Losing My Perpsicacity, August 14, 2025

It's the perfect time for Democrats to invoke FOMO in voters

Author

Julie DiCaro
August 14, 2025

Good morning and Happy Thursday! Thanks for being here this morning.

If you’re like me, you’ve spent a lot of time in the last few years trying to figure out where everything in America went so wrong. Of course, we could go all the way back to 1619 Virginia, when the systematic slave trade began in what were then English Colonies. We could pick 1776, when the Founding Fathers wrote a Constitution by and for white men who owned land, and seemingly no one else. We could, of course, point to the Civil War, the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, and the failure of Reconstruction. Then there’s 9/11, after which everything in the United States lurched drastically to the right.

But for me, many of our most recent problems (and I’m not discounting the genocide of Native Americans or the buying and selling of enslaved people, which did more damage to our country than anything else) can be traced back to the Reagan administration. Specifically, the idea that anything the federal government gives back to its people is a “handout,” rather than, you know, the entire reason for a government existing in the first place. The demonization of “welfare” and those who relied on it is still haunting us to this day, and keeping us from ever having anything more as a country.

If you’ve ever spent time overseas (or are an intelligent and knowledgeable person regardless of your travel experience), you likely know that many other countries offer their citizens many more benefits than we do here in the US. In Western Europe, things like universal healthcare, parental leave, extended paid time off, and an affordable college education are considered the least a government is supposed to do for its people. Yet in the US, too many people have gotten the idea that anything our government gives back is “welfare,” which has about as much positive connotation as the word “suppository.”

Yesterday, I came across a 2019 story in the NYT that perfectly encapsulates this attitude. I’m including a gift link so you can read the entire thing if the mood strikes you. It’s about, of all things, a raise for a librarian in rural Arkansas.

I returned to Van Buren County at the end of 2017 after 20 years living on the East Coast, most recently in the Washington area, because I’m writing a book about Clinton, Van Buren’s county seat. My partner and I knew it would be a challenge: The county is very remote, very religious and full of Trump voters, and we suspected we’d stand out because of our political beliefs.

Since coming back, I’ve realized that it is true that people here think life here has taken a turn for the worse. What’s also true, though, is that many here seem determined to get rid of the last institutions trying to help them, to keep people with educations out, and to retreat from community life and concentrate on taking care of themselves and their own families. It’s an attitude that is against taxes, immigrants and government, but also against helping your neighbor.

That last line certainly rings true. Many, many Americans have decried the rise of the “I’ve got mine, screw everyone else” mentality so pervasive on the right. It’s definitely not what we learned watching Mr. Rogers and Sesame Street.

In April, a local man who operates the Facebook group, “Van Buren County Today Unfiltered,” posted the agenda for a coming meeting of the Quorum Court, the county’s governing body. The library board wanted to increase the pay it could offer a new head librarian, who would be combining her new job with an older one, to $25 an hour.

***

Instead, they started a fight. The battle began on the Facebook post, which had 240 comments by the end. The first comment came from Amie Hamilton, who reiterated her point when I interviewed her several months later. “If you want to make $25 an hour, please go to a city that can afford it,” she wrote. “We the people are not here to pay your excessive salaries through taxation or in any other way.”

There was general agreement among the Facebook commenters that no one in the area was paid that much — the librarian’s wages would have worked out to be about $42,200 a year — and the people who do actually earn incomes that are similar — teachers and many county officials — largely remained quiet. (Clinton has a median income of $34,764 and a poverty rate of 22.6 percent.) When a few of us, including me, pointed out that the candidate for the library job had a master’s degree, more people commented on the uselessness of education. “Call me narrow-minded but I’ve never understood why a librarian needs a four-year degree,” someone wrote. “We were taught Dewey decimal system in grade school. Never sounded like anything too tough.”

If you already want to claw your eyes out, don’t worry. I feel the same. But I think this gets to a more important point about the right and why they keep voting against their own interests.

There’s a prevailing sense of scarcity — it’s easy for people who have lived much of their lives in a place where $25 an hour seems like a high salary to believe there just isn’t enough money to go around. The government, here and elsewhere, just can’t afford to help anyone, people told me. The attitude extends to national issues, like immigration. Ms. Hamilton told me she’d witnessed, in Texas, a hospital being practically bankrupted by the cost of caring for immigrants and said, “I don’t want my tax dollars to be used to pay for people that are coming here just to sit on a government ticket.” Mr. Widener, who described himself as “more libertarian” than anything else, told me his heart goes out to migrant children who are held in detention centers at the border, but he blames the parents who brought them to this country.

***

That was the crux of the issue — people didn’t want to pay for something they didn’t think they would use. I suspect that many residents are willing to pay for some institutions they see as necessary, like the sheriff’s department, but libraries, symbols of public education and public discourse, are more easily sacrificed.

Believe me, if I lived near people who thought like this, I would move. But not everyone can pull up stakes and relocate. It’s hard for me to feel sympathy for people who refuse to educate themselves on the basic issues facing our country, but I guess that’s what you get when you live in a community that isn’t sure a library is essential. But, I think this is the key takeaway from the piece:

They believe every tax dollar spent now is wasteful and foolish and they will have to pay for it later. It is as if there will be a nationwide scramble to cover the shortfall just as there was here with the library. As long as Democrats make promises to make their lives better with free college and Medicare for all sound like they include government spending, these voters will turn to Trump again — and it won’t matter how many scandals he’s been tarnished by.

Yesterday, while perusing social media, I couldn’t help but notice that nearly every congressional Democrat I saw was posting about a different issue. Some were talking about Trump’s takeover of DC law enforcement. Some posted about the Epstein file. Some were upset about redistricting. Some were banging on about HHS or ICE. And while all of those are incredibly important, some cohesion in the messaging would be helpful. After all, when the right-wing outrage machine gets going, they all start screaming about the same topic.

But more than that, Dems need to do a better job educating voters about how far behind other countries the US is in providing benefits and services to its people. Maybe the rallying cry for 2028 should be “Look at what they have in 50 other countries! Why can’t we have that here? We should have that here!” Obviously, this was a huge hurdle ahead of the passage of the Affordable Care Act, but given how many right-wing voters rely on “Obamacare” without knowing it, the ground may be fertile to make some actual headway.

Rather than shying away from the “tax and spend” label, Democrats should embrace it, and tell voters, “We already have the tax money. Here’s how it’s being spent. This is how we think it should be spent.” Hell, constituents are already screaming bloody murder about profligate spending at town halls across America all on their own. The time has never been riper to jump on the train of telling Americans, “Here’s how much of your hard-earned tax dollars the GOP gave to corporations and billionaires. Here’s what we want to give back to YOU.”

Things are going great at Mike Flood's town hall

— Nikki McCann Ramírez (@nikkimcr.bsky.social)2025-08-12T13:00:32.663Z

Of course, there are always going to be the “I don’t want it if it means (insert marginalized group) is also going to get it” people, but I choose to believe they are in the minority. I want to see every Democrat up there with a Katie Porter whiteboard, showing people how their money could be better spent.

After all, if we’re not on this planet to save each other, what is the point?

Today: Stephen Miller ruined my favorite condiment; Trump’s aiming his propaganda at your kids; George Strait is dead to me; and The High Note.

Let’s do it.

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Stephen Miller ruins my favorite condiment

Look, I will defend mayonnaise all day. I’m not talking about Miracle Whip (though do you!), I’m talking good, old-fashioned mayonnaise. Sure, people love to make fun of it on social media, and it’s become an avatar for white people, but the French put that stuff in everything for a reason. (Have you ever had French mayonnaise? If not, OH MY GOD, you need to get your hands on some and toss it on a baguette with some grilled chicken and vine tomatoes, stat. Heaven.)

And then I saw this:

Katie Miller reveals that her husband, Stephen Miller, only eats mayonnaise

— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes.bsky.social)2025-08-12T18:07:56.020Z

I will never get over the fact that a human woman not only married Stephen Miller, but that she so readily admits it in public. That aside, of course Stephen Miller only eats mayonnaise. He probably thinks Ranch is “too ethnic.” Yellow mustard is undoubtedly too spicy for him.

I am doing my best not to let my loathing for Stephen Miller affect my love for mayonnaise, but it’s gonna be tough. And let me say, while I think mayonnaise (especially the French variety, which is tarter and more vinegar-y than the American kind) is delicious and versatile, it’s not like I only put mayonnaise in my food. Imagine living without salsa, chili crisp, dijon mustard, yellow mustard, soy sauce, hoison sauce, tzatziki, marinara, guacamole… oh.

I guess that explains it.

Trump’s propaganda machine takes aim at school kids

You’ll never guess what kids may soon be watching in schools. The White House is reportedly considering partnering with Prager U to deliver “educational” videos to kids.

Because if conservatives have their way, more children will be educated with explicitly right-wing propaganda — like that provided by PragerU, the online content mill whose namesake, Dennis Prager, has admitted his goal is to “indoctrinate” children with a right-wing ideology. The organization, which has faced backlash for downplaying racist atrocities like chattel slavery and the slaughter of Indigenous people, hasn’t hidden its desire to overtake PBS as a provider of children’s content.

***

PragerU has already entered partnerships with states to produce educational materials. Oklahoma’s far-right school superintendent, Ryan Walters, even announced this month that his state will use a new ideology test from PragerU for certification of teachers who come from states with what he called “progressive education policies,” something he said is necessary to protect students from “radical leftist ideology.”

If you’re wondering if Walters is the same guy who was allegedly caught with naked women on his screen during a meeting, yes. Yes, he is.

Here’s the kind of thing Prager U creates:

The Trump administration is now seeking to replace PBS with “Prager University,” a far-right propaganda organization that isn’t actually a university. One of their “kids videos” has Christopher Columbus telling them that slavery was “no big deal” and “better than being killed.”

— Brian Tyler Cohen (@briantylercohen.bsky.social)2025-08-13T15:30:42.339Z

Secondly, it’s interesting to me (and by “interesting, I mean “terrifying”) how open we are about emulating Nazis these days. First, Trump came for museums to ensure they are presenting exhibits in a sufficiently patriotic manner. Now, it’s indoctrinating teachers from states with “progressive education policies.” Does Walters even know what the word “progressive” means? What does he want, “regressive” policies? Don’t we want to build on what we know and learn more? How is that controversial in the slightest? I feel like I’m going insane.

I guess that’s what we get when a not insignificant segment of the country doesn’t consider Nazis the bad guys anymore.

You broke my heart, George Strait!

Trump announced the honorees for the newly MAGAfied Kennedy Center yesterday, but, of course, he had to ramble on about how he’s been slighted by the KC first.

Trump announces he's hosting the Kennedy Center Honors

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com)2025-08-13T15:39:27.933Z

Nothing like hearing the President of the United States not be able to say “President of the United States” without sounding like he just stumbled out of a dive bar at 2 o’clock in the afternoon. Anyway, sorry, here’s the video of Herr Leader whining about his own honor.

Trump: Since 1978 the Kennedy Center honors have been amongst the most prestigious awards. I wanted one, never able to get one. I would have taken it. I waited and waited and waited and I said to hell with it, I'll become chairman. I will give myself an honor. Next year we'll honor trump, okay?

— Acyn (@acyn.bsky.social)2025-08-13T17:05:05.700Z

God, he’s so cringey. Also, what the hell has he ever contributed to the arts? Does he even know what a Kennedy Center honor is for? My God.

The honorees this year include Sylvester Stallone, George Strait, KISS, Gloria Gaynor, and Michael Crawford.

Hopefully, we all realize that these honorees have been chosen with the caveat that they will show up and not refuse the honor because of Trump. Trump himself admitted as much, and he also said he turned down “some wokesters.” While I don’t know the politics of most of these honorees, I’m relatively confident that they aren’t opposed to Trump, or they wouldn’t be getting the nomination.

Despite being Sicilian and adoring 4/5 Rocky movies, Sly has been dead to me for a long time for reasons related to Trump. Same goes for the guys in KISS, who are willing to do anything that earns them a buck or 30 seconds in the spotlight. And sure, you can look at George Strait and guess who he voted for, but that doesn’t change the fact that Amarillo By Morning is one of my very favorite songs and that I really, really hoped George was more thoughtful than he looks. You broke my heart, George! You MAGA coward. Get some jeans that fit.

Here’s Amarillo by Morning sung by a Latino man. Suck on that, George. You didn’t even write the song.

The High Note

Each Day, I do my best to leave you with a smile on your face, a song in your heart, and the will to fight another day.

Let’s travel back to a time when the Kennedy Center Honors meant something. I know, I know, you all think I’m going to share the video of Ann and Nancy Wilson doing Stairway to Heaven. Wrong! Too obvious.

I’m going to share Aretha doing “Natural Woman” for Carole King, suckas!

Something about Aretha putting her purse on the piano and not bothering to take off her coat is so badass. Be the Aretha Franklin you want to see in the world.

Survive and advance out there today, kids. Don’t let the bastards get you down.

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