Mort Report is a labor of love by old-style correspondents with lifetimes on the road and young ones with fresh eyes. Our philosophy is simple: we report at first hand with analysis based on non-alternative fact, not opinion. If we get something wrong, we fix it.
TUCSON — Forget any remaining doubts. Donald Trump intends a scorched earth blitzkrieg to corrupt the nation he'll swear on a bible to serve during a pay-for-play Inauguration extravaganza. It is a tossup whether Americans can stop him.
Democracies survive only if voters deliver a plurality at the polls. America blew it. Skilled reporters laid out the threat in irrefutable detail. Inept coverage, guesswork "influencers" and propaganda drowned them out. There may not be a second chance.
Joe Biden's swan song address echoed Dwight Eisenhower's. In the 1950s, America was headed for control by a military-industrial complex. Today, Biden said, it faces a tech-industrial takeover: oligarchic and plutocratic rule by the mega-rich.
It is worse than that. That hoary telltale canary in a mine is a dry Southern California in the Santa Ana winds. An unhinged president could quite literally steer Earth toward Armageddon. As Biden said, only ordinary workaday Americans can stop him.
Republican ramrodding will likely confirm Pete Hegseth as defense secretary, with the failsafe responsibility to ensure a hair-trigger president does not activate the nuclear football always in his reach. That is only the extreme of unthinkable potentialities.
As a reporter since 1961, I can't recall a more shameful moment in America: self-serving spinelessness by elected lawmakers, a failure of news media executives to react and widespread apathy among so many voters whose own progeny will suffer as a result.
P. J. O'Rourke wrote a book in 2003 meant for laughs. "Parliament of Whores." When a president punishes legislators who do not fall in line despite their private opposition to his dictates, that is no longer funny.
This may change as reality bites hard, and Americans step up to the challenge. Or not.
TUCSON — The world honored Jimmy Carter in the Capitol rotonda, which a deadly insurrection besieged four years ago. He had spent most of his 100 years waging peace and working to keep an imperiled planet habitable for humanity.
At the National Cathedral, Joe Biden lauded his old friend's character, a trait he himself displayed during a single term. He led a Covid-crippled nation to historic prosperity while keeping embers his predecessor left behind from flaring into global war.
Both men belong atop Mount Rushmore. Donald Trump belongs on a forgotten molehill elsewhere in the Dakotas. Mount Flushmore.
Carter, though scorned at first, departed with gratitude and glory. A spiritual man of deep faith, you could imagine him choosing the moment — just weeks before Trump's self-deifying Inauguration — to snap a misguided nation out of its stupor.
Many with short memories still disparage Biden. He will likely be gone before history makes the record clear. But his eulogy set the tone for the fight ahead he plans to join from the sidelines. "The greatest of sins," he said, "is abuse of power."
Early signs provide hope that concerted, sustained action can stop the United States of America from sinking into Trumpistan.
