Elon Musk did to Twitter what Donald Trump did to America

[Daily Kos Morning Roundup]( A morning roundup of worthy pundit and news reads, brought to you by Daily Kos. [Click here to read the full web version.]( - [Elon Musk did to Twitter what Donald Trump did to America]( Elon Musk did to Twitter what Donald Trump did to America, David French, The New York Times I have a theory: Threads exploded in part because Elon Musk did to Twitter what Donald Trump did to America. The new right’s theory of culture and power is fundamentally flawed, and both Trump and Musk are now cautionary tales for any conservatives who are willing to learn. [...] … there’s a bigger lesson here than the simple truism that free markets are quite adept at building better mousetraps (or websites). The new right’s theory of power is based on a model of domination and imposition, and it just doesn’t work. In the new right’s telling, the story of contemporary American culture is the story of progressive elite capture of the nation’s most important institutions — from the academy to big business to pop culture to the “deep state” — followed by its remorseless use of that institutional power to warp and distort American values. - [With inflation down, Democrats are starting to brag about the economy]( With inflation down, Democrats are starting to brag about the economy, Joseph Zeballos-Roig, Semafor White House officials and Democratic allies are growing more confident that “Bidenomics” is a winning pitch to voters as the rapid price increases of the past two years fade into the rearview mirror. They’re even starting to roll out some “I told you so’s,” with comments rebuking naysayers who predicted large spikes in unemployment were necessary to tame inflation. “Despite repeated forecasts that recession is just around the corner, the U.S. recovery is solid, and inflation is down,” National Economic Council Director Lael Brainard said in a speech at the Economic Club of New York. “The economy is defying predictions that inflation would not fall absent significant job destruction.” Even some prominent inflation hawks are starting to believe that the worst might be over. “I’m definitely more encouraged than I was a few months ago,” Marc Goldwein, senior vice president at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, told Semafor. “I’m more encouraged that we can land the plane without a recession.” - [It’s brutal around here: Daily Kos revenue is down. Thank goodness for small donors like you, who have never let us down. Please chip in $5 today to keep us fighting Republicans.]( - [Even ‘Safe’ Places Are Experiencing Climate Chaos in America]( Even ‘Safe’ Places Are Experiencing Climate Chaos in America, Jonathan Mingle, The New York Times Vermonters have seen floods before. But amid the scenes of destruction, there was a sense that some threshold had been crossed. The receding water sloshing in our streets was ferried by storm tracks from fast-warming seas 1,000 miles south. The storm dumped four to nine inches of rain on towns up and down the Green Mountain State, where the ground was already saturated. With nowhere else to go, it filled creeks sluicing off the mountains and then rivers like the Winooski, the Mad and the Black and on into Montpelier and towns like Ludlow, Richmond and Weston, where water submerged much of the fire station. - [From John Birch to Donald Trump: How the GOP got "devoured by their own Frankenstein monster"]( From John Birch to Donald Trump: How the GOP got "devoured by their own Frankenstein monster", Chauncey DeVega, Salon Experts on right-wing extremism have grim predictions for the future of the Republican Party In an attempt to work through and make sense of these anxieties about Trump's enduring popularity and power as the frontrunner for the Republican Party's presidential nomination, the consensus narrative that he is in great peril and his defeat appears to be inevitable, and more general concerns about what comes next for the Trumpocene and America's democracy crisis, I recently asked a range of experts for their thoughts and insights. This is the second of a two-part series. Their responses have been lightly edited for clarity and length. Jill Lawrence is an opinion writer and the author of "The Art of the Political Deal: How Congress Beat the Odds and Broke Through Gridlock." I am a card-carrying member of both the mainstream media and the pundit class, and I see no rational universe under which Trump could prevail. But we are not living in a rational universe, we're living in one where a Trump-appointed judge just barred the Biden administration from protesting false information on social media, Trump continues to insist that the system is rigged and that he won the 2020 election, and nearly two-thirds of Republicans tell pollsters they believe or suspect that fraud put Biden in the White House. The risks of undermining and attacking the core of democracy, our elections and election workers, can't be overstated. I have often said I don't know how I would have handled the 2016 and 2020 elections as a campaign reporter. - [Stay cool this summer with a Daily Kos t-shirt. Get yours now!]( - [You’ll Be Very Surprised Who’s Benefiting Most From Bidenomics]( You’ll Be Very Surprised Who’s Benefiting Most From Bidenomics, Timothy Noah, The New Republic Red states, not blue ones, are seeing the biggest income gains. But it’s not for the reason Wall Street Journal editorialists think. A paradox of Bidenomics is that it’s been more beneficial to red (predominantly Republican) states than to blue (predominantly Democratic) ones. This might perhaps help explain why Biden’s approval rating among Democrats has fallen to 78 percent, but it flatly contradicts Biden’s downward approval rating among Republicans to 5 percent. We take for our text a June 30 news release from the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis tracking growth in personal income from January through March 2023. The correlation is uncanny between states where incomes are rising fastest and states that absolutely revile Joe Biden. - [The NATO Summit Proved the Alliance Is Strong and Still Has Ukraine’s Back]( The NATO Summit Proved the Alliance Is Strong and Still Has Ukraine’s Back, David Rothkopf, The Daily Beast A promise for Ukrainian membership and “the most comprehensive defense plans since the end of the Cold War.” Not bad for a two-day gathering of international leaders. Unfortunately, NATO’s transformation—while stunning and a credit to its leaders—has not been complete. The alliance of 31 countries has often, through its history, been bogged down by its complexity and the convoluted bureaucracy required to get anything done. This time, those old school NATO problems manifested themselves in a statement from the summit participants that Ukraine would be able to join the alliance “when members agree and when conditions were met.” Ukraine was hoping for a stronger statement and frankly, with the removal of the MAP requirement, there was real progress to celebrate. But the statement was so conditional it was seen initially as a disappointment by Ukraine’s president. And you can hardly blame him. ICYMI: Popular stories from the past week you won't want to miss: - [Casey DeSantis takes center stage, and yikes]( - [Trump prosecutors are being threatened and we all know why]( - [Notorious mob boss who worked with Trump in the '80s: 'He don't keep his word']( Want even more Daily Kos? Check out our podcasts: - [The Brief: A one-hour weekly political conversation hosted by Markos Moulitsas and Kerry Eleveld]( - [The Downballot: Daily Kos' podcast devoted to downballot elections. 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