Bruce Maiman
@maimzini.bsky.social
An enquiring mind seeking answers that make some of us think and the rest uncomfortable.
Every person in this photo says Trump betrayed them. Yet they spent a decade building a movement that supported his cruelty, lies, and corruption. Only now have they found a conscience? And n ow we should take them at their word? How do we decide who deserves trust? open.substack.com/pub/brucemai...
After Trump: Who Do We Trust?
Redemption, opportunism, and the uneasy question of who belongs in the American fold.
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My wife told me my essays are too long. A fair critique, unless you happen to think democracy requires sentences longer than a push notification. The culture can handle short opinions. It’s the long argument it keeps trying to swipe away. open.substack.com/pub/brucemai...
The Practice of Changing Your Mind
A Sunday reflection on why the decline of reading matters to democracy.
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magine being president and showing more hostility toward an American governor than toward the foreign government your own investigators say attacked U.S. infrastructure. That’s not a mistake. It’s a pattern. open.substack.com/pub/brucemai...
Blame the State, Not the Enemy
When Trump blamed Minnesota instead of Iran for the water system cyberattacks, he revealed something deeper about the presidency—and what happens when a president puts ego over the safety of a nation.
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The Fauci hearing wasn’t really about him. Expertise itself was on trial. Can a a republic continue correcting itself after it has taught itself to distrust the very people whose job is to tell it uncomfortable truths? That’s the question we should ask. open.substack.com/pub/brucemai...
The Republic Against Reality
A democracy doesn’t fail because experts are imperfect. It fails when expertise itself becomes a political liability.
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The threat to democracy isn’t just that people believe falsehoods. It’s that they adopt thinking habits that make falsehoods immune to inquiry. The meme is a case in point: affirmation for the intellectually lazy despite a decade of emerging authoritarian behavior. open.substack.com/pub/brucemai...
Shit My Conservative Friends Say: The Nazi Edition
How a lazy meme narrows language and turns history into moral anesthesia.
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What happens when a government begins a war without a believable account of how it's supposed to end. That's the Iran trap, one of Donald Trump’s own making, and one with no good way out. open.substack.com/pub/brucemai...
The Iran Trap
What happens when wars begin without a theory of termination.
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Trump declared victory in Iran. Then asked Congress for another $67 billion to keep fighting. That’s not victory. It’s a contradiction. Declarations ask for belief. Results require none. This essays asks: What happens when political language outruns evidence? open.substack.com/pub/brucemai...
The Shifting Goalposts of a War No One Asked For
The danger of governing by declaration.
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A fake Facebook post, two unhinged comments, and a small case study in why online conservatism so often looks intellectually unserious. open.substack.com/pub/brucemai...
Shit Conservatives Like to Say: The Obama Edition
Another installment in a semi-regular series.
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We don’t just have a chaotic, dysfunctional presidency. We have a Sequel Presidency—an endless series of opening acts, each superceding the last. Nothing is allowed to end, and almost nothing is judged. New essay up now. open.substack.com/pub/brucemai...
The Sequel Presidency
When every act is a beginning and nothing is allowed to end
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Trump’s Canada tariffs isn't the story. The story is a government that increasingly mistakes conflict for competence. If your foreign policy requires turning Canada into the villain, the problem isn't Canada. open.substack.com/pub/brucemai...
How to Alienate Friends and Infuriate Allies
Trump’s Canada tariffs and the petty politics of grievance.
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What happens to a democracy when deaths at the hands of government agents no longer alarm us? This essay asks that question and asks us to consider what separates a professional police agency from one that slowly loses the public's trust, or never really had it. open.substack.com/pub/brucemai...
When a Police Force Loses Its Legitimacy
Two more people are dead at the hands of ICE. The greater danger is how quickly we stopped demanding answers.
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Trump promised a bombshell and came up empty. But this essay isn’t “Trump still has no evidence of a stolen election.” It’s that his own investigation testified against him. He didn’t prove his case. He disproved it. open.substack.com/pub/brucemai...
The Trump Bombshell That Exploded in His Own Hands
Trump’s own election “investigation” actually debunked his claim of a stolen 2020 race.
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Trump is demanding networks lose their licenses for not airing his speech. Not criticized. Not debated. Punished. The tantrum isn’t the story. The authoritarian instinct is. At some point, you have to ask: how much of this are we supposed to normalize? open.substack.com/pub/brucemai...
Trump Demands Networks Lose Licenses for Not Airing His “Story Hour”
Trump’s latest meltdown isn’t about media bias—it’s about his need for submission.
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Five years on, Trump is still litigating what has already been litigated. Has any American president worked harder to convince citizens not to trust our elections? It’s a troubling question. Not because of the answer. Because of what it implicates: the rest of us. open.substack.com/pub/brucemai...
Five Years Later, We’re Still Talking About 2020
Trump promises a bombshell. Again. What matters isn't whether it lands, but why so many keep waiting for it.
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This essay isn't about Lindsey Graham. He's simply the evidence. The real subject is something far deeper: what happens when people who know better decide that integrity becomes negotiable, that proximity to power matters more than fidelity to principle. open.substack.com/pub/brucemai...
The Obituary Lindsey Graham Wrote Himself
When political survival demands the surrender of principle.
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Florida's new communism curriculum matters less than the question it raises: Are we teaching students to understand history, or merely to inherit conclusions? New essay: "We Teach History Backwards." open.substack.com/pub/brucemai...
We Teach History Backwards
Florida's new communism curriculum isn't the problem. It's the symptom.
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“Communist" has become one of the most frequently uttered—and least carefully defined—words in American politics. Donald Trump is its latest practitioner. Once a political vocabulary loses its meaning, democracy loses something with it. brucemaiman.substack.com/p/the-red-sc...
The Red Scare That Won't Die
The politics of slovenly language.
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Two Trump posts: one insults a foreign ally, the other turns the Obamas into a racial cartoon. Neither changed anything. That wasn’t their point. Platner’s troubles fit here, too. open.substack.com/pub/brucemai...
What the Patriot Front Really Wants Every time a fringe group grabs the headlines, we ask the same question: "What about YOUR extremists?" That’s the wrong question. The real issue isn't Patriot Front or Antifa. It's about who controls our attention. open.substack.com/pub/brucemai...
What the Patriot Front Really Wants
It’s easy to panic. It’s easy to laugh. Democracy asks something harder: proportion.
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As we celebrate our nation’s 250th year, perhaps the most patriotic question we can ask is not how great America has been, but whether it still possesses what made its greatness possible: the wisdom and courage to admit mistakes and correct them. open.substack.com/pub/brucemai...
Independence Day Is Not Just About Flags, Fireworks, and Parades
250 years in, it’s also about a nation’s ability to admit its mistakes and do something about it.
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Conservatives are viciously attacking Amy Coney Barrett over her birthright citizenship decision. They are not serious people. They are sore losers. A democracy depends on its citizens being able to lose gracefully. It is one of democracy’s oldest virtues. open.substack.com/pub/brucemai...
The Civic Virtue of Losing Well
"She's supposed to be one of ours." The backlash against Amy Coney Barrett reveals what democracies require from citizens after they lose.
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Trump isn't just profiting from the presidency. He's turned it into a business model. But this isn’t primarily about Trump. It’s about what becomes possible when political power can be directly monetized—and institutions decide not to stop it. open.substack.com/pub/brucemai...
Before it fades into the rear-view mirror: what the Supreme Court *really* decided about TPS—Temporary Protective Status. This essay examines who that decision affects, what it will costs, and why the policy problems go far beyond the legal decision. open.substack.com/pub/brucemai...
The Supreme Court has become the most powerful body in American life, yet its authority rests on a political process so manipulated that its major rulings increasingly feel pre-ordained. open.substack.com/pub/brucemai...
A Court Too Easily Predictable Is Not a Court Worth Having
How partisan certainty can destroys judicial legitimacy.
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The real fraud is the argument that voter fraud exists. It doesn’t. It’s a slogan with an ugly agenda. The numbers are clear. The SAVE Act isn’t the answer. brucemaiman.substack.com/p/voter-frau... A slogan can win applause. A policy has to survive reality. open.substack.com/pub/brucemai...
Voter Fraud: The National Emergency That Doesn’t Exist and Never Did
Donald Trump is either lying, delusional, or ignorant — or maybe all three — and demands reporters’ direct confrontation.
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The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is not really a story about algae. It's about in individual who lies when reality becomes politically inconvenient, and personally damaging to his ego. It is a lesson in Trump's oldest and ugliest attribute. open.substack.com/pub/brucemai...
The Deflecting Pool
How a failed renovation became a search for imaginary vandals
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A video about Trump’s Iran war blunder posted on Facebook ignited arguments in the comments section but gradually morphed into something that led to this essay about the dangers of certainty, the value of doubt, and the importance of asking questions. open.substack.com/pub/brucemai...
The Ethics of Inquiry in an Age of Trumpian Absolutes
On doubt, judgment, and the refusal to stop asking
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The man who said he would drain the swamp, built one. Literally. The Reflecting Pool isn’t just a maintenance failure—it is a near-perfect metaphor for the Trump presidency in miniature. open.substack.com/pub/brucemai...
The Reflecting Pool Debacle: A Perfect Reflection of Trump’s Presidency
The algae isn’t the story—the excuses are.
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A new piece on fathers, family sayings, and the private language we inherit from the men who raised us: “The Sayings of Chairman Dad.” Affectionate without fuss, funny without polish, blunt without cruelty. open.substack.com/pub/brucemai...
The Sayings of Chairman Dad
Affectionate without fuss, funny without polish, and blunt without cruelty.
open.substack.com
