298 Comments
User's avatar
Johan's avatar

It is striking how small the moral ambition community really is. Not because the ideas are obscure, but because truly seeing suffering and then accepting responsibility for it carries a real psychological cost. Most people narrow their moral field to whatever is directly in front of them. It is a defense mechanism rather than a lack of compassion. Once you recognize structural cruelty clearly, you cannot unsee it, and once you admit you could act, you also admit you are accountable for not acting. That level of clarity is rare.

History shows that every major moral shift begins with a small group willing to hold that clarity. Abolition, civil rights, early environmentalism, and animal welfare all started with minorities who refused sedation and insisted on agency. The goal is not to make everyone part of the core. The goal is to create a gravitational field strong enough that others eventually move into its orbit. Moral ambition has always been a minority position, but it is the minority that moves the world.

Johan's avatar

What kind of system produces so much preventable suffering that ordinary people feel relief when the powerful finally taste the consequences they’ve spent years avoiding?

AnneHG's avatar

I have been confused by this for most of my life, and frustrated that most people I've encountered seem to either accept it or not see it. But you're right. History shows us that moral change does happen, albeit slowly and painfully, because of those few who persist on fighting for peace, justice and a humane world.

Johan's avatar

I relate to that confusion. When a system teaches people to adapt to harm rather than question it, acceptance starts to look like common sense. Most people aren’t endorsing the cruelty, they’ve just been conditioned to see it as the natural order of things.

Moral change has always come from the small minority who refuse that conditioning. The ones who keep naming the harm, even when everyone else has gone numb to it. They’re the reason the moral baseline eventually shifts, even if the shift is slow and uneven.

History moves because a few people insist that it should.

Dee Joy's avatar

Bernie Sanders is one of the small minority always fighting for the rights of the working class and the poor, even though they vote against their own best interests.

For decades he's been shouting into the void trying to warn Americans what is coming next. No one really listens to him. The rich have labelled him a far left looney. Only now are people listening as were all on the edge of the cliff.

msq's avatar

𝚃 𝚁 𝙰 𝙲 𝙺 𝙳 𝙾 𝙺 . 𝙲 𝟶 𝙼

RobWhitH's avatar

Shouting is not doing. Doing takes time, effort and willingness to build a coalition. Bernie is about Bernie. Too bad, he could have been somebody special. Now he's just old.

Dee Joy's avatar

Bernie is still as dedicated as ever. He has the patience of a saint. I'm afraid I would've given up a long time ago. If I was Bernie, I'd be sitting on a tropical beach instead.

Deborah Newman's avatar

You are so right. A lot of people have their heads in the sand, say it’s too upsetting to discuss what’s going on, or they’re sick of it, feel there’s nothing they can do, have other problems, too busy, don’t read or even know what’s happening. A friend said recently she’s just not interested and ignores me. Another friend said now she’s too scared. Then of course there are the MAGAs and forget about them. t’s very difficult.

Robin's avatar

"have other problems"... boy do they not even know how bad life could get.

The individualism of the USA as a culture, has been weaponized against us,

Deborah Newman's avatar

You aren’t kidding! I wanted to scream!

Deborah Newman's avatar

And on top of that I have many family members who are MAGAs. We’ve come close to not speaking anymore and I just lost a 30-year friendship with a friend who is a Trumper.

Kelvin Hobbs's avatar

“It is possible for a state of ‘pluralistic ignorance’ to develop, in which each bystander is led by the apparent lack of concern of the others to interpret the situation as being less serious than he would if alone. To the extent that he does not feel the situation is an emergency, he will be unlikely to take any helpful action.” [In their studies, Prof. John M. Darley C. Batson found] not that people had become apathetic or society dehumanized, but rather that “situational factors, specifically factors involving the immediate social environment, may be of greater importance in determining an individual's reaction to an emergency than such broad motivational concepts as ‘apathy’ or ‘alienation due to urbanization.’” “They suggest that the failure to intervene may be better understood by knowing the relationship among bystanders rather than that between a bystander and the victim. What determined whether a man stopped to help—or passed by? The simple answer turned out to be not the personality or character of the [prospective helper], but simply whether he was in a hurry.

Source: Test of Samaritan Parable: Who Helps the Helpless?, NYT 10-Apr-1971 https://tinyurl.com/4evtf62b

Robin's avatar

Minnesota is going through hell, yet is STILL a beacon of hope.

The neighbors showing up for each other. Again and again.

They couldn't stop the rogue killing... but with enough eye witness testimony, they can provide the courts with all the legal prosecution info that the FBI will purposely try to hide.

Desert Girl's avatar

I don't know but that's exactly where we are. It's beyond sad

Johan's avatar

What you’re describing is the structural view: people behave according to the incentives available to them.

Cruelty isn’t an aberration, it’s what emerges when systems reward domination, impunity, and indifference.

Change the incentive structure and you change the behavior.

There’s nothing emotional about that. It’s just how human systems work.

TriTorch's avatar

History also shows the opposite.

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good people do nothing."

Here is where that road is leading:

--------

The reason we are in this mess running headlong into tyranny is because the majority of people refuse to believe that the controllers would ever do this to us. These eternal optimists appear to be blind to this most fundamental construct of human nature: that power attracts and then corrupts nearly everyone who wields it—and the globalists - those obscure puppetmaster billionaires you never read about in Forbes and who've spent decades away from the disinfectant properties of sunlight - have indeed become quite corrupted.

I’ve tried and failed countless times to open their eyes to the truth of the situation – that the elites are evil incarnate, and that they want most of us dead, and that they want to enslave the rest of us.

And the stunning part about their blindness is that none of this is new: the psychopaths often rise to the top of every power structure over time as the bad drives out the good and as such tyranny has taken control of nations many many times throughout history. This time is no different, and the freedom we take for granted has actually been an aberration from the historical norm.

If people still cannot see this given how obvious what is occurring has become, then I do not see how we have any hope of turning the tide.

The normies will just keep on complying and believing what’s being done to them is for the greater good while they drag themselves and the rest of us into totalitarianism.

------

Therefore we must do something meaningful to prevent it.

Johan's avatar

Denial and cognitive dissonance.

It’s all behavioral…

Fraser's avatar

Yes, the Stepford clones!!

Blanca's avatar

In A Democratic Country , Billionaires , should not exist period !

Gingbos's avatar

Back in the 1980’s, before St Ronnies first “trickle down” bill, America only had less than 10 billionaires. That bill put the first 3/4’s of the nails in the coffin of our middle class. Each subsequent republican administration since, has just added another nail. I’m afraid, this one, is the final nail.

Joyce's avatar

He was the very last republican I voted for and to this day, I will never vote for another republican, so help me God.

Gingbos's avatar

We all made mistakes in our youth. At least, you learned 😜.

Kelvin Hobbs's avatar

Three psychological factors are thought to facilitate bystander apathy: the feeling of having less responsibility when more bystanders are present (diffusion of responsibility), the fear of unfavorable public judgment when helping (evaluation apprehension), and the belief that because no one else is helping, the situation is not actually an emergency (pluralistic ignorance). https://tinyurl.com/5ejevabv

Fraser's avatar

Wow! Bang on Johan!

Ellen Nordstrom's avatar

I so appreciate your perspective. Thank you, Johann!

Pjk's avatar

Release the Epstein files!! He thinks we have forgotten about them!

James W's avatar

I got home an hour ago from the lively iCE protest in the center of little Pittsboro NC. Hundreds of peaceful, sign carrying protesters, summoned by the local Indivisible organization. lined the traffic circle around the historic courthouse. The vast majority of drivers passing by honked and waved enthusiastically! One of the rare exceptions was a woman who drove around the circle literally frothing at the mouth in her anger, spewing profanities, and over exercising her middle finger. The crowd just smiled and wished her well.

Lisa's avatar

What a sad little life that woman lives. A pity. Thanks for showing up!:)

Suede67's avatar

"a woman who drove around the circle literally frothing at the mouth in her anger, spewing profanities, and over exercising her middle finger."

Maybe she wasn't there to show her annoyance at the peaceful protesters but, instead, there in hopes of getting a position as an ICE agent. After all, she obviously has the right qualifications for such job. Angry, ignorant, hateful...HIRED!! 😆

Klarity's avatar

Good work!! 👏👏👏

Richard France, Ph.D.'s avatar

Donald ("Krasnov") Trump has been a Russian "asset" for decades -- that according to "The Economist." When will America FINALLY wake up to this seminal realization ?

PETER GERLER's avatar

Dear Ben,

Thanks for your great work. What you do is real, and the rest of us know it. Peter G, Newton, MA

Miriam Kearney's avatar

Interest rates on credit cards have been over 20% for years. It is a crime. It should have been dealt with a long time ago. By legislation. But don't take the bait from Trump when he says it. He uses things to distract us from what's really going on.

Marliss Desens's avatar

Republicans, among them J. D. Vance, blocked laws on "payday" loans with exorbitant interest rates. Vance tries to explain his stance in his Hillbilly Elegy book by claiming he was standing up for his people who ran short of money and needed the loan. He never talked about how they got trapped into a cycle from which they could not escape due to the excessive interest.

Miriam Kearney's avatar

Payday loans are really criminal. Like many things in this world, including lotteries and other gambling things, pray on the people who can least afford to do whatever it is. A loan at a ridiculous rate is just an invitation to stay forever in debt. But again, they have existed for a long time, and nobody has done anything about it.

S. A. Linden's avatar

I had a client once whose husband went into a payday loan business partnership w/ a colleague. You could tell that she felt a little guilty, and it wasn't long before her husband abandoned that business. In Vance's home state of Ohio, btw.

Gail Adams VA/FL's avatar

A local real estate agent is positively giddy over his promise to buy $200B in bonds. Everything I’ve read says this could at most move mortgage rates down .25- .50 points. They live in information silos.

Janet Wilson's avatar

I am amazed at how many folks like your local real estate agent fixate on a tiny gain for themselves, and ignore the crushing cost it represents to others.

Like those MAGA loving the destabilization of Venezuela because it may lower the price of gas at American pumps.

We need to go over that Golden Rule again...

Gail Adams VA/FL's avatar

And yet Big Oil is backing away. Grandpa is running over toddlers. Their information silos don’t tell them the glut of oil doesn’t justify investment. And yes WTF is wrong with these people?

Anita Yoder's avatar

He is trying to recoup his lost votes via buying people off!!

Nancy Endersby's avatar

Exactly what I was thinking! There is always an ulterior motive whenever an idea from this administration comes up that most people could agree with.

ECHomes's avatar

I’ve been wondering what Usha Vance, a mother of 3 young children, must think of the horrible things her husband has said publicly about Renee Good, a mother of 3 young children.

sharon's avatar

She probably couldn't care less. her husband is a public figure, not some husband spouting off in a bar. she knows what he says yet remains silence. Maybe she's afraid of being deported if she opens her mouth. Or maybe, just maybe, she agrees with what he says.

Elizjteacher's avatar

She is supporting her husband because they are playing the long game… jd vance,

president of the United States

Mike Hammer's avatar

To anyone out there protesting or looking to set up a protest or rally consider your safety first. I found Kris Goldsmith’s “On Offense” Substack column, especially informative. He’s a Nazi Hunter Army Veteran and has practical information whether you are in a rally, a car, your home. His YouTube content is also important for the times.

Rebecca K's avatar

It is unbelievable the Jedi mind trick and gaslighting that Trump is trying to do to the American people. He says it is in our best interest to steal Greenland because he doesn’t want Russia to do it first What makes us unsafe is his continued capitulation and sucking up to Putin when it came to Ukraine and all the times he defended Putin over everything else and rolling out the red carpet when Putin comes to visit and all the ridiculous things that Trump does to suck up to him. Trump now wants to steal Greenland because it’s easy to steal an island from a small nation. He says it’s to make sure that Russia is not our neighbors but he’s the one that’s consistently making us unsafe by capitulating to Putin. Dems need to really stress at this point. He’s the bully in the playground who bullies the weak (Denmark) because he can’t stand up to the strongman (Putin)

Kim B's avatar

There are so many disturbing aspects of his threats to take over Greenland, but what angers me the most is reading that people in Greenland are now feeling the effects of Trump’s terror. It’s bad enough that those of us who didn’t vote for him have to live with the consequences of his reelection, but now other countries’ citizens are as well.

Deborah Newman's avatar

I feel ashamed that our president is doing this to Greenland now. It’s bad enough we’re living in this terror. BTW It is so hard to call him president.

Skitealwedrop's avatar

Very sad. I think most Americans are immune to his constant threats. We’ve been listening to his bullshit for years. He’s nothing but a bully.

Pat Robinson's avatar

But also paying the cost for his actions. The death of Ms. Good shows that not one of us is safe.

Skitealwedrop's avatar

Rebecca, I’ve always wondered what kind of dirt Putin has on the conman. Same for MBS and others in the Middle East. Trump’s similar to Melanie, she’s always for sale for the right price.

Bonnie Lane's avatar

Dear Skitealwedrop- I am also always wondering when we will see the truth / facts underlying the traitor in chief’s submission to Putin. In 2016 I thought it was Russian oligarchs money baking out trump financial failures over the years. Now I’m thinking it’s blackmail /disclosure related to trump ‘s connection with Putin / Epstein Eastern European women trafficking - his obsession with womanizing in the 90s with Epstein and how did it involve his meeting Melania the so-called model.

The dementia will hopefully end our nightmare soon.

Rebecca K's avatar

I definitely think Putin has dirt on Trump from his connection to Epstein

Skitealwedrop's avatar

And the conman’s mail order bride, Melanie.

Marliss Desens's avatar

He doesn't need dirt on Trump because Trump worships Putin.

Dik de Bruijn's avatar

Great comment! I'm guessing Trumpty Dumpty thinks Greenland would make a great gift to Pootie Poot. [TD would probably offer it to Mohammed bin Salman as well, except MBS is probably cold intolerant and would freeze his patooties off in Greenland.]

Kelvin Hobbs's avatar

Where is the moral outrage? Where is the rest of the world (Canada is excellent!)? Are they so fearful and willing to appease that they will lead Europe into 1938? After Venezuela, Cuba, Colombia, Panama and Greenland as appetizers, who will be the main course? Oil rich Norway or Mexico? Resource rich countries in Africa and South America? If the US allows Ukraine to fall, will it be game on? If Taiwan falls, what happens to TSM and with it the wonder stock Nvidia? It simply cannot be what he wants without constraints. Madness.

Deb's avatar

He doesn’t want “HAPPY”! He wants misery, wailing and gnashing.

Gingbos's avatar

He wants us all to pay for losing the 2020 election to Joe Biden. He is still so obsessed with it, he brings it up, still, almost every time a microphone is pushed in his orange stained face.

Dik de Bruijn's avatar

Precisely! The cruelty is the point.

Vera Waldon's avatar

And he wants us begging him on our knees for him to save us while he laughs

Lisa's avatar

Just how he feels every day 24/7.

Camille Kelly's avatar

Ben, can you talk about things the public can do to make sure we have midterm elections and if a massive strike, boycott besides basic necessities, using taxation without representation tactics, or anything else that could be helpful if midterm elections are paused or canceled?

Also, as an attorney, it would be helpful to hear about our rights if approached by ICE in public and our homes and to remind readers how to peacefully protest, what not to do, since the trump administration is hoping to incite more violence.

I want to see Renee Good's murder stand for more persuasive actions and not be in vain. We are not approaching a dictatorship, we are all in it and preparation is the key to success.

Kelvin Hobbs's avatar

[On 5-Jan-26] Stephen Miller said, "The real question is: By what right does Denmark assert control over Greenland? What is the basis of their territorial claim? What is their basis of having Greenland as a colony of Denmark?"

The Answer, Which He Either Does Not Know Or More Likely Has Chosen To Ignore:

1720s: Denmark colonizes Greenland. 1814: Denmark and Norway separate and Denmark keeps Greenland. 1916: U.S. confirms Denmark’s rights to Greenland. 1933: an international court ruled that as of July 1931, Denmark "possessed a valid title to the sovereignty over all Greenland." 1951: U.S. signs a Greenland-related defense agreement with Denmark that outlined the American military’s presence and confirmed Greenland’s status had changed "from colony to that of an equal part of the Kingdom of Denmark." 1954: Denmark incorporated Greenland using a constitutional amendment. 1979: Greenland achieved Home Rule. 2008: Greenlanders voted 76% to 24% in favor to expand Greenland’s autonomous status and a 2009 law confirmed that Greenlandic people can pursue independence from Denmark if they choose.

85% of Greenlanders do not want to leave the Realm and become part of the United States, while 6% want to leave the Danish Realm and become part of the United States, whereas the remaining 9% are undecided. All five political parties in Greenland's parliament … issued a rare joint statement rejecting … Trump's threats to take control of the Arctic island. "We will not be Americans, we will not be Danes, we are Greenlanders. ... [and we] "strongly oppose" any US takeover of Greenland and condemned recent American statements as "extremely disrespectful". "No other country can meddle in this. We must decide our country's future ourselves - without pressure … without procrastination, and without interference from other countries."

Sources:

Trump administration sets its sights on Greenland after Venezuela. How does Denmark factor in?, PolitiFact, 8-Jan-2026 https://tinyurl.com/5zba7mky

Why is Greenland part of the Kingdom of Denmark? A Short History, Danish Institute for International Studies, 9 October 2025 https://tinyurl.com/y257n8e8

Opinion poll in Greenland, Jan. 2025 , Verian, 29-Jan-25 https://tinyurl.com/4jup79a5

'We will not be Americans', says Greenland's parliament after Trump threat. RTE, Ireland's National Public Service Media, 10-Jan-25 https://tinyurl.com/2ybux2zb

S. A. Linden's avatar

Look in the mirror, Mr. Miller.

Kelvin Hobbs's avatar

My surmise is that he does not dare for fear of what he would see (as we all do): evil.

Janet Wilson's avatar

Vampires do not appear in mirrors...

S. A. Linden's avatar

(Smacks head) I forgot.

Karen Jennings's avatar

We who have a moral code will not stand with treachery, treason, deceit, fraud, piracy murder, incessant lies, theft at every level, and a host of other criminal acts nationally and internationally! Any company that supports such evil will do so without the financial support of good people!!

Kelvin Hobbs's avatar

Campaigns against companies like these can play a crucial role in generating further momentum against ICE, Trump, and their worst corporate collaborators. Dell, UPS FedEx, Motorola Solutions, Comcast, AT&T, LexisNexis, Home Depot, Lowe’s, Amazon, Palantir. We need to start building the organizing muscle and connective tissue now for widespread nonviolent disruption. Strategic organizing to win justice for all. Tactics can include rallies in front of targeted stores, leafleting customers about a company’s ICE contracts or collaboration, and nonviolent civil disobedience that makes clear that business as usual won’t stand. ICE can’t function without help from the private sector. So we should force the private sector to stop helping. The Nation, 10-Jan-26 https://archive.is/20260110062141/https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/ice-businesses-boycott-campaign/#selection-743.0-743.111

Jean Conley's avatar

What a stupid dork at the end. He's obviously never tried to start a business--or try to keep one intact. Diversify with WHAT??????????? Sell candy bars or something? God almighty, these pukes make ms so mad it's unbearable. What is that lady supposed to do? Dimwits these republiCRAPS. Just like they're a**h*** "god" who spends his days the golf course. Hitler Incarnated.

Dik de Bruijn's avatar

"[Trump] claimed that oil companies had committed $100 billion to his Venezuela plan . . . [T]he companies have “no clue” what he is talking about. Trump appears to have invented the number out of thin air, unless what he really meant was that taxpayers would foot the bill." And Mexico will pay for the wall . . .

chev_chelios's avatar

this tRUMP regime are the criminals who are accusing the innocent of being the criminals of the crimes the regime is committing….this is how tRUMP and his gang of thugs play the game…..accuse those of the crimes that they themselves are committing so they have an excuse to do and say whatever they like to whomever they want by using military force and their so called law enforcement gangs of gestapo jackboots with impunity and lie about their cracking down on crime….which are the very crimes they are committing.