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THE BIGGEST POLITICAL CON OF THE LAST CENTURY UNMASKED  
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Thom Hartmann
May 21, 2025
Hartmann Report
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_ Why the destruction of public institutions, the middle class, and
government itself may not be a mistake — but the mission… _

,

 

Neal deGrasse Tyson makes a very relevant poin
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this week:

“If a foreign adversary snuck into our Federal budget and cut
science research and education the way we’re cutting it ourselves
— strategically undermining America’s long-term health, wealth,
and security — we would likely consider it an act of war.”

TRUMP’S ADMINISTRATION JUST SAID YOU CAN’T GET THE COVID VACCINE
UNLESS YOU’RE OVER 65 OR SICK, SETTING UP AMERICA FOR MORE DEATH AND
DISEASE. AS NOAH BERLATSKY NOTES
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HIS GREAT SUBSTACK NEWSLETTER:

“This is the latest effort by Trump to try to kick start a major US
pandemic and degrade the health and welfare of the country. Trump has
also rolled back
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testing, including testing for bacteria in infant formula. He’s made
major cuts
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the FAA, leading to fears for airline safety—and a number of
dramatic airline safety failures
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may be related to the destruction of capacity. Cuts at the NOAA
may diminish
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ability to warn about dangerous weather events. The Republican
proposals for Medicaid cuts are likely to lead
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tens of thousands of deaths. And of course Trump’s senseless tariffs
are increasing inflation
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destroying jobs, and could still easily end us in a recession.“

BUT WHY? WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?

Almost two-thirds of us Americans can’t afford the basic necessities
of life, according to a new report from the Ludwig Institute for
Shared Economic Prosperity [[link removed]] (LISEP) reported
[[link removed]] by
CBS News. They point out that if unemployment numbers included the
underemployed and those stuck in “poverty-wage jobs,” it would be
around 24%, not the 4.2% recently reported, leading to an
acknowledgement of a widespread misery that’s largely hidden by the
way we currently calculate unemployment.

Income for the bottom 60% of Americans, for example,
actually _declined_ by 4% in the years 2001 to 2023 while costs —
particularly for healthcare, housing, food, and education (college
tuition, for example, is up 122%
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2001) — have exploded.

Before the pandemic, half of all homes on the market were affordable
to a family earning $75,000 a year; today it’s only one out of five
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that such a family could afford to purchase.

THE INITIAL RESULT OF THIS POST-REAGAN REVOLUTION ECONOMY WAS TO
KNEECAP THE MIDDLE CLASS AND WORKING CLASS; NOW REPUBLICANS ARE USING
THE SAME STRATEGY THEY EMPLOYED TO DESTROY OUR MIDDLE CLASS TO
DISMANTLE OUR NATION’S GOVERNMENT AND ITS CORE FUNCTIONS TO LEAVE US
VULNERABLE TO THE PREDATION OF FOREIGN NATIONS, VULTURE CAPITALISTS,
AND THE MORBIDLY RICH.

AND NOBODY’S SURE WHY.

The history of how we got here is shocking. And the place it’s
taking us — gutting government functions while handing our role in
the world over to China and Russia — is downright scandalous.

AT FIRST, IT WAS SIMPLY A POLITICAL STRATEGY TO CLAIM THE MANTLE OF
SANTA CLAUS
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THE DEMOCRATS BY “GIFTING” AMERICA WITH TAX BREAKS. THEN IT BECAME
A PROGRAM TO FORCE DEMS TO KILL OFF THEIR OWN SOCIAL PROGRAMS BY
DRIVING UP THE NATIONAL DEBT. AND NOW IT’S BEING USED TO DISASSEMBLE
THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT ITSELF, ABANDONING WHAT’S LEFT OF THE MIDDLE
CLASS WHILE HANDING AMERICA’S DOMINANT ROLE IN THE WORLD TO CHINA
AND RUSSIA.

You could call it treason, except that it’s become so normalized and
institutionalized that most Americans wouldn’t even understand the
reason for the label.

REPUBLICAN POLICY WEIRDNESS THAT BROUGHT US TO THIS MOMENT BEGAN
AROUND THE NATIONAL DEBT IN 1981.

The United States was significantly in debt following our
Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World War I, and World War II.
Following the philosophy that a large national debt should only exist
during a time of national emergency, in each case, after the end of
each war, we began a serious effort to pay down that debt.

Andrew Jackson finished paying off the entire debt from the
Revolutionary War in the 1830s. We’d largely paid off the debt from
the Civil War by the end of the 19th century, and, as the Treasury
Department notes on its debt history site
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our “government ended the century with its finances in very good
order.”

WE PAID THE NATIONAL DEBT FOR WWI DOWN
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A MERE $17 BILLION BY THE TIME THE REPUBLICAN GREAT DEPRESSION HIT,
BUT BETWEEN THE COST OF THE NEW DEAL AND WORLD WAR II, WE ENTERED THE
POST-WWII ERA IN 1946 WITH A DEBT EQUAL TO 106% OF GDP, A RATIO WE HIT
AGAIN IN 2015.

Republicans and Democrats quickly united around the idea of paying off
our national debt in the post-war years, driving it down to a mere
$800 billion ($0.8 trillion) between 1945 and 1981 when Reagan came
into office.

AND THEN, FOLLOWING JUDE WANNISKI’S “TWO SANTAS” PLAN
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THE GOP EMBARKED ON AN EXPERIMENT THAT HAD NEVER BEEN INTENTIONALLY
TRIED IN THE US OR ANY OTHER DEVELOPED COUNTRY IN WORLD HISTORY: DRIVE
UP THE NATIONAL DEBT AS HIGH AS POSSIBLE WITH MASSIVE TAX BREAKS FOR
THE VERY RICHEST AMONG US.

Reagan did this for two reasons:

— FIRST, deficit spending with trillions in borrowed money (he ran
the debt up to $2.4 trillion in a mere 8 years) stimulates the
economy, so people thought Reagan had produced good times. (Give me a
$2 trillion credit card, and I’ll show you what it looks like to
live large, too!)

— SECOND, the rising debt gave Republicans the perfect excuse to
follow Wanniski’s advice
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force the Democrats to “shoot their Santa [of programs like Social
Security and Medicaid] in the face.” Whenever a Republican is in the
White House, Wanniski argued, Republicans should run up the debt as
hard and fast as possible, so when a Democrat is in the White House
they can squeal about “the debt our children will inherit! Oh, the
humanity!”

THE GOP HAS STUCK TO THIS STRATEGY FOR 44 YEARS NOW, RUNNING UP $36
TRILLION IN DEBT (AND OUR ENTIRE GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT WAS A MERE
[[link removed]] $27.7
TRILLION LAST YEAR) AND NOW, FINALLY, WE’VE REACHED THE POINT WHERE
THIS UNSUSTAINABLE DEBT IS NOT ONLY COSTING US A TRILLION DOLLARS A
YEAR IN DEBT SERVICE (INTEREST PAYMENTS) BUT HAS LED TO A DOWNGRADE OF
OUR NATION’S CREDIT SCORE.

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AT FIRST, THE MAIN EFFECT OF THE TWO SANTAS STRATEGY WAS MERELY TO
MAKE THE MORBIDLY RICH AMONG US FABULOUSLY RICHER, WHILE EXTRACTING
MUCH OF THAT WEALTH FROM THE HOMES, RETIREMENT PLANS, AND SAVINGS OF
THE MIDDLE CLASS. IT WAS, QUITE SIMPLY, A PLANNED AND SUCCESSFUL
TRANSFER OF ROUGHLY $50 TRILLION
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THE MONEY BINS OF THE RICH, ALMOST ALL OF IT COMING OUT OF THE HIDES
AND LIVES OF THE REST OF US.

When Reagan came into office in 1981, about two-thirds of Americans
were solidly middle class with a single paycheck being able to buy a
home, a car, raise a family, put the kids through school, and provide
for a decent retirement.

Today, that same standard of living requires a bit more than two
full-time jobs, and only about 47% of us
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in the middle class (with two wage earners instead of just one in
1981).

“‘The middle class has been declining — we just haven't
recognized it fully,’ LISEP Chairman Gene Ludwig told CBS
MoneyWatch
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‘It’s really dangerous because it’s the kind of thing that leads
to social unrest, and it’s not fair. The American dream is not that
it’s given to you — it’s that if you work hard, you have a
chance to get ahead and achieve the things in life that you want to
achieve. It’s not living in a tent, not having to steal.”

BUT NOW TRUMP, MUSK, VANCE, AND CONGRESSIONAL REPUBLICANS — HAVING
FIRST CRUSHED THE AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS — ARE DOING EVERYTHING THEY
CAN TO DESTROY AMERICA’S PREEMINENT POSITION IN THE WORLD _ALONG
WITH_ OUR SOCIAL SAFETY NET.

— Instead of INVESTING in education and science, they’re making
it harder for students to get an education.
— Instead of PROMOTING DEMOCRACY around the world, they’re
embracing murderous dictators while broadcasting rightwing neofascist
propaganda on Voice of America.
— Instead of LIFTING UP AMERICANS by helping our veterans and
providing food, healthcare, and shelter to the poor and disabled,
they’re gutting the VA and the social safety net.

AS A RESULT, TODAY NEARLY HALF OF AMERICAN CHILDREN (45% OR 34 MILLION
KIDS
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RELY ON FOOD AND MEDICAL PROGRAMS THAT ARE NOW TARGETED BY
“CHRISTIAN” MIKE JOHNSON’S HOUSE REPUBLICANS IN THEIR BIG BRUTAL
BILL PROVIDING TRILLIONS IN TAX BREAKS TO BILLIONAIRES. THE PROPOSED
CUTS TO SNAP (FOOD STAMPS) AND MEDICAID, FOR EXAMPLE, WOULD BE THE
LARGEST IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES.

Reagan’s Two Santas strategy has done serious harm to America,
collapsing the economic futures of two entire generations.

AND NOW THEY’RE GOING AFTER OUR GOVERNMENT ITSELF.

BUT, WHY? NOBODY’S SURE.

— Did Putin, Xi, or both TELL TRUMP AND/OR MUSK to destroy
America?
— Are our country’s billionaires SO PSYCHOPATHICALLY GREEDY that
they’re willing to sell us all out for another few billion dollars
in tax breaks?
— Do Trump’s allies believe that if they can impoverish Americans
we’ll be more willing to GO ALONG WITH THEIR AUTHORITARIAN
AGENDA the way Germans did after being immiserated by the Republican
Great Depression of the 1930s?
— Are they following the “Dark Enlightenment” philosophers of
Silicon Valley
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argue that DEMOCRACY IS OUTDATED and “we need to get over our
dictator phobia” and let the tech giants run the country?

Nobody knows for sure. Nobody can really explain it.

Republicans are aren’t even pretending anymore; they’re not even
bothering to proclaim BS like “trickle down” or the “need to
support the job creators.“

MOST DISTRESSING, THERE’S VIRTUALLY NO DISCUSSION OF ANY OF THIS IN
THE MAINSTREAM PRESS.

— The Two Santas strategy is EASILY DOCUMENTED
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but never mentioned.
— The explosion of our national debt is all over economists’
websites, but when the American media mentions it, it’s always in
the context of Democrats needing to “reduce spending” rather than
the fact that VIRTUALLY 100% OF OUR DEBT TODAY was put there
exclusively by Reagan, Bush, and Trump tax cuts and Bush’s two
illegal wars.
— Nobody, it seems, is speculating about WHY TRUMP AND MUSK WOULD
WANT TO KILL OFF USAID or kneecap the FAA and the National Weather
Service. _Qui bono (who benefits?) _other than Putin and Xi? The
savings are a drop in the billionaire’s bucket; there must be a
larger agenda than just funding tax cuts for billionaires.
— And, they’re now holding their VOTES IN THE MIDDLE OF THE
NIGHT; I think we all know what they are hiding and the credulous
press is letting pass.

I DON’T KNOW WHY REPUBLICANS HAVE BEEN SO ENTHUSIASTIC ABOUT FIRST
DESTROYING THE AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS AND NOW OUR GOVERNMENT ITSELF,
BUT THE CONSEQUENCES HAVE DRIVEN THE EXPLOSION OF RIGHTWING ANGER,
RACISM, AND MISOGYNY THAT’S BEEN SWEEPING THE NATION SINCE TRUMP’S
APPEARANCE ON THE SCENE IN 2015.

And now they’re threatening our position in the world, as well as
possibly leading us all into a third world war.

Why do _you_ think this is happening?

_Thom Hartmann is a NY Times bestselling author of 34 books in 17
languages & nation's #1 progressive radio host. Psychotherapist,
international relief worker. Politics, history, spirituality,
psychology, science, anthropology, pre-history, culture, and the
natural world._

* budget cuts
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* deficits
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* US middle class
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* community destruction
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