the divide between haves and have-nots, fear and hatred of immigrants, white supremacist race hate, and antisemitism - Rachel Maddow

Putin and his siloviki] operate in accordance with the simple principles of Joseph Goebbels: Play on the emotions; the bigger the lie, the better; lies should be repeated many times….Unfortunately, it works.

the cultivation of the people of the Union.” In other words, Americans had found ways — on matters of race — to use the law to justify just about anything they wanted to do. Leave the egalitarian, idealistic language on the books, but interpret that language however you need to, to justify any policy that just feels right.

The reason the founders chafed at the idea of an American standing army and vested the power of war making in the cumbersome legislature was not to disadvantage us against future enemies, but to disincline us toward war as a general matter... With citizen-soldiers, with the certainty of a vigorous political debate over the use of a military subject to politicians' control, the idea was for us to feel it- uncomfortably- every second we were at war. But after a generation or two of shedding the deliberate political encumbrances to war that they left us... war making has become almost an autonomous function of the American state. It never stops.