Mike Lofgren
Mike Lofgren is a former congressional staff member who served on both the House and Senate budget committees. His books include: "The Deep State: The Fall of the Constitution and the Rise of a Shadow Government" and "The Party is Over: How Republicans Went Crazy, Democrats Became Useless, and the Middle Class Got Shafted."
Articles by this author
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Views Saturday, May 09, 2020 "Reopen the Economy": the Republicans' Nero Decree The New York Times’ columnist Paul Krugman is one of the few fixtures of the major prestige media honest enough to forthrightly explain why there should be no “controversy” (a word beloved of journalists) about Republican policies. These policies are not just mistaken, nor are they something about... Read more |
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Views Tuesday, April 21, 2020 Another Republican "Grassroots" Movement Hijacks the Media The Republican Party and its right-wing allies are incapable of governing. They have no policy principles other than a knee-jerk rejection of the policies of the opposing party; indeed, of all this country’s traditional notions of governance. They have a secret sauce, however, that keeps them... Read more |
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Views Friday, April 17, 2020 The GOP Has Become a Death Cult A decade ago, in my first public writing since leaving Capitol Hill, I warned that the Republican Party, in its evolution towards an extremist conservative movement allied with extremist Christian fundamentalism, was becoming like “one of the intensely ideological authoritarian parties of 20th... Read more |
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Views Tuesday, March 31, 2020 How a Yale Academic Trolls the Liberals on Trump's Looming Reelection A recent piece in The Wall Street Journal by Walter Russell Meade has caused a bit of a stir among the chattering classes. Headlined “The Coronavirus May Make Trump Stronger,” it argues that President Trump’s abysmal and malfeasant handling of the greatest public health emergency in a century is a... Read more |
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Views Thursday, March 26, 2020 Are Mass Plane Travel and Mass Tourism Unsustainable? “Ah, for the days when flying was a gentleman’s pursuit! – before every Joe Sweatsock could wedge himself behind a lunch tray and ‘jet off’ to Raleigh-Durham.” —Robert (“Sideshow Bob”) Terwillinger, The Simpsons, “Sideshow Bob’s Last Gleaming." In recent weeks, the coronavirus pandemic’s... Read more |
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Views Saturday, March 14, 2020 How Authoritarianism Short-Circuits the Lizard Brain The tendency of Republicans both to respond to and sow fear and panic has been with us for decades. Yet during the coronavirus pandemic, to anyone who bothers to look, we are seeing a new and strangely unremarked twist to their behavior, a development that gives valuable -- and chilling -- insight... Read more |
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Views Friday, December 27, 2019 The Stupidest Op-Ed of 2019 Argues Trump Will Inspire a Religious Revival For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. —Matthew 24:24 Just when you thought the soon-to-expire year had long since reached peak stupidity, Newsweek published a piece that set a record for preposterous... Read more |
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Views Thursday, December 05, 2019 Protocols of the Elders of the Republican Party How do the horrific events of Charlottesville, the shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, and a similar hate crime in California directly relate to the eye-rolling pronouncements by Devin Nunes, Rudy Giuliani, and other Republicans in defense of President Donald Trump? The answer can... Read more |
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Views Saturday, November 02, 2019 Spare Us From the Vichy Republicans Item: Bob Livingston. Remember him? When last seen by the wider public in the waning, innocent years of the 20 th century, he was the newly minted designee to succeed Newt Gingrich as Republican Speaker of the House. But he abruptly resigned after it was revealed ( thanks to the public service of... Read more |
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Views Tuesday, September 17, 2019 Are We the People Unfit for Democracy? In typically subtle fashion, Politico reported on a recent conference of political psychologists on the present state of democratic systems. Its arresting headline: “ The Shocking Paper Predicting the End of Democracy .” It seems one of the participants, Shawn Rosenberg , professor of political... Read more |