Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Sounding the alarm over TDS

Sounding the alarm over TDS

Former President Donald Trump boards his airplane, known as Trump Force One, in route to Iowa at Palm Beach International Airport on Monday, March 13, 2023, in West Palm Beach, FL.

Photo by Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Lynn Schmidt is a syndicated columnist and Editorial Board member with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

At the risk of sounding like someone suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome or TDS, those of us in the pro-democracy coalition need to start sounding the alarm, again. Our democracy is far from being out of the woods and we are headed for a trap.


TDS is usually used by supporters of the former president or some in the media to discredit criticisms of Trump’s words or actions. It is a way of reframing the debate by suggesting that those who speak out against Trump are incapable of discerning what they just witnessed. It is used to exhaust and disparage those who speak out in defense of liberal democratic values. My fear is that these attacks are working.

Last week former president Donald Trump released a poorly lit video in which he essentially says that Russia is not our enemy, our fellow Americans are. Think about that for a moment or shall I say, discern what we are witnessing. For those of us who love our democratic republic and not only hope it survives but want to strengthen it, we need to start paying attention, again. Here are a few noteworthy lines from Trump’s video, each of which are more frightening than the next:

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

“The State Department, the defense bureaucracy, the intelligence services, and all of the rest need to be completely overhauled and reconstituted to fire the Deep Staters and put America first.”

“Finally, we have to finish the process we began under my administration of fundamentally reevaluating NATO's (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) purpose and NATO's mission.”

“But the greatest threat to Western civilization today is not Russia. It’s probably, more than anything else, ourselves and some of the horrible USA hating people representing us.”

Most Americans may not be listening to Trump but make no mistake, Russian President Vladimir Putin and China’s President Xi Jinping certainly are.

A former president of the United States and the leading candidate for the 2024 presidential race of one of our two major political parties is telling us and the world that he sides with Putin over Americans. Trump would rather we ally with the same man who the International Criminal Court just issued an arrest warrant for concerning war crimes. Earlier this week, Xi visited Putin in Moscow. A Kremlin statement announcing Xi’s visit "at the invitation" of the Russian leader to discuss "issues of further development of comprehensive partnership and strategic interaction between Russia and China."

Trump reiterated his plans to dismantle NATO. Here’s a reminder that NATO was created in 1949 to serve three purposes: “deterring Soviet expansionism, forbidding the revival of nationalist militarism in Europe through a strong North American presence on the continent, and encouraging European political integration.” While Ukraine is not a NATO member, NATO has committed both political and practical assistance to Ukraine. Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton wrote in his book “The Room Where it Happened” that he had to convince Trump not to quit NATO in the middle of a 2018 summit. “In a second Trump term, I think he may well have withdrawn from NATO,” Bolton said. “And I think Putin was waiting for that.”

Last week, former Vice President Mike Pence spoke at the annual Gridiron Club Dinner in Washington, DC. He called Jan. 6, 2021 “a tragic day” and went on to say, “President Trump was wrong. I had no right to overturn the election and his reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day, and I know that history will hold Donald Trump accountable.”

Pundits have since been criticizing Pence for not testifying before the U.S. House January 6 Select Committee and for resisting Special Counsel Jack Smith’s subpoena. While those criticisms are valid, we are missing the broader point. We are skipping over his actual words. Pence is also sounding an alarm. Granted it might be more like a quiet whistle than an alarm, but it’s out there.

Now is the time for the Republican party, sans Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis who is also anti-Ukraine, and all others who support democracy here and abroad, to figure out how to shut Trump down before it is too late. Of course, GOP elites have cowardly missed the multiple off ramps from Trump’s and the Republican base voter’s hold on the party. Let’s encourage them not to skip this most important one.

Trump is telling us exactly what he intends to do. It is our own fault if we don’t wake up and recognize this before it is too late. We need to reject the numbness, stop turning against one another, and turn together and repudiate Trump. Our fellow Americans are not the enemy here. Instead, let us, in a bipartisan way, champion democracy. Speak the truth and fight for our democratic values.

To quote the famous line from the 1986 film “The Fly”, if we don’t stop Trump now, we should “Be afraid. Be very afraid.”

Read More

Peopel crossing the border at night

Migrants cross into the United States from Mexico through an abandoned railroad on June 28, in Jacumba Hot Springs, Calif.

Qian Weizhong/VCG via Getty Images

Have 25 million undocumented immigrants entered the U.S. and stayed during the Biden-Harris administration?

This fact brief was originally published by Wisconsin Watch. Read the original here. Fact briefs are published by newsrooms in the Gigafact network, and republished by The Fulcrum. Visit Gigafact to learn more.

Have 25 million undocumented immigrants entered the U.S. and stayed during the Biden-Harris administration?

No.

Authorities estimate the number of undocumented immigrants who entered the U.S. during the Biden-Harris administration and remained at far less than the 25 million that Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance claimed.

Keep ReadingShow less
Stethoscope, pile of hundred dollar bills and a calculator
IronHeart/Getty Images

In swing states, D's and R's agree on how to lower health care costs

As the price of health care continues to rise faster than wages, a new public consultation survey by the Program for Public Consultation finds bipartisan majorities of Americans in six swing states, as well as nationally, support major proposals for lowering health care costs.

This survey is part of the “Swing Six Issue Surveys” series being conducted in the run-up to the November election in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin on major policy issues. Unlike traditional polls, respondents in a public consultation survey go through an online “policymaking simulation” in which they are provided briefings and arguments for and against each policy. Content is reviewed by experts on different sides to ensure accuracy and balance.

Keep ReadingShow less
David Pepper and Alexander Vindman

Kettering Foundation Senior Fellows Alexander Vindman and David Pepper

Kettering Foundation

Project 2025: A threat to American values

This is part of a series offering a nonpartisan counter toProject 2025, a conservative guideline to reforming government and policymaking during the first 180 days of a second Trump administration. The Fulcrum'scross-partisan analysis of Project 2025 relies on unbiased critical thinking, reexamines outdated assumptions, and uses reason, scientific evidence, and data in analyzing and critiquingProject 2025.

Kettering Foundation Senior Fellows David Pepper and Alexander Vindman spoke with the organization’s chief external affairs officer and director of D.C. operations, Brad Rourke, about Project 2025, the controversial Heritage Foundation plan to reshape American democracy.

Keep ReadingShow less
Caleb Christen

Meet the change leaders: Caleb Christen

Nevins is co-publisher ofThe Fulcrum and co-founder and board chairman of theBridge Alliance Education Fund.

A lawyer by trade, Caleb Christen has served in the U.S. Navy Judge Advocate General’s Corps since 2007, including two deployments to the Middle East. He is now a senior officer in the Navy Reserve. Attending seminary and an executive education program in organizational leadership helped Christen identify that communities are not thriving as they were intended and that people must work together to transform American democracy and civic health.

As a result, Christen co-founded the Inter-Movement Impact Project to promote organizing for collective impact. His new focus is on “Better Together America,” a collaborative network providing support to the local democracy hubs that are emerging in communities across the United States.

Keep ReadingShow less