I wrote this post in on December 10, 2020 from my home office. From here, I can see wetlands formed from Mud Creek. Mud Creek is a small stream about 100 meters from my backyard. It runs for a few miles until it merges with Noses Creek. Eventually, it meets with Sweetwater Creek, a tributary of the Chattahoochee River, Georgia’s largest river.

I have been writing from this office since 1993. I will share more in the future as The Mud Creek Chronicles.

Visiting the past can help us navigate the future. This is especially true now. We have a wannabe dictator and a known authoritarian. They prefer meeting with leaders of authoritarian nations rather than democratic leaders.

Donald Trump and his sycophants were trying to steal the 2020 election. I wrote this nearly a month before he incited thousands to attack the United States Capitol Building. It was obvious. Or it should have been obvious. Autocrat Trump was showing the world that he was determined to stay in office, no matter what.
What did we learn from this attempted coup?

I wrote this post in 2012, about Senator Rubio’s answer to question that’s interesting to consider 22 years later. Trump picked Senator Rubio as the Secretary of State. He might become a very good Secretary of State. I hope he is in terms of working with other nations to solve problems. Nonetheless, the post that follows explores the implications of the senator’s reply when asked about the age of the earth.

Donald Trump has started selecting people to be part of his administration. The first batch included Tulsi Gabbard, Pete Hegseth, Matt Gaetz, and Robert Kennedy. Some folks consider them deplorable.

Yet, one of the first picks was Stephen Miller. Do you know who he is?  Or what position he’ll have in the Trump administration?  He won’t hold a cabinet spot. But he will have an office in the White House. He’ll keep his position from 2017 to 2021 as deputy chief of staff for policy.

Miller has been and will continue as one of Trump’s most influential advisors. He’s been in Trump’s orbit for nearly a decade. Miller crafted Trump’s rally speeches and designed immigration policies that banned Muslims and separated families. He will be at the center of the threat to deport millions of undocumented immigrants. The danger to American immigrant families is real. Trump is determined to carry out his threat. Stephen Miller will lead this dehumanizing and cruel assault on people.  Indeed, people like most of us. We are all descendants of immigrants who came to America for a better life. Miller is a descendant of a Jewish family that escaped from Russia in 1903.

Note: I received this letter on the day of the election. The letter is from Skyler Fussro, a young woman living in the 2055. I have received letters from Skyler for several decades. You can read some of them here. Usually, she is calling me out for our dismal approach to education and climate change. She is also in touch with Greta Thunberg, the young Swedish climate change and humanitarian activist.

But this letter reflects a deep concern she has with Donald Trump’s election by primarily white men and women. She says that the America she is living in is more diverse than it was in 2024. By the way, she lives with her family in a high-rise apartment in central Atlanta. It is a few blocks from Five Points and the campus of Georgia State University. I was a professor there from 1969 to 2003.

Donald Trump is now the president-elect and brings upon us another existential threat. In my book, The Trump Files, I concluded that Trump poses a significant risk. This is a conclusion I made if he were ever elected again as President. His election created an existential threat.

t’s Election Day in the United States. I’m writing this at 6:30 p.m. Eastern time. Millions of Americans will stand in line to vote. By 7:00 p.m., a third of the country will have voted. By 10:00, nearly all those wanting to vote will have cast their votes. Kamala was my choice. Who was yours?

On Tuesday, we decided whether to unleash an existential threat on the U.S. population or elect a woman committed to justice, empathy, and open dialogue, providing effective leadership for our nation.

Kamala Harris’s upbringing contrasts with Donald Trump’s, reflecting differing values and ideals based on the concepts of ‘strict father family’ and ‘nurturant family’ outlined by Dr. George Lakoff. Harris embodies courage and effectiveness, supported by her background in justice and equality, and has demonstrated her leadership and strength through her career as a prosecutor and U.S. Senator. Admired for her caring and progressive values, Harris advocates for women’s rights and economic development, making her a symbol of hope in challenging times. Her commitment to justice, empathy, and open dialogue distinguishes her as a compassionate yet action-oriented leader, providing a reassuring example of effective leadership in today’s uncertain political climate. She is ready to be the leader of the free world. 

Dear Jack Hassard, I write to you again 1 from a future that fills me with dread and a glimmer of hope. The years since Donald Trump's rise have been a dark and perilous time for our once-great nation. His authoritarian rule has crushed the democratic freedoms we once...

At a rally in Kalamazoo, WI for Kamala Harris, Michelle Obama said, “Never again, Never again.” Her speech was a scathing indictment of Donald Trump. She called Trump an existential threat, as I did in The Trump Files.

Her speech was also excellent, brilliant, and emotional. I invite you to listen and watch her talk about America’s future and why we must never again let Trump near the White House.

Donald Trump asks his cult of followers, ” Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” For them, the answer is whatever Trump wants to hear: They shout “NO!”

But the truth is that the answer is YES! Let’s see why.

My book, The Trump Files, is based on my blog posts written between mid-August 2015 and February 14, 2021. During these years, my writing aimed to bear witness (based on Robert Jay Lifton’s research) to Trump’s malignant normality by documenting what I saw and witnessed during this period. I am still writing and bearing witness to Trump’s attempt to con the American electorate to put in back in office.

He should never enter the Oval Office again.

Here is a summary of what I observed in this list of my book’s central themes or findings. These will be helpful if you’re still wondering who you’ll be able to vote for. The findings I report here reflect the damage that Trump and his allies did to the United States. Keep in mind that Donald Trump finished his presidency by instigating the violent January 6 attack on the United States Congress.

I saw this question today, “Why do Trump supporters not see what I see?” in Bandy Lee’s Substack newsletter. For years, many people I know and I have asked similar questions

To try and answer this question I want to introduce two people who have studied, given speeches, and written books on violence, aggression, Trump contagion, and malignant normality to this conversation. Let me introduce Dr. Bandy X. Lee and Dr. Robert Jay Lifton. Their writing was important sources for me as I wrote my recent book, The Trump Files. Trump has spread a contagion of hate and violence to which a cult of Maga bobble heads shows complete allegiance. Influenced by the failure American media, print and digital to call out Trump, they have perpetuated what Robert Jay Lifton defines as malignant normality. The press is normalizing Trump’s malignant behavior. His cult further reinforces this normality at his rallies. No wonder Trump supporters don’t see what I see. They can’t

I voted on the first day of advanced voting today at the Boots Ward Recreation Center on Dallas Highway, Marietta, Georgia. The line was short, but one of the election staff members said my wife and I could go to the front if you are 75 or older. He assumed we were old. We are. We’re in our 80s. So we strolled down the lawn to the door and went right in. I asked another election staff if we could keep hold of our Starbucks coffees. He said, as long as the lid is on. I was amazed. Georgia has a rule that you can’t give out water to others, but you can carry a bottle of water.
The ballot wasn’t wrong, except for the first page. At the top of the vote for president was Donald Trump’s name. A convicted felon, rapist, and fraudster, his name is on the ballot, and millions of people will vote for the guy. In some states, you can’t vote if you are a felon. Yet, felon Trump is on the ballot.

This post is about the misinformation that Republicans are spreading in light of recent disasters.

Two of the deadliest hurricanes have swept through Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, East Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia and then through Florida, again.

Millions of Floridians were displaced by one of the fiercest storms of the century to strike the west coast of the state. I saw some of the displaced people as they escaped Hurricane Milton to Atlanta and beyond.

Life in our warming world is becoming more dangerous.   Many have been forced to flee their homes two times in the past month. They know that hurricanes are part of life living where they do. One person wrote that her house has been demolished three times by hurricanes before Milton came roaring into the St Petersburg-Tampa Bay shoreline cities.

First responders’ rescue efforts are planned by folks who take their life-saving work seriously. During these disasters, people in need look for help from first responders and the local, state, and federal governments.

But lurking in the bushes are two despicable climate liars, Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene.

The New York Times editorial board on Monday endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, calling her “the only patriotic choice for president” while painting a grim picture of a second term for former President Donald Trump.