwing media juggernaut, Donald Trump probably wouldn’t be president next year and wouldn’t have won in 2016. That said, the progressive media landscape looks like it might be about [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/will-trumps-return-coincide-with-the-death-of-progressive-media/feed/ 1 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/not-scared-about-just-how-vicious-a-second-trump-presidency-would-be-let-me-walk-you-through-it/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/not-scared-about-just-how-vicious-a-second-trump-presidency-would-be-let-me-walk-you-through-it/#respond Sun, 20 Oct 2024 14:45:51 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1273985 Given that we’re in the midst of a vote that will determine the fate and future of democracy in America, let’s review what Donald Trump has already said he will do if he gets back into the White House. In theory many of these things would also require a compliant House and Senate, but with the recent [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/not-scared-about-just-how-vicious-a-second-trump-presidency-would-be-let-me-walk-you-through-it/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/weaponizing-words-the-gops-plot-to-undermine-democrats-democracy/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/weaponizing-words-the-gops-plot-to-undermine-democrats-democracy/#respond Thu, 17 Oct 2024 15:51:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1273856 Have you noticed how elected Republicans and hate-radio and -TV hosts are so committed to mispronouncing Vice President Kamala Harris’ name? Or how incapable they are of saying “Democratic Party”? These are symptoms of a political party that’s devolved into a pathetic (but deadly) mobocracy, lacking any moral or policy core, devoted instead to pursuing [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/weaponizing-words-the-gops-plot-to-undermine-democrats-democracy/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-true-shocking-driver-of-crime-in-america/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-true-shocking-driver-of-crime-in-america/#respond Thu, 02 May 2024 15:50:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1265808 In the midst of all of his trials, in a moment pregnant with irony, Donald Trump recently claimed that if he was reelected he would seize direct control of Washington, DC because, he said, crime there was out of control.  “We’re going to federalize it,” Trump told attendees to a Las Vegas rally. “We’re gonna have the [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-true-shocking-driver-of-crime-in-america/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-reaganomics-fueled-americas-homelessness-crisis/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-reaganomics-fueled-americas-homelessness-crisis/#respond Tue, 23 Apr 2024 17:14:03 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1265425 Back in 1967, a friend of mine and I hitchhiked from East Lansing, Michigan to San Francisco to spend the summer in Haight-Ashbury. One ride dropped us off in Sparks, Nevada, and within minutes of putting our thumbs out a city police car stopped and arrested us for vagrancy. The cop, a young guy with [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-reaganomics-fueled-americas-homelessness-crisis/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/why-is-america-letting-the-oil-industry-destroy-the-planet/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/why-is-america-letting-the-oil-industry-destroy-the-planet/#respond Thu, 28 Mar 2024 15:46:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1264286 The men who made the intentional decision to murder my father are long dead; the men and women who today are plotting to render much of our beautiful planet uninhabitable are very much with us… When my mom got pregnant with me in 1950, my dad, whose lifetime ambition had been to be a history [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/why-is-america-letting-the-oil-industry-destroy-the-planet/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-supreme-court-wont-save-us-from-trump-so-well-have-to-beat-him-at-the-ballot-again/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-supreme-court-wont-save-us-from-trump-so-well-have-to-beat-him-at-the-ballot-again/#respond Sun, 11 Feb 2024 16:19:36 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1262040 The single most astonishing thing about Thursday’s oral arguments before the Supreme Court was the almost complete lack of historical context in those arguments about an insurrectionist staying on the ballot. The fear that led Colorado to ban Trump from the ballot was that he’d keep his word and “suspend the Constitution” and “be a dictator on [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-supreme-court-wont-save-us-from-trump-so-well-have-to-beat-him-at-the-ballot-again/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-deadly-new-gop-plan-to-rapidly-privatize-medicare/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-deadly-new-gop-plan-to-rapidly-privatize-medicare/#respond Thu, 08 Feb 2024 16:56:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1261904 Medicare Advantage is not Medicare: it’s private health insurance for seniors that’s largely paid for with our tax dollars. They make their money by routinely denying claims… Want to invest in a scam that lets you make billions with virtually no risk? If you’re morbidly rich, all you have to do is to open or [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-deadly-new-gop-plan-to-rapidly-privatize-medicare/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/we-ignore-the-ongoing-collapse-of-american-democracy-at-our-peril/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/we-ignore-the-ongoing-collapse-of-american-democracy-at-our-peril/#comments Sun, 04 Feb 2024 15:50:48 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1261728 Like an alcoholic family that won’t discuss alcoholism (proving Don Quixote’s warning never to mention rope in the home of a man who’s been hanged), far too many Americans are unwilling to acknowledge or even discuss the ongoing collapse of democracy in the United States. We see it in everything from our last two Republican [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/we-ignore-the-ongoing-collapse-of-american-democracy-at-our-peril/feed/ 1 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/does-the-epa-die-today/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/does-the-epa-die-today/#respond Thu, 18 Jan 2024 16:53:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1260940 The Supreme Court, it appears, is planning to gut most of America’s regulatory agencies in what could be the most consequential re-write of the protective “deep state” since the New Deal… Republicans on the Supreme Court are, it appears, planning to gut most of America’s regulatory agencies, in what could be the most consequential re-write [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/does-the-epa-die-today/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/we-need-a-progressive-democracy-movement-to-defeat-fascism-now/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/we-need-a-progressive-democracy-movement-to-defeat-fascism-now/#respond Sun, 17 Dec 2023 16:46:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1259430 Most people, particularly Democrats, would never speak of Donald Trump and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the same breath or context. But the very strategy that King used to help end legal discrimination in America is what Trump is today using to try to win back the White House in 2024: movement politics. And [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/we-need-a-progressive-democracy-movement-to-defeat-fascism-now/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-secret-gop-plot-to-change-our-constitution-slithers-forward/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-secret-gop-plot-to-change-our-constitution-slithers-forward/#respond Thu, 14 Dec 2023 16:54:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1259320 If their plan works, these Republican toadies of the billionaires who fund and own them will rewrite our Constitution & state governors, the US Congress, and the President will have no say whatsoever… One of the right’s favorite fever dreams over the years has been to gut the US Constitution of many of its checks [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-secret-gop-plot-to-change-our-constitution-slithers-forward/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/cowardly-for-profit-journalism-is-bringing-trumps-fascism-back-to-our-door/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/cowardly-for-profit-journalism-is-bringing-trumps-fascism-back-to-our-door/#comments Sun, 03 Dec 2023 15:01:01 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1258745 Over at his excellent Substack newsletter, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich asks the question that’s probably on the minds of many: “Why are so many people prepared to vote for Trump?” After all, there have been at least seven national polls conducted by reputable organizations in the past few weeks and not a single one shows [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/cowardly-for-profit-journalism-is-bringing-trumps-fascism-back-to-our-door/feed/ 1 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/what-argentinas-new-grand-experiment-means-to-the-world/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/what-argentinas-new-grand-experiment-means-to-the-world/#respond Thu, 23 Nov 2023 16:54:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1257985 Milei’s victory is an international marker, of sorts, for America’s billionaires and largest corporations, who share his desire to end liberal democracy and the so-called “welfare state”… I hope I’m wrong, but I think I just saw the future of America if Republicans manage to sweep the 2024 elections, Trump or no Trump. Argentina just [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/what-argentinas-new-grand-experiment-means-to-the-world/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-gops-red-caesar-new-political-order-plan-marches-forward/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-gops-red-caesar-new-political-order-plan-marches-forward/#respond Sat, 04 Nov 2023 14:40:03 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1256931 “Thirty years ago,” Damon Linker told The Guardian, “if I told you that a bunch of billionaires and intellectuals on the right are waiting in the wings to impose a dictatorship on the United States, you would have said that I was insane.” Now, however, the senior lecturer at Penn State University’s Department of Political [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-gops-red-caesar-new-political-order-plan-marches-forward/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/congress-must-act-to-end-overt-corruption-within-us-supreme-court/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/congress-must-act-to-end-overt-corruption-within-us-supreme-court/#respond Sun, 10 Sep 2023 14:59:24 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1253766 Senator Sheldon Whitehouse this week filed an ethics complaint about corruption in the Supreme Court. Weirdly, he had to file it with Chief Justice John Roberts himself (this is sort of like complaining to George Santos that George Santos is corrupt) because, as Whitehouse noted in his complaint: “I write to you in your capacity both as [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/congress-must-act-to-end-overt-corruption-within-us-supreme-court/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/history-must-record-trumps-plan-for-a-nationwide-kent-state-massacre/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/history-must-record-trumps-plan-for-a-nationwide-kent-state-massacre/#respond Wed, 09 Aug 2023 16:00:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1250663 Although it’s generally only mentioned in passing in the mainstream media, there are two particularly chilling passages in Jack Smith’s indictment of Trump. Both, to my mind, invoke Kent State, but on a much larger scale. With that crime, you’ll recall, on May 1, 1970, Ronald Reagan called students protesting the Vietnam war across America [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/history-must-record-trumps-plan-for-a-nationwide-kent-state-massacre/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/zoomers-last-chance-for-the-american-dream/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/zoomers-last-chance-for-the-american-dream/#respond Mon, 24 Jul 2023 17:10:47 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1249910 Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan was pulling no punches in calling out her six Republican colleagues on the Supreme Court in the student loan case, Biden v Nebraska. None of the Republican states suing would have lost a penny had Biden’s student loan forgiveness program gone forward; there was no injured party and therefore no standing [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/zoomers-last-chance-for-the-american-dream/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-a-second-trump-term-could-end-us-democracy/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-a-second-trump-term-could-end-us-democracy/#respond Sun, 23 Jul 2023 14:01:29 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1249855 Earlier this week, The New York Timespublished a partial exposé of former President Donald Trump’s plans for his second administration. It involved basically turning America into Russia or Hungary, where the president becomes the singular center of federal power, eclipsing Congress and the Courts. For example, the Timeswrites: Mr. Trump intends to bring independent agencies—like the Federal Communications Commission, [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-a-second-trump-term-could-end-us-democracy/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-climate-change-accelerates-the-danger-of-worldwide-fascism/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-climate-change-accelerates-the-danger-of-worldwide-fascism/#respond Fri, 14 Jul 2023 16:45:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1249391 The government of the Netherlands fell last week. The issue that tipped it over the edge was immigration driven by climate change. If Putin wanted to destroy democracy in Europe (and he does), back in 2015 he couldn’t have picked a better strategy. Odds are, though, he was just trying to protect his deepwater ports; it wasn’t [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-climate-change-accelerates-the-danger-of-worldwide-fascism/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/is-student-debt-a-crime-against-americas-future/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/is-student-debt-a-crime-against-americas-future/#respond Wed, 12 Jul 2023 16:39:24 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1249226 Six Republicans on the Supreme Court just killed President Biden’s student loan debt forgiveness program. Republicans, predictably, are giddy, celebrating another Supreme Court victory in which, on behalf of their neofascist billionaire owners, they’re again “owning the libs.” They’re ecstatic that poor and working class people — particularly Black women who, as ABC News noted, [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/is-student-debt-a-crime-against-americas-future/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/what-happens-when-you-tax-billionaires-at-90-percent/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/what-happens-when-you-tax-billionaires-at-90-percent/#respond Wed, 07 Jun 2023 15:33:13 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1247253 “Succession” is over, but spoiled, entitled billionaire man-children are still very much with us, running social media companies, owning newspapers and television networks, and funding politicians and judges who then keep their taxes low and regulations minimal. America’s billionaires (and soon to be trillionaires) pay an average of around 3.1 percent as their functional income [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/what-happens-when-you-tax-billionaires-at-90-percent/feed/ 0