Reading Heather Cox Richardson this morning—a scholar who rigorously documents every claim—while scanning the headlines and catching a few news clips, I felt myself slipping into a fog. It was as if I were listening to a 1933 radio broadcast from Berlin or a 1947 propaganda report out of Moscow. The echoes are chilling.
In my last TAPA #101 (The American Poseidon Adventure), I wrote about the financially motivated assault on science, using the case of tobacco as an example. It took forty years—forty years—for the government to officially acknowledge that smoking causes disease and to ban it in many public spaces. By then, 10–12 million lives that might have been saved were lost. This wasn’t just leadership failure; it was intellectual and moral treason.
Science, of course, is a process of learning. Competing theories evolve, evidence accumulates, and knowledge sharpens into fact. That process can be messy, but it is essential. Unfortunately, it also creates openings for manipulation. Tobacco is the perfect case study: the industry financed campaigns, churned out fake research, and bankrolled propaganda. Wrapped in the rhetoric of “personal choice,” it weaponized confusion and division. That same playbook is alive today—repurposed for the fights over vaccines, masks, and climate change.
What kind of leader beats his chest, parading brute force as strength while putting others at risk? A draft dodger who wants a Department of War. Illegally obliterating ‘suspected’ drug smugglers at sea, deporting children without any ‘due process’ and sending troops to occupy American cities is not defense—it is intimidation. It is the crude message of a bully: “Don’t ‘f’ with me.” And it is aimed not just at smugglers, but at governors, mayors, scientists, business leaders, bankers, and any politician who dares to question the “Deep Right State” pulling trump’s strings.
Meanwhile, trump spins a fantasy about the economy—prices are down, tariffs are working, growth is strong. The numbers say otherwise. Just yesterday (9/5/25), the Bureau of Labor Statistics posted dismal jobs figures. trump had fired the BLS director last month for reporting a “hoax.” This month’s report confirmed the earlier data—yet trump blustered, “We’ll see better numbers than ever before.” Tell that to John Deere, which estimates tariffs will cost it $600 million in 2025, or to the 78% of Texas businesses saying tariffs are hurting them.
The irony here is grotesque: Second Amendment zealots, who claim the right to bear arms exists as a check on centralized power, now cheer trump’s militarization of government. The very amendment meant to guard against tyranny is being twisted to enable it. Up is down, and down is up—so long as loyalty to trump demands it.
Today’s attacks on science—from vaccines to climate change—are not random blunders; they are part of a strategy orchestrated by an ideological cabal bent on reshaping American society. trump is their “useful idiot,” the avatar of both external adversaries and internal autocrats. Behind him stand Big Pharma, fossil fuel giants, and the military-industrial complex—entities underwriting the erosion of rights and freedoms in the name of profits.
The outcome is predictable: the top 10% of Americans, who already control 67% of the wealth, will continue to thrive as long as their bottom line is protected. The Dow Jones climbs, corporate profits soar, and the wealthiest will insulate themselves from the consequences. But when gravity prevails, as you descend the economic ladder, the picture will be darker. For the 90% of Americans left behind, the danger is not abstract—it is lived reality, with rights abridged, security eroded, and democracy itself hanging in the balance.
RESIST!!! & EDUCATE!!!
Robert Detor
THE AMERICAN POSEIDON ADVENTURE 
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