I generally agree with Paul Krugman. Aside from some quibbles I may have regarding his MMT version of economics (I mostly agree with him there, too), he is a terrific writer and very smart — which is why I have devoted this entire post to something he wrote about “No Kings Day.”
Here it is, it its entirety:
While MAGA’s spin was both insane and revealing, the No Kings Day 2 Marches were a major step towards taking our country back.
Last Saturday’s No Kings Day 2 was awesome to behold. The very best of America shone through. From coast to coast, in big cities and small, in red states as well as blue states, Americans peacefully marched to uphold our humanity as a country and to show our solidarity against autocracy and lawlessness.
And also awesome were the right-wing attacks on Kings Day 2 participants in the days before the rallies. They were so extreme and so unhinged, so utterly disconnected from reality, that they defeated their ostensible purpose of intimidating the marchers into silence.
While the rest of us saw families, old people, young people, folks in funny costumes, many of them waving the Stars and Stripes, MAGA saw criminals and America-haters.
But I have a theory about the deeper purpose of the MAGA attacks on No Kings Day 2. America, I’d argue, is currently operating in a strange condition — what I would call a “bubble autocracy.” Donald Trump has not yet consolidated anything like absolute political power.
But parts of our society — the Republican Party and a number of supposedly independent institutions like, say, CBS — are in effect living inside a bubble in which they operate as if he has. Within that bubble, a cult of personality around Trump has been built, a cult of personality worthy of Kim Jong Un.
And to show their fealty to Dear Leader, Republicans must engage in bizarre rhetoric.
Before I explain my theory of how the right lost its mind, some personal observations.
I attended Saturday’s No Kings Day march in Manhattan, for several reasons. As a citizen, I felt it was my duty. As a journalist, I wanted to see with my own eyes the mood, and whether there was violence either by or, far more likely, against the protestors.
And I was, to be honest, feeling some anxiety about crowd size: a disappointing turnout would have been a significant blow to our chances of saving American democracy.
No surprise that Trump attempted to discourage participation by declaring in advance that “I hear that very few people are going to be there,” while his lackeys spouted insane conspiracy theories.
I needn’t have worried. The march I joined was immense. G. Elliott Morris and the independent science newsroom Xylon estimate that 320,000 people protested in New York, and their median estimate is that more than 5 million protested nationwide.
As Morris says, Saturday’s events were very likely “the biggest single-day protest since 1970.” Furthermore, the event was completely nonviolent: The New York Police Department reported zero arrests:
Screenshot of tweet from NYPD reading as follows:
The majority of the No Kings protests have dispersed at this time and all traffic closures have been lifted.
We had more than 100,000 people across all five boroughs peacefully exercising their first amendment rights and the NYPD made zero protest-related arrests.
And reports from across the country indicate that there were only a handful of arrests nationwide. If I had to describe the mood in one word, it would be “joyous.”
But these observations raise two questions. First, what are we to make of the completely unhinged things Republicans were saying in advance of the protests? And second, do people marching and carrying signs matter, even if they number in the millions?
On the first question, let’s review what Republicans said. CNN has a good rundown of the craziness coming from leading Republicans in advance of No Kings Day 2.
Mike Johnson, the speaker of the house, called them “hate America rallies” consisting entirely of the “pro-Hamas wing” and antifa.
Scott Bessent, the treasury secretary — remember when people thought he was the adult in the room? — said that the demonstrations would involve “the most unhinged in the Democratic Party.”
And Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, attacked the whole Democratic base:
The Democrat Party’s main constituency are made up of Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens, and violent criminals.
These claims were all self-evidently absurd. So why make them? CNN says that it was a “weird strategy”: Calling grandmothers Hamas terrorists won’t convince anyone who isn’t already deep in the MAGA tank and will backfire as those not in the tank see the disconnect between this rhetoric and the reality of the protests.
But it all makes sense once you realize that what we have been seeing in operation isn’t the Trump administration’s strategy for dealing with its critics. It is, instead, the strategies of individual MAGA apparatchiks for dealing with He Who Must Be Obeyed.
A couple of months ago Henry Farrell had a useful post explaining why people around Trump shower him with ludicrous compliments.
Farrell cited work by the political scientist Xavier Marquez, who pointed out that autocracies that build a cult of personality around their leader are subject to “flattery inflation.”
Marquez’s examples go all the way back to the Emperor Caligula, but the logic has remained the same over the centuries. (Trump hasn’t yet appointed his favorite horse as consul, but he did make Pete Hegseth secretary of [defense] war.)
Here’s how it works. The ruler’s lackeys and courtiers believe that they must praise him to the skies, proving their loyalty by offering paeans to his wisdom, character, and golf game. And they must continually up the ante:
How do you show your loyalty? By paying the costs of humiliation. The more grotesquely over the top your praise, the more credible it is as a signal of support for Dear Leader.
Apparatchiks’ willingness to degrade themselves will hurt their reputation with other people.
But for exactly that reason, it serves as proof of loyalty to the one man who counts, Donald Trump.
The more appalling the self-abasement, the more effectively it will serve this purpose.
What I would argue is that a similar process of self-reinforcement applies to telling lies that serve the autocrat’s ego.
Call it “mendacity inflation.” Trump insists that he’s overwhelmingly popular and that only a lunatic fringe disapproves of his presidency.
Well, to show loyalty his hangers-on must go further, declaring that grandmothers and parents pushing prams down 7th Avenue are illegal aliens and violent criminals.
The humiliating absurdity is a feature, not a bug. Simply lying about demonstrators isn’t enough; to prove their MAGA mettle people in Trump’s orbit must tell lies that are grotesque and ridiculous.
Again, what’s historically odd about this is that while Trump’s personal depravity may match that of historical autocrats, his power doesn’t. Call him Caligula, if you like, but he can’t order Senators — even Republican Senators — to commit suicide.
(Dear historians: yes, I know that many of the stories told about Caligula were probably exaggerated.) He’s only able to act as if he has absolute power within a limited enclave, a bubble created by greed and fear.
And on that point, my second question arises: does it matter whether people are out there marching and carrying signs, even if they number in the millions?
Well, there is a solid body of research by political scientists like Erica Chenoweth about the effects of civil resistance — nonviolent shows of opposition to those controlling or attempting to control the government.
The clear answer from this research is that demonstrations like No Kings Day can make a big difference. They are a show of the depth and popularity of a movement, reassuring those who are opposed to a nation’s direction that many, many others share that opposition.
Moreover, if a broad cross-section of society is represented in the demonstrations — and the crowds I saw consisted of a mix of seniors, middle-aged liberals, families with children, students and other unthreatening types — they can induce defections from the ruling regime, because the protestors can’t easily be “othered,” portrayed as strange and alien.
So protests with a wide base of support can ultimately pierce the regime’s bubble. In fact, in the aftermath of the massive scale and breadth of the demonstrations, the MAGA propaganda machine has gone remarkably quiet, although Mike Johnson has claimed that the demonstrators were all Marxists.
And Trump himself is in denial. From CNN:
The president shows no sign of changing course. He called Saturday’s mass protests a “joke” and described them as “very small, very ineffective.” The people who took part were “whacked out,” Trump said.
“When you look at those people, those are not representative of the people of our country,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday.
Maybe Trump even believes that. But it was the opposite of the truth.
What the No Kings Day 2 demonstrations showed me is that we continue to be a great nation, despite how Trump and his minions try to separate, divide, gaslight and intimidate us.
Saturday’s marches were a giant step towards taking our country back.
If Paul Krugman isn’t on your “must read” list, put him there.
We might have hoped that eventually, Congress would understand its mission: To defend and improve the lives of the people.
And we might have hoped that eventually, Congress would understand it has the unlimited ability to create the dollars to defend and improve the lives of the people.
And we might have hoped that we, the public, would learn that our federal taxes do not fund federal spending, so even “wasteful” federal spending costs us nothing, and in fact, benefits us by adding growth dollars to the economy.
Sadly, those hopes, once again, are dashed, as an intentionally ignorant and uncaring Congress and President have found a new way to make our lives worse.
In a six-year experiment that begins Jan. 1, millions of original Medicare beneficiaries in six states could be required to get advance approval, called prior authorization (PA), before certain medical services, procedures or devices are covered.
If successful, the pilot project could lead to wider use of prior authorization in original Medicare, possibly using artificial intelligence (AI). The practice is already widely used in Medicare Advantage, with some plans using AI and algorithmic software to help make coverage decisions.
It’s designed to speed up coverage decisions and cut wasteful spending on at least 16 devices, procedures and services that are “particularly vulnerable to fraud, waste and abuse or inappropriate use,” according to CMS.
My doctor says I need surgery immediately. I’ve been on the phone for over an hour to get prior authorization. What do I do?
There is no way that waiting for prior authorization can “speed up” anything.
Technology companies that participate will be paid based on savings from denied medical claims, which has drawn the ire of the American Medical Association and consumer organizations.
If your pay depends on your denying health care claims, what will you do?
Right. Deny claims. And that is exactly the experience people have had with PA.
The pilot project comes amid concerns from lawmakers, government watchdogs and others that Medicare Advantage plans’ prior authorization procedures can create burdens for caregivers, who have to figure out how to appeal, and risk the health of patients by delaying or denying care that would otherwise be covered under original Medicare.
Prior authorization helps save the federal government money by screwing sick people.
There is no simpler, more accurate way to say it. Under the false banner of cutting “waste,” the government plans to cut services. Remember, because the government is Monetarily Sovereign, “cutting waste” is meaningless.
The federal government cannot run short of its sovereign currency, the U.S. dollar. Even if the government collected zero taxes, it could not run short of dollars.
Even if the federal government collected zero taxes and tripled spending, it still could not run short of dollars.
Unlike state and local governments, the federal government creates unlimited dollars by pressing computer keys. In reality, so-called “wasteful” federal spending benefits the economy. It adds to Gross Domestic Product.
GDP = Federal Spending + Nonfederal Spending + Net Exports
The sole purpose and effect of prior authorization is to reduce, delay, and eliminate medical services and to transfer much of the remaining cost to the ill.
It is a program only a right-wing Republican could love — and even that right-winger won’t love it when he/she has payment or procedure denied because some bureaucrat in Washington won’t pay for the procedure your doctor prescribed.
The terrible irony is that while the Republicans, under Trump, tell you that Washington is filled with “useless” people who must be fired randomly, the Republicans want those remaining “useless” people to make your healthcare decisions.
Here are some examples of what the current administration wants to subject you to:
The survey underscores the urgent need for reform and regulation of prior authorization, the AMA said.
In December 2022, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services released a proposed rule to speed up prior authorization approval.
Physicians spend almost two business days each week on prior authorization requests and 35% have had to hire additional staff to exclusively handle the administrative burden, the AMA said.
The AMA said other survey results show that 80% of physicians report that prior authorization can lead to treatment abandonment; 33% of physicians report prior authorization leading to a serious adverse event for a patient in their care – with 9% reporting it’s led to permanent bodily damage, disability or death.
Prior authorization complexity does not eliminate unnecessary treatments, the AMA said. Eighty-six percent of physicians report that prior authorization leads to higher overall utilization of healthcare resources.
Many ophthalmologists have faced – and continue to face – broad prior authorization policies on cataract surgeries from certain insurance giants, the AMA said.
Rheumatologists have long decried prior authorization policies for worsening outcomes for their patients. Many rheumatology patients rely on expensive biologic medication to treat their disease, meaning they are commonly a target of insurers, the AMA said.
And then there’s this evaluation of the “Save the government money by costing people money, their health and their lives program.”
Imagine you have a cancer growing in you, and your doctor tells you that you need treatment right away. Good luck with that:
Question What is the patient experience with prior authorization (PA) for cancer-related care?
Findings This cross-sectional study of 178 patients with cancer with experience with PA showed delays to care (with most delays ≥2 weeks), increased anxiety, and patient administrative burden. The PA process was rated bad or horrible by most respondents and was associated with decreased trust in the health care system.
This study suggests that PA for cancer care can have discrete negative associations with outcomes for patients; streamlining the process is key to optimizing the quality of care delivered and improving the patient experience with cancer care.
Prior authorization (PA) requires clinicians and patients to navigate a complex approval pathway. Resultant delays and denials can be particularly problematic for patients with cancer, who often need urgent treatment or symptom management.
Results: 22% did not receive recommended care due to delays or denials. 69% reported a PA-related delay in care; of those with delayed care, 73% reported a delay of 2 or more weeks. 67% had to personally become involved in the PA process; 20% spent 11 or more hours dealing with PA issues. The PA experience was rated as bad 40% or horrible 32% PA-related anxiety was higher than usual anxietyand was correlated with delay length, and time spent After PA, 89% of patients trusted their insurance company less, and83% trusted the health care system less. 22% of patients did not receive the care recommended by their treatment team because of PA.
PA processes may require clinicians and patients to navigate a complex approval pathway and can lead to delays in receipt of care or denials of recommended Delays and denials can be particularly problematic for patients with cancer, who often need urgent treatment or symptom management.
Oncologists have reported suboptimal care and delays in cancer treatment owing to PA’s bureaucratic interference in clinician-patient decision-making; an oncology survey found that payer pressures, including handling PA, ranked as the most pressing practice concern.
An American Medical Association survey found that 90% of respondents reported treatment delays due to PA. 73% of surveyed oncologists reported that patients “routinely” expressed concerns to them about PA-related delays.
About 33% of physicians in the AMA survey said PA criteria are rarely or never evidence based. 62% of physicians reported difficulty in determining whether a service required PA. Patients described the process as arbitrary, with lack of communication, lack of transparency
Does this really sound like an improvement to Medicare? Does it sound like you will receive better care at less cost?
IN SUMMARY
Your federal taxes do not fund government spending. The sole purposes of federal taxes are to regulate the economy and stabilize the dollar, not to provide funding for government spending.
The federal government cannot run short of money. It creates dollars simply by voting to fund projects.
FICA does not fund Medicare. The federal government has the power to fund a comprehensive, no-deductible Medicare plan for everyone of every age in America, without collecting a penny in taxes.
The current administration is in the process of firing hundreds of thousands of federal workers; yet, those remaining workers are expected to administer PA, a complex process that requires medical expertise and handling hundreds of thousands of individual cases.
No one knows your medical needs better than your doctor, yet the government wants a Washington bureaucrat to make your medical decisions and overrule your doctor.
Delays or refusals to provide services have cost people’s health and lives.
PA does not save you or your doctor time or money. PA does not improve service. On the contrary, PA costs you and your doctor time and money, and worsens medical services.
Private insurance companies are dollar-constrained. They use PA so they can deny services. Their people are paid to deny services. The federal government is not dollar-constrained. Its purpose is to protect you and provide service.
In short, PA is an even worse idea than the notorious “debt ceiling,” and that is really saying something.
Brandon Rottinghaus, University of Houston Justin S. Vaughn, Coastal Carolina University
The 2024 Presidential Greatness Project Expert Survey was conducted online via Qualtrics
from November 15 to December 31, 2023.
Respondents included current and recent members of the Presidents & Executive Politics Section of the American Political Science Association, which is the foremost organization of social science experts in presidential politics, as well as scholars who had recently published peer-reviewed academic research in key related scholarly journals or academic presses.
525 respondents were invited to participate, and 154 usable responses were received, yielding a 29.3% response rate.1
Note: Donald Trump’s 2nd term was not included.
The primary purpose of this survey was to create a ranking of presidential greatness that covered all presidents from George Washington to Joe Biden.
To do this, we asked respondents to rate each president on a scale of 0-100 for their overall greatness, with 0=failure, 50=average, and 100=great.
We then averaged the ratings for each president and ranked them from highest average to lowest.
The results of this ranking are quite similar to the results from our previous surveys (released in 2015 and 2018): Abraham Lincoln again tops the list (95.03 average), followed by Franklin Delano Roosevelt (90.83), George Washington (90.32), Teddy Roosevelt (78.58), Thomas Jefferson (77.53), Harry Truman (75.34), Barack Obama (73.8), and Dwight Eisenhower (73.73).
The most notable changes in this ordering are Franklin Delano Roosevelt moving up to #2 from the third spot last year, and Dwight Eisenhower falling back to #8 from #6 last year.
The bottom of the rankings is also relatively stable. Donald Trump rates lowest (10.92), behind James Buchanan (16.71), Andrew Johnson (21.56), Franklin Pierce (24.6), William Henry Harrison (26.01), and Warren Harding (27.76).
What is most noteworthy about the remaining presidents concerns who has risen and fallen over time. Since our initial survey, several presidents have had significant changes in their rankings.
Barack Obama has risen 9 places (from #16 to #7), as has Ulysses S. Grant (from #26 to #17), while Andrew Jackson has fallen 12 places (from #9 to #21) and Calvin Coolidge has dropped 7 spots (from #27 to #34).
Examining the partisan and ideological differences among our respondents also indicates some interesting dynamics. While partisanship and ideology don’t tend to make a major difference overall, there are a few distinctions worth noting.
For example, Republicans and Conservatives rank George Washington as the greatest president and James Buchanan as the least great.
There are also several presidents where partisan polarization is evident – Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Obama, and Biden – but interestingly not for Bill Clinton.
More than 10 years ago, it was clear that Trump had severe psychological problems, and since then, they have grown worse. Much worse. He may be one of the least capable people to assume the Presidency.
So why Trump, and why now?
I suspect it began with white resentment of a black president, Barack Obama, and the “replacement” theory that has been the emotional fuel, but those are only part of the important shifts that occurred during the recession of 2008..
That period saw a perfect storm of fear and loss. Several simultaneous changes rattled the American self-image:
1) Demographic reality:
White Americans went from an overwhelming majority to a plurality heading toward minority status. Immigration, interracial marriage, and non-Christian identity became normal.
That triggered a visceral “status loss” among some whites — not necessarily material loss, but loss of primacy. This status anxiety is the emotional heart of “replacement theory.” It is the basis for the illogical but powerful hatred of immigrants today.
That hatred is illogical from an economic standpoint. (Immigrants are a major benefit to America. They pay taxes, don’t receive social benefits, don’t steal jobs, fill undesirable jobs, are less likely to commit crimes than citizens, and are important consumers for businesses.)
That hatred also is illogical from a moral standpoint. Americans have viewed ourselves as a “shining city on a hill,” an example for the world. “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Yet hatred is planted and nurtured by fear, and Trump consistently has played on that fear
2) Economic disillusionment:
Forty years of wage stagnation, automation, and globalization hollowed out the working and middle classes. People were told “hard work pays off,” but it stopped paying off.
Resentment needed a target; the wealthy cleverly redirected it toward immigrants, minorities, and “liberal elites.”
3) Information collapse:
Social media algorithms radicalized discourse. Traditional media lost authority, creating epistemic tribalism: “facts vs. alternative facts.”
(On January 22, 2017, Kellyanne Conway used the expression “alternative facts” while defending Sean Spicer’s false statement that Donald Trump’s inauguration crowd was the largest ever; others pointed to photographic and transit evidence to the contrary.)
Outrage became both identity and entertainment. The result: A broad sense that “we are losing our country” — a fertile emotional base for authoritarian politics. Again, fear turned to hatred.
4) The election of a black man, Barack Obama, was a catalyst:
Obama’s election was a psychological earthquake for a segment of white America. A Black president symbolized a reversal of the old hierarchy. For many, that wasn’t progress; it was humiliation — the fear that their America was slipping away.
The right-wing media ecosystem immediately capitalized on that feeling: “He’s not one of us,” “He’s un-American,” “He’s a secret Muslim.” That rhetoric reactivated the oldest American myth — that whiteness and nationhood are synonymous — and made it politically mainstream again. Trump is the perfect authoritarian response
5) Donald Trump didn’t invent this resentment and fear; he channeled it. He offered:
The rich: deregulation, tax cuts, and judicial control.
The poor and anxious: revenge, validation, and a sense of belonging.
He fused those groups into a coalition of resentful masses and self-serving elites under a single emotional banner: Make America Great Again. Translation: Make it white, familiar, and obedient again.
6)Institutional erosion followed:
The judiciary and Congress polarized into obedience camps.
Truth itself became optional — a sign of late-stage institutional decay.
The old norms (“losers concede,” “laws apply equally”) began to crumble.
That’s the moment when democracies shift toward authoritarian logic:
“If the system won’t protect us, we need a strongman who will.”
Today’s U.S. shows all the classical precursors
Elite cynicism:billionaires and corporations backing populist rhetoric to secure deregulation and tax shelters.
Mass grievance: working-class whites convinced they’re victims of elites and minorities.
Institutional decay: parties acting as tribes, courts politicized, media fractured. Truth derided.
Mythic narrative: “We are being replaced — but our leader will save us.”
That’s textbook pre-authoritarian alignment. The U.S. hasn’t yet become a dictatorship; it still has strong institutional inertia. But the pattern is unmistakably the same as the early stages seen in other democracies that fell.
Summary
Dictatorships seldom emerge without an elite faction, consisting of the wealthy, military, bureaucratic, or business leaders, seeking either to protect or expand their privileges, alongside a mass faction that desires vengeance, dignity, or the redistribution of wealth.
The dictator brings the two opposing sides together by offering each what they desire. The wealthy gain order, financial benefits, privileges, lucrative contracts, and the suppression of unions, protests, and taxation.
Meanwhile, the poor get a sense of release, a target for their blame, a sense of symbolic justice (“the wealthy will pay”), and a false hope that the nation will reclaim its mythical historical greatness.
This dual alliance is historically visible in Mussolini’s Italy, Hitler’s Germany, Perón’s Argentina, and Putin’s Russia.
The poor are not always motivated solely by material improvement. They may be driven more by:
Status resentment (“we’ve been humiliated”), cultural anxiety (loss of traditional values, foreign influence), ethnonationalism (restoring dominance of a preferred group), or fear of chaos (preferring strongman order to democratic uncertainty).
This emotional substrate lets the dictator convert economic anger into identity loyalty. It’s why propaganda focuses more on who to hate than how to eat.
The elites’ calculations are usually short-term and self-destructive. The rich see a dictatorship as a profit opportunity. But they often misjudge it.
They assume they’ll control or “ride” the dictator. They believe democracy’s instability poses a greater threat to their holdings. They underestimate how fast the dictator will turn on them.
In most historical cases, the elites who empowered the autocrat lose control quickly — often their assets, sometimes their lives. (E.g., German industrialists in the 1930s, Russian oligarchs post-2000.)
Dictatorships need institutional decay to take root. Neither mass rage nor elite greed is enough on its own. Dictatorships also need:
Weak political parties (so no one can organize opposition) as demonstrated by the leaderless Democrats and the cowardly Republicans
Distrusted media (so truth collapses into tribal belief), as demonstrated by feckless Fox News and the success of so many conspiracy theorists
Judicial erosion (so laws become discretionary), as demonstrated by the “politicians in black robes” of the Supreme Court
Obedient security forceswilling to obey illegal orders, implemented by Trump’s firing of career generals and other officers.
That decay allows a demagogue to present himself as the only source of unity or salvation. The promise is always the same: revenge + redemption.
Nationalist form: “We’ll restore our greatness.” (Make America Great Again)
Religious form: “We’ll restore moral purity.” (Book burning, censorship, anti “woke”)
Populist form: “We’ll take back what was stolen from you.” (anti-union, anti-rich, anti-immigrant)
It always is about undoing humiliation and promising simple certainty in a complex world.
Is America a dictatorship? We’re not quite there yet, but getting close. We may be saved by Trump’s age and his obvious lack of intelligence and overall mental capacity. But we are teetering.
If a man as weak as Trump can bring us to the brink, that is evidence we need a reassessment of our political, financial, economic, and moral structure. Otherwise, the next moral midgit will bring us crashing down.
I suggest we begin (not end, but begin) with federal spending and legislation to narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest of America.
Data from a Milken Institute reportshows that in recent years, the top 10% of households hold about 72% of the wealth in America.
#Monetary Sovereignty - Mitchell 