Mike McCready

Tag: history

  • It’s time Democrats and former establishment Republicans come up with a joint plan to deal with what’s coming.

    It’s time Democrats and former establishment Republicans come up with a joint plan to deal with what’s coming.

    For a while, “Trump might invoke the Insurrection Act” lived in the same category as “he might nuke a hurricane” or “he might try to buy Greenland.”

    Absurd. Darkly funny. Filed under surely even he wouldn’t.

    And yet here we are. Again.

    He’s now openly flirting with the idea that we “shouldn’t even have elections,” casually name-checking the Insurrection Act like it’s a coupon he forgot to use last time. You know—normal democracy stuff. Totally chill. Nothing to see here. Please enjoy the gift shop on your way out.

    This isn’t a policy disagreement anymore.

    This is a stress test for the republic.

    The playbook is familiar: declare chaos, insist only you can fix it, suspend normal rules “temporarily,” and then act shocked when people notice the temporary part never seems to end. It’s the political equivalent of saying, “I’m just going to hold onto your wallet for safekeeping,” and then moving to another country.

    And before anyone says, “Relax, he’s just joking,” let me offer a general life rule:

    When someone keeps joking about canceling elections, eventually it stops being a joke. It becomes a rehearsal.

    What’s different this time—and what should scare the pants off everyone—is that he’s no longer just saying this stuff at rallies. He’s saying it with the infrastructure, the legal theories, and the personnel lined up behind him. This is less Drunk Uncle at Thanksgiving and more HR meeting with a PowerPoint.

    Which brings me to the uncomfortable but necessary point:

    This can’t be handled by Democrats alone.

    It requires Democrats and former establishment Republicans—the ones who still believe the Constitution is not a vibes-based document—to quietly, urgently, and jointly agree on a plan. Not a campaign. Not a press release. A plan.

    Document everything.

    Clarify lines of authority.

    Make the guardrails visible before someone tries to drive through them.

    Democracy doesn’t usually die with tanks in the streets. It dies with paperwork, legal justifications, and a lot of people saying, “Well, surely the courts will stop it,” right up until the moment they don’t.

    If that sounds alarmist, I get it. I’d prefer a lighter topic too. Maybe something fun. Like dental surgery. Or horse barn cleanup.

    But this is the moment where the adults—across parties—either act like adults…

    or we all get to learn, very quickly, what the Insurrection Act actually looks like in practice.

    Spoiler: it’s not a rom-com.

    So yes. Deep breaths.

    And then: eyes open, receipts saved, institutions defended.

    Because history has a cruel sense of humor—and it really hates when people say, “It can’t happen here.

    Democracies don’t collapse all at once—they erode while people wait for someone else to stop it. Our grandparents understood that. It’s our turn to prove we do too.

  • Regardless of what side you’re on, you want to understand why all of this is happening? Well, here’s why.

    Regardless of what side you’re on, you want to understand why all of this is happening? Well, here’s why.

    The United States stood at a crossroads. We had a choice.

    We could treat the Confederacy for what it was—a violent, anti-democratic insurrection—or we could pretend it was just a “heated disagreement between brothers” and, after the Civil War, go get a beer.

    We chose the beer.

    There were no mass trials.

    No hangings.

    No real cleaning of house.

    The generals went home.

    The politicians went back to Congress.

    The ideology didn’t die; it just took a sabbatical.

    Reconstruction was brief, half-hearted, and violently sabotaged. We did it for about fifteen minutes before getting bored and handing the keys back to the guys in the white hoods. The message was clear:

    You can wage war against the United States—and eventually, we’ll name a high school after you.

    That precedent matters.

    When you don’t punish a rebellion, you don’t end it.

    You franchise it.

    You teach the losers that force works.

    That intimidation works.

    That democracy is optional if you’re loud enough, violent enough, or just willing to wait out the news cycle.

    So the Confederacy didn’t disappear.

    It mutated.

    It became Jim Crow.

    Then “States’ Rights.”

    Then the “Silent Majority.”

    Then the Culture War.

    The branding changes, but the product is the same: hierarchy must be preserved, and the federal government is illegitimate unless it’s hurting the right people.

    Fast-forward to now.

    We have a movement that treats cruelty like a virtue and empathy like a character flaw. A party that views loyalty tests as standard operating procedure. Government agencies weaponized without subtlety. ICE raids staged for prime time.

    To the guys currently cheering this on: you probably think you’re the protagonist in this movie. You think you’re 1776.

    Check your costume.

    You’re wearing 1861 gray.

    You are aligning yourselves with the losers of history’s most obvious moral tests. You are marching in lockstep with the very people your grandfathers crossed an ocean to shoot at.

    The offramp is right here, and it’s simple.

    You don’t need to make a public apology.

    You don’t need to hug a hippie.

    You just need to look at the guys standing next to you—the ones itching for a civil war, the ones measuring drapes for the camps—and ask yourself if that’s really the team photo you want to be in.

    Walk away now, and you can claim you were just confused.

    Stay much longer, and you’re just an accomplice.

    Germany didn’t ban the Nazi party because they were being vindictive. They did it because they learned a lesson we refused to:

    Democracy cannot survive nostalgia for the people who tried to slit its throat.

    We keep acting surprised that authoritarian instincts keep resurfacing in America. But we never dug up the roots.

    We just built monuments on top of them and acted surprised when nothing healthy grew.

  • We have GOT to lower the crime rates in these so-called sanctuary cities. I have an idea that just might work.

    We have GOT to lower the crime rates in these so-called sanctuary cities. I have an idea that just might work.

    After reviewing the data, the solution is obvious.

    Everyone should stop blaming immigrants—and maybe look in the mirror.

    In the very few places that actually track arrests per capita by immigration status (Texas does, which is why it’s always cited), the results are awkward:

    U.S.-born citizens are arrested at higher per-capita rates than undocumented immigrants for violent crime, property crime, and drug offenses.

    Not total arrests.

    Not raw headcounts.

    Arrests per person.

    Undocumented immigrants are also incarcerated at lower per-capita rates than native-born Americans. This isn’t activism. It’s arithmetic.

    As for those ominous “sanctuary cities”:

    When you compare similarly sized cities and adjust for population, there’s no increase in violent crime. Sometimes crime is actually lower. Turns out people who really want to stay here tend to behave. Suspicious, I know.

    This doesn’t mean immigrants never commit crimes. Of course they do. Humans remain undefeated.

    It just means the claim that sanctuary policies “breed crime and violence” collapses once you insist on per-capita data instead of vibes.

    So yes—I have an idea that just might work.

    If we want to lower crime rates, maybe the group committing more crime per person should… commit less of it.

    And while we’re crunching numbers, we might want to check the per-capita crime rate at the White House and consider a few deportations.

    Or at least some incarcerations.

    Radical, I know.

  • Why Do Liberals Love Supporting Freeloaders?

    Why Do Liberals Love Supporting Freeloaders?

    Liberals just want to hand out money. Reward bad behavior. Undermine work. End of story. That’s the charge. It gets tossed out like it explains everything.

    Except that’s not actually what’s happening.

    What liberals support is a social safety net because letting problems fully detonate is the most expensive option on the menu.

    A safety net isn’t a gift.

    It’s damage control.

    Missed paychecks turn into evictions.

    Untreated stress turns into addiction.

    Small setbacks turn into permanent ones.

    And once someone falls far enough, everyone pays more—through policing, courts, emergency services, and long-term dependency. And when a society creates a large enough disenfranchised underclass, it doesn’t just hurt them. It drags everyone down. Or worse, it turns into civil unrest and suddenly nobody lives without bars on their windows.

    This isn’t compassion versus responsibility.

    It’s early intervention versus cleanup.

    We don’t let a roof cave in to teach a lesson about maintenance.

    We fix the leak because structural collapse is a terrible teacher.

    Now—before the objections queue up—yes. Of course there are people who try to rip off the system.

    There always are.

    Every large system has fraud. Defense contracts have fraud. Medicare has fraud. Wall Street has fraud. Corporate tax avoidance alone costs more than every welfare scam combined, but somehow that never becomes a character indictment of all executives.

    We don’t respond to fraud by burning down the system.

    We respond by prosecuting fraud.

    Because designing policy around the worst anecdotes guarantees the worst outcomes.

    Now let’s talk about the group most often labeled “freeloaders.”

    Undocumented workers.

    Here’s where the conversation usually gets loud and sloppy:

    “Why should we let them benefit from government services our tax dollars pay for?”

    But we already do.

    Just not efficiently.

    Not rationally.

    Not cheaply.

    We bar them from basic, preventative healthcare.

    Then act shocked when they end up in emergency rooms—the most expensive square footage in American medicine—with conditions that should’ve been treated earlier for a fraction of the cost.

    ERs don’t check immigration status. They treat people.

    And those bills don’t disappear. They get passed along to hospitals, insured patients, and taxpayers.

    Even under the worst possible system—the dumbest, most expensive way to handle healthcare—undocumented workers are still a net positive to the economy. They work. They pay sales taxes. They pay property taxes through rent. They pay payroll taxes and subsidize Social Security they’ll never collect.

    Which brings us to the part no one likes to say out loud:

    If we handled this better—basic care, earlier treatment, fewer emergencies—undocumented workers would be an even bigger net positive. Because it would cost us less to have them here than it currently does.

    Same people.

    Same work.

    Lower cost.

    Liberals don’t support safety nets because they love freeloaders—any more than we put guardrails on highways because we want to encourage bad driving.

    That’s not ideology.

    That’s basic cost control for a society that intends to survive.

  • Russia gets Ukraine, China gets Taiwan, And the US gets Greenland…. Wait! What?

    Russia gets Ukraine, China gets Taiwan, And the US gets Greenland…. Wait! What?

    For about 80 years, the United States pulled off something historically insane.

    We’re under 5% of the world’s population, yet after WWII we helped design—and then manage—a global system that made us wealthy, secure, and absurdly influential. Not because we were saints. Because we were smart.

    We didn’t run the world like a cartoon villain twirling a mustache.

    We ran it like a country that finally learned the lesson every previous empire missed:

    Fear works fast.

    Consent works longer.

    So instead of ruling by intimidation, we built a system other countries could live with—even benefit from.

    Alliances instead of vassals.

    Rules instead of permanent brinkmanship.

    Open sea lanes so global trade didn’t require every cargo ship to bring its own navy.

    A dollar-centered financial system that quietly turned the U.S. into the tollbooth for global growth.

    Were we perfect? Obviously not. Vietnam. Iraq. CIA adventures best left out of the brochure.

    “We’re here to help” has preceded some deeply unhelpful moments.

    But the model worked because power was paired with legitimacy. Countries didn’t just tolerate American leadership—they chose it. That’s why the unipolar moment didn’t immediately collapse. The world didn’t instinctively band together to knock us down the way it usually does with dominant powers.

    That wasn’t accidental. The arrangements we built were often win-win. Other countries gained security, access, and stability, while we gained influence, markets, and leverage. Everyone could live with the math.

    Then Trump arrived and declared America had been run by idiots.

    He rejects win-win deals on principle. If someone else benefits, he assumes we’re being cheated. That’s why he keeps insisting the U.S. has been “ripped off” by everyone—from allies to trading partners—and why his solution is always the same: make sure someone else loses harder than we do.

    His complaint wasn’t that the U.S. enforced the rules.

    America always enforced the rules.

    His problem was how.

    Where previous presidents used enforcement backed by legitimacy, Trump decided legitimacy was overrated. Too slow. Too many meetings. Too many adults in the room.

    Why persuade when you can threaten?

    So the tone shifted.

    Tariffs as punishment.

    Cooperation replaced with compliance.

    Diplomacy reduced to: Do what we want or your exports get 25% more expensive in the US market.

    That’s a shakedown.

    And shakedowns have a cost.

    Countries governed by fear don’t align—they hedge. They rewrite trade relationships. They diversify supply chains. They quietly build exits.

    They start asking a very dangerous question:

    What if America is the risk now?

    That’s how trust turns into contingency planning.

    At the same time, we’re being sold a shiny new global vision:

    A world carved into spheres.

    Russia handles “its” region.

    China handles “its” region.

    America pulls back to its own region, throws its weight around selectively, and keeps everyone nervous with tariffs.

    Congratulations. We’ve rebooted the 1914 server that brought us WWI.

    A tripolar world isn’t stable. It’s anxious. Transactional. Every country doing math it never wanted to do:

    Who protects me now?

    Who do I appease?

    Who do I pay off?

    What happens when the big guys disagree and I’m standing in the middle?

    That’s a tinderbox.

    So who in their right mind would trade global dominance for this?

    At first glance, it looks like incompetence.

    But there’s another explanation that fits the facts much better.

    If your goal is preserving American power, this strategy is insane.

    If your goal is personal enrichment, it makes perfect sense.

    A stable, rules-based world limits leverage.

    A fearful, fragmented world is ripe for shakedowns.

    A presidency spent at Trump-branded properties, charging governments and lobbyists for access.

    Foreign policy that mysteriously flatters regimes doing business with the Trump orbit.

    A son-in-law leaving government service and immediately receiving $2 billion from a Saudi sovereign wealth fund—over his own advisers’ objections.

    Policy “evolutions,” tariff exemptions, and sudden reversals that just happen to benefit friends and punish critics.

    No conspiracy theory required.

    It’s public. Documented. Often defended as normal.

    But taken together, the pattern is hard to miss.

    Trump isn’t dismantling the postwar order because he misunderstands it.

    He’s dismantling it because it doesn’t serve him.

    We didn’t build the American-led world out of charity.

    We built it because it made us rich, safe, and powerful beyond historical precedent.

    Tearing it down for personal gain isn’t populism.

    It’s looting Uncle Sam.

  • People sometimes ask if my politics are “far left.”

    People sometimes ask if my politics are “far left.”

    People sometimes ask if my politics are “far left.”

    They’re not.

    I’m center-left by any serious U.S. standard. Boring. Functional. Regulated-capitalism-with-guardrails center-left.

    I believe markets are useful but not moral.

    Capitalism works best when it’s regulated.

    Voting should be easy.

    The law should apply to everyone.

    Healthcare and education should be accessible.

    Public education should be well funded and not ideologically captured.

    Peaceful protest should be protected—even when it’s uncomfortable or disruptive.

    Religion should be protected—but not imposed.

    Pluralism is a strength, not a threat.

    That used to be called mainstream.

    I didn’t move left.

    I stayed put.

    If this now sounds radical, it’s not because these ideas changed.

    It’s because we quietly stopped agreeing on what democracy requires.

    In 1995, this would’ve made me a normal Democrat—or a very reasonable Republican.

    In 2026, it apparently makes me dangerous.

    What changed is the scenery.

    At some point, the party that wrapped itself in the American flag started flirting with foreign strongmen, talking about “illiberal democracy,” and—small detail—waving the Union Jack at rallies while lecturing everyone else about patriotism.

    That’s new.

    So when people call views like mine “radical,” I can’t help but wonder:

    When did believing in elections, rule of law, and regulated capitalism become the extreme position?

    If this is “far left,” the news isn’t where I stand.

    It’s how far the map has shifted.

    That’s where I stand.

  • How The US Stayed On Top for Decades

    How The US Stayed On Top for Decades

    For most of modern history, great powers didn’t have allies — they had enemies in waiting. When a country gets strong enough, everyone else starts planning for the day it turns on them.

    The United States was the exception.

    Not because we were perfect.

    Because we understood something basic: power works better when it looks like leadership instead of entitlement.

    I’ve been traveling internationally for about forty years. Here’s something that would shock most Americans who haven’t left the country in a while:

    Much of the world has moved on.

    Cities are cleaner. Infrastructure is newer. Trains run on time. Healthcare is simpler. Daily life, in many places, is smoother, safer, and more modern than what we tolerate at home.

    In some corners of the U.S., we look like the developing country now.

    You don’t see that if you never leave.

    And here’s why that matters.

    For decades, other countries put up with our messiness because we were predictable, fair enough, and broadly aligned with a rules-based system that benefited everyone.

    That’s changing.

    We walk away from international institutions like they’re optional.

    We talk openly about “running” other countries and taking their resources.

    We stop using the language of partnership and start using the language of ownership.

    That doesn’t project strength.

    It projects risk.

    And our allies are reacting exactly the way history says they should.

    Europe is building trade and security plans that don’t depend on Washington.

    Canada is quietly reassessing whether the relationship is still special.

    Mexico is hedging — paying protection money while preparing backup options.

    These aren’t acts of rebellion.

    They’re acts of self-preservation.

    Once a superpower starts saying, “Power entitles,” every smaller country asks the same question:

    Entitles you to what? And am I next?

    That’s how leadership collapses without a single shot fired.

    That’s how “America First” becomes “America Alone.”

    History is full of strong nations that ruled by fear.

    It’s also full of strong nations that woke up one day surrounded by better, calmer, more functional alternatives.

    America avoided that fate for a long time — not because we were saints, but because we understood that trust compounds.

    We’re burning that capital fast.

    And once the world learns it doesn’t need you, it doesn’t come back just because you feel tough.

    That’s the path we’re on.

    And it ends badly — not for them.

    For us.

  • That Was An Impressive Military Operation

    That Was An Impressive Military Operation

    Let’s admit something up front. There’s a visceral thrill when the U.S. military pulls off something genuinely hard. Precision. Surprise. Professionals being professional. The capture of Nicolás Maduro had serious action-movie competence. You can respect the execution without apology.

    I do. I’m human.

    I also tend to like things Russia hates. Same with China. Just the kinda guy I am, I guess. And they hate this. Which brings us to the cognative dissonance many of us feel but don’t know quite how to articulate.

    Because impressive isn’t the same thing as smart.

    And capability isn’t the same thing as judgment.

    Trump, naturally, was thrilled. Not just about the operation — about the idea of it. Talk drifted quickly from “mission accomplished” to “maybe we’ll just run Venezuela for a while.” Oil. Management. Fixing things. As if this were a distressed private equity deal and not a sovereign nation.

    Think about that for one second.

    This is the same guy who couldn’t run a casino, struggles to run the country he’s president of, and still hasn’t delivered on the things he actually campaigned on. Grocery prices? Healthcare? But sure — let’s add a collapsed petro-state to the to-do list. What’s one more tab left open?

    And let’s not pretend the timing is random. This is also a spectacular way to change the subject from the Epstein files. Trump himself once warned that desperate presidents start foreign conflicts to distract from bad news. He was right then. He just didn’t realize he was writing his own future Yelp review.

    Yes, Maduro was indicted years ago on drug charges. That part’s real. But when Trump starts openly talking about oil, the “this is about drugs” explanation starts to feel like set dressing. If this were really about narcotics, the press rollout would look very different.

    Here’s a quick thought experiment.

    If a foreign power snatched Trump out of the White House tomorrow and announced they’d “run the country for a bit,” would J.D. Vance nod gravely and say, “Well, fair is fair”? Of course not. He’d be on TV before the rotors stopped spinning, explaining why this was the end of civilization.

    Which brings us to the part that actually matters.

    This sets a precedent.

    Not a legal one. A behavioral one.

    And yes, people will notice. Especially Ukraine. When the most powerful country on Earth demonstrates that regime change is acceptable if you feel justified enough, you don’t get to act surprised when others adopt the same logic.

    So yes — the raid was slick. I won’t deny it. Who doesn’t enjoy watching the good guys win?

    The only problem is the quiet question underneath it all:

    Are we still sure we’re the good guys?

    Because adrenaline isn’t morality. Skill isn’t legitimacy. And flexing power without consistency isn’t leadership.

    It’s just bad precedent.

  • Why It’s So Hard To Change Someone’s Mind

    Why It’s So Hard To Change Someone’s Mind

    I used to believe facts were currency.

    If I put enough solid data on the table, I assumed the other person would eventually look at the pile, nod, and cash out their wrong opinion.

    This belief lasted longer than it should have. About as long as I believed eating cereal for dinner was a phase, not a lifestyle choice I would later defend vigorously.

    Here’s the uncomfortable reality:

    Facts don’t compete with other facts.

    They compete with identity.

    Most arguments fail not because the evidence is weak, but because the argument is aimed at the wrong target. We assume people are trying to be correct. Usually, they’re just trying to belong.

    Beliefs aren’t opinions.

    They’re uniforms.

    When you challenge someone’s belief, you’re not disputing a fact. You’re challenging their tribe, their past decisions, and the role they’ve been playing for years.

    That’s not a debate.

    That’s a threat assessment.

    This is why evidence loses to belonging.

    Once something becomes tribal, truth becomes secondary. Agreeing with the “wrong” fact isn’t growth — it’s defection. And people don’t defect casually, especially not in public, and especially not online.

    At that point, the argument is no longer about truth.

    It’s a loyalty test.

    This also explains why correcting people rarely works.

    Correction doesn’t feel helpful. It feels like exposure. The brain doesn’t hear new information — it hears you’re in danger. Curiosity shuts down. Defenses go up.

    The cleaner the correction, the harder people cling to the position. From the outside, this looks like stupidity. It usually isn’t.

    It’s self-preservation.

    Changing your mind is expensive.

    It costs pride.

    It costs status.

    Sometimes it costs relationships.

    Admitting you were wrong doesn’t update a belief. It rewrites a story. It forces you to revisit things you said, shared, defended — and sit with the possibility that you were wrong.

    Most people would rather be wrong than embarrassed.

    So bad arguments survive. Not because they’re persuasive, but because they’re safe. They keep you in good standing. They let you avoid that quiet, unwelcome realization — usually late at night — that you might have been played.

    I’m not exempt. I’ve held losing positions far longer than I should have because exiting felt like admitting defeat. Doubling down feels like strength, even when it’s just damage with confidence.

    Facts still matter.

    Just not on the timeline we want, and not in environments where being wrong carries a social cost. Facts work when accepting them costs less than ignoring them.

    Most public arguments fail for a simple reason.

    They think they’re debating information.

    They’re negotiating identity.

    And until we’re honest about that, we’ll keep wondering why the facts were solid…

    and the argument went nowhere.

  • Why a Photo from 2004 Looks Like It Was Taken Last Tuesday

    Why a Photo from 2004 Looks Like It Was Taken Last Tuesday

    You can look at a photo from the 50s, 60s, 70s, or 80s and instantly know the decade.

    Not the year.
    The decade.

    It’s in the lapels. The hair volume. The posture. Even the font on a street sign in the background feels time-stamped. Blur the faces and you’d still know where you were in the timeline.

    Now try that with a photo from 2003. Or 2012. Or last Tuesday.

    Remove the cell phone model from the frame and you’re guessing. A photo from 2004 could be from 2024. Step back far enough and the last twenty-five years collapse into a single, flat visual moment, like a hotel hallway designed to offend no one and be remembered by no one.

    Yes, digital photos don’t yellow. Everything looks permanently “now.”
    But the stagnation isn’t technological. It’s cultural.

    The monoculture is dead.

    For most of the 20th century, there was a current. You either swam with it or against it, but everyone was responding to the same force. In the 70s, you wore the polyester or you rejected it. Even rebellion was legible—because you knew exactly what it was rebelling against.

    Now? Every style that has ever existed is available simultaneously, usually for about fifteen dollars and free shipping. Nothing ever leaves. Nothing has to mean anything. We aren’t inventing new aesthetics—we’re just curating better playlists of the past.

    There is one exception, of course.

    Historians won’t struggle to date photos of people in MAGA hats and merch. Those will be instantly identifiable as 2015–2025—preserved in high resolution, forensically searchable, and destined to cause a very specific kind of generational embarrassment.

    Our cities followed suit. Neutral palettes. Exposed brick. The same sans-serif fonts everywhere. Drop a café from Brooklyn into Berlin or Barcelona and no one would blink. We built a global architecture of anywhere—comfortable, inoffensive, and, like Taylor Swift, impossible to date.

    So if fashion, architecture, and culture no longer mark time, what does?

    Politics.

    It’s the last remaining monoculture—the one thing we all still see, whether we want to or not. When culture fragments into a thousand niches, collective attention has to go somewhere. It went to the fight.

    The past had eras defined by how we looked.

    We have a long, endless present defined by what we scream at each other.

    And if future historians want to date our photos, they won’t look at the hemline or the haircut.

    They’ll look at the panic in our eyes.