The Power of Presence

My son said something that struck me as interesting yesterday. Ok, he tells me interesting stuff a lot as he’s about to wrap up a PhD in Food Science and microbiology in a couple months, but admittedly much of that interesting stuff goes over my head. I’m not a scientist. I come from the tech world and my background is primarily in business development, marketing and communications.

Back to yesterday, here’s what my son said, “You know Mom as much as you and I disagree with Trump, there is a lot of value in a President willing to go in front of the public every single day to answer questions thrown at him without backing down. Biden was invisible. Many of the people I talk to see Trump as providing a level of transparency that was missing.”

It’s worth noting that my son is currently one of just a few registered Democrats living in Indiana. But the majority of the people he talks to, at least regularly, are in academia, research, or hovering somewhere in his gen Z orbit. Just a few days ago some of those same people received the infamous memo that their government funded research grants and programs would be instantly, and indefinitely frozen with no prior notice or explanation. So, his comment struck me as interesting for a few reasons:

First, I had to confirm if Trump really does do a press event daily that includes questions and answers. Of course he does not, but he is covered by the media nonstop and his quotes and image are omnipresent. Not even Obama, one of Democrat’s best orators had that kind of coverage. Without question Trump and his cronies are masters at using chaos and propaganda to get and keep attention and coverage. Think Hitler in the 30’s, or Mao with his red book and posters in the 60s and 70s, and probably if we could see the press in North Korea today, Kim Jong Un, and of course Trump’s pal Putin who imprisons or murders his antagonists. When Trump does a press conference he seldom relies on (or empowers) a spokesperson to speak on his behalf without a Truth Social post to follow. He answers every question with unbridled confidence no matter how asinine or ridiculous the response may be. If I was looking for a spokesman to pitch a product like hoverboards that spontaneously combust as good for your health, Trump would be my guy. Although his message may lack integrity it is consistently loud and clear. He is in charge, he is not afraid to tell you what he is thinking regardless of how dumb or dangerous it may be, and the words, big, beautiful, greatest-ever will be reinforced ad nauseam.

Which brings me to my second thought, can people really stomach watching him live? When I see or hear Trump on one of my screens, any screen, I instantly feel sick, race to turn off his voice and make a mental note to read what he said later so that I can fact check it. But of course, most people either do not have the time for that follow-up effort or the stomach for the wave of nausea that comes with purposely seeing his image and reading his words verbatim. My guess is many of these people my son speaks of, those that find Trump’s transparency refreshing, are not really listening to his content. The impression Trump is out there in front, not hiding behind anything, is comforting to them at some level. Requiring a blind faith in the perception of power and a great deal of selective hearing.

Third, it’s also no secret that Trump has little interest in the facts. He lies without flinching and there have been enough fact checkers and news coverage that every single person (across the globe) knows this with certainty. Yet his supporters don’t care. Even those that voted for him know he can be (is) full of shit. How often have you heard a MAGA hat wearing Trumper tell you, “I don’t take everything he says literally. I don’t even like him as a person. I don’t need a friend; I need a president to take charge and get stuff done.” Apparently, they really don’t care how he gets shit done, if shit hits the fan as he does it, or if it should be done at all for the greater good. I don’t mean for the greater good of democracy; I mean for mankind.

I assume the people who voted for Trump really weren’t paying attention to his actual words. The MAGA supporters only hear what they want to hear. To be fair this is true for too many of us really. In any case, I suspect that even today most Trump supporters don’t know what Project 2025 is because words and content haven’t really mattered to them, and the media they watch has suppressed knowledge of the real plan.

For most MAGA voters Trump is like the grownups in the Peanuts movies. When he is on the screen his responses come out as garbled, muffled words, “wha wha whaaaa wha wha…” This somehow translates into authority they simply accept and believe exists in the background, ready and able to take care of all the Peanuts Gangs’ needs, like feeding, educating and housing them. We recognize Charlie Brown and gang are just kids without any jobs of their own, but they seemed to live comfortable, middle-class lives – yet I have never seen proof of the grown-ups behind the “wha wha whaaa wha wha.” Some of them like Schroeder have resources to take music lessons and compose at a very young age, and Lucy is able to play competitive sports like football. Don’t people wonder how? Does it really matter that these wordless voices in the background may not be real?

Anyway, I digress, because where I really wanted to go with this is, I agree with my son’s point at a macro level. Communication and presence is strength, and as a Democratic Party we have been pretty damn weak on that front. As voters we’ve also been foolish, and we have not taken the time to really listen so we can recognize the difference between perceived power and real solutions. We not only need to find our own voice, but we also need to start actively listening and educating ourselves. No matter who is at the helm we need to know what we’re voting for as much as what we are voting against.

The good news is we don’t have to guess at what this administration is thinking because they are advertising it loud and clear. Project 2025 has been published, many of the authors nominated for key leadership roles, and Trump’s tidal wave of executive orders map directly to the playbook. Time to take Trump, the bible-toting GOP and their oligarchy cronies seriously. Listen to their real words and reply with a counter message clearly enunciated and equally confident in our delivery. Because the truth is, America really did have the best economy in the world as of January 19, 2025, and policies underway that really did meet the needs of everyday people. The past administration’s policies were not perfect, but their success can be easily confirmed with actual data. There is no question it was a hell of a lot better than where we’re headed next, with a felon and his alt-right broligarchy now piloting the ship.

To help those that have not had the stomach to tune in or are simply having a hard time identifying the facts through the fog of propaganda, here’s a quick catchup on where things stand:

Executive Orders:

Since the inauguration on January 20th Trump has signed over 50 executive orders, and he is not done. There are at least three in the queue as I write this. Many of these executive orders are directly from the pages of Project 2025. I included a link to that website under sources below so anybody interested can read and understand the playbook.

Lawsuits:

More than 33 lawsuits have been filed and more are coming every day. As I’m writing this at least 7 of them are specifically targeting DOGE and their actions. I have added a link to a lawsuit tracker in the sources below.

Trump Nominees and leadership:

Project 2025 comes up big here. As does the right-wing media and the Silicon Valley broligarchy. Many of Trump’s nominees are authors of Project 2025. They are also members, consultants and donors of the organizations behind it, as well as part of the oligarchy and media commentators that buy into the philosophy that a single dictator (or CEO) should run the country. Project 2025 is an alt-right, Christian Nationalist playbook that is the brainchild of The Heritage Foundation. In 2023 The Heritage Foundation created a formal partnership with the Danube Institute, a conservative think tank funded by Orbán’s government.

It is unclear if Trump is really calling the shots but the people behind him are powerful, funded, networked and well organized. It is also important to recognize that JD Vance played a key part in Project 2025, writing a portion of the intro. More importantly, Vance is in bed with Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, Elon Musk and Steve Bannon who not only buy into Curtis Yarvin’s dystopian philosophy but consider him a friend. If you don’t know who Curtis Yarvin is look him up. In Yarvin’s view, democratic governments are inefficient and wasteful and should be replaced with sovereign joint-stock corporations whose “shareholders” elect an executive with total power, but who must serve at their pleasure. Yarvin, also known as Mencius Moldbug online, is a blogger with deep ties to Silicon Valley’s broligarchy. He publishes on Substack under Gray Mirror. If you are hoping for an impeachment, I agree with Tim Snyder’s latest take on his substack newsletter referenced below, JD Vance must go too.

Under relevant links I have included a link to a tracker that highlights who has been confirmed and who is still in the pipeline if you are interested.

What can you do:

I recently posted a 90-minute podcast by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (you can find it on my BlueSky account @skvoorn.bsk.social). Speaking of transparency and fearless communication, she does a good job of highlighting all that is going on and why it matters, but most importantly she points out that Trump did not get where he is working alone. He had oligarchs, the GOP, media commentators, podcasters, and organizations like The Heritage Foundation dividing and conquering. We need to do the same – find our areas of passion and strength and use our voices and actions to make a difference.

Here’s her advice:

Pay attention, (aka: be present)

Pick your battles

Get educated

Divide and conquer – you cannot do it all, go where your strengths are.

Upcoming Special Elections:

As a side note if you live or know anybody that lives in the following districts of New York or Florida there are three house seats we can and should aggressively target. If we win, we could flip the house this year. It’s a long shot but the way the world is going every shot is worth taking. Here are the Democrats running in these districts.

Florida District 1: Gay Valimont

Florida District 6: Joshua Weil

New York District 21: Blake Gendebien

Stay present, stay educated! Every truth matters.

Sources:

https://www.newsweek.com/project-2025-leader-working-implement-policies-putin-ally-viktor-orban-1921480

https://benburgis.substack.com/p/curtis-yarvins-nonsense-in-the-new

https://open.substack.com/pub/snyder/p/the-logic-of-destruction?r=ad31s&utm_medium=ios

https://www.courtwatch.news/p/lawsuits-related-to-trump-admin-executive-orders