Neoliberalism is a utopian ideology claiming that every society throughout history should be ruled by marketplace dictates—an insane position, and all its promises (larger middle class, spread of democracy, end of wars) have proven false.

Western elites and intellectuals did not truly critique or oppose the Iraq War despite its illegality and immorality; the New York Times fired Hedges for criticizing it, and Bill Moyers pressured him not to use the word 'fascist' in his book on the Christian Right.

There is a deep spiritual sickness within society that powerful mechanisms have been created to prey upon and exacerbate, rooted in idolatry and the cult of the self, requiring theological and spiritual understanding to address.

Voting is not effective because fundamental change requires movement power that politicians fear; even Roosevelt would not have done the New Deal without mass movements threatening revolution.

The destruction of social bonds—which give meaning, dignity, status, a sense of place, stability, and purpose—was accomplished by corporate forces through a corporate coup d'état that established the primacy of profit above all else, turning human beings and the natural world into commodities to be exploited until exhaustion or collapse.

McCoy gives a date of 2030 for the end of American empire, based on the pattern that empires extend themselves militarily beyond their financial ability to sustain it, hollowing out the country from inside to fund endless wars.

Malcolm X's autobiography describes how he memorized the dictionary while imprisoned, transforming from illiteracy to literacy, which he described as like 'snow sliding off a roof'—he shed his past life and became a new man.

The Trump Taj Mahal casino, by the time Hedges visited it, was a decayed ruin with mothballed rooms, closed restaurants and arena, visible rodents, mold, and broken facilities—serving as a metaphor for where Trump's policies would take the country

Those in control are blinded by mania for profit and idolatry of the cult of self, unable to see that their own actions are destroying the biosphere that makes their wealth possible.

The United States operates under inverted totalitarianism—a system with the facade of the late Roman Republic but internally the citizen has been utterly disempowered through a court system that has become a wholly owned subsidiary of the corporate state, overturning constitutional rights by judicial fiat.

Steve Pinker's claim that violence is declining is an imperial fantasy—a presumption from the pinnacle of power at a named chair professor at Harvard in the imperial nation telling the world that everything is getting better while the world experiences ongoing wars, exploitation, and structural violence.

Bill Clinton betrayed the working class by passing NAFTA, which closed union manufacturing plants in places like Anderson, Indiana—not just closing them but bulldozing them so that workers couldn't even drive past—moving jobs to Mexico where workers earned $3/hour without benefits compared to $25-30/hour with union benefits.

Because our movements have been destroyed and our democratic institutions don't work, when financial crisis and dollar devaluation occur, totalitarian movements will emerge because there is no organized alternative.

Trump is a creation of anomie and a symptom of systemic collapse, not the disease; personalizing the political crisis around Trump or other individuals obscures the structural nature of the problem and prevents recognition that the Democratic Party largely orchestrated the corporate coup through neoliberalism.

A commercial culture orchestrates alienation, loneliness, and unhappiness, then promises that investing financially and emotionally in that culture will provide the happiness it has destroyed—but each purchase only starts a cycle of new desires, a culture of idolatry where idols demand sacrifice of others first, then ultimately your own sacrifice.

Friendship in its true form is about a relationship where the other person loves you enough to tell you unpleasant truths about yourself because they care—but in social media culture, friendship is replaced by posturing and self-presentation rather than truth and genuine connection.

The true happiness is to live for others, as any parent instinctively knows, in contrast to the commercial culture that promotes the cult of the self.

CNN is equally culpable with Trump for the political circus—CNN makes more money covering Trump's antics than it has ever made, so it continues cheerleading court gossip rather than actual journalism that reflects majority concerns.

Trump feeds on legitimate disgust with the world that has been made for us, and is the closest thing to tipping the tables on Jeb Bush and the Clintons, even though he is on the wrong side and should not receive credit for disruption.

Economic collapse and hyperinflation vomit up bizarre, buffoonish, insane political figures—as seen in Yugoslavia with Radovan Karadzic, Slobodan Milosevic, and Franjo Tudjman, and in Weimar Germany where the Nazis went from single-digit polling in 1928 to power after the 1929 crash.