Walter Rhein Podcast

Hey Everyone!I had a great time chatting With Dash of The Halfway Cafe. I see his notes and they always make me laugh. He has the remarkable gift of being able to write satire that can be distinguished as satire even in these dystopian times.You can follow him here:Thank you PJ Schuster, Lisa | We Are The Third Estate, Ms. H, Ms.Yuse, Jason Gael, and many others for tuning into my live video with The Halfway Cafe! Join me for my next live video in the app.Please support me if you can!Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offI'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe

Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% off 💙 80% offIt’s always my great pleasure to talk with Michelle Teheux! I know her from Medium where we’ve worked together quite often. In this discussion, we take on the topic of how the media has essentially become an arm of authoritarian propaganda, and how we can push back!Thank you A. Eevie Bateman, Kyrie, Mandy Ohman, Chris Resists, LeftieProf, and many others for tuning into my live video with Untrickled by Michelle Teheux! Join me for my next live video in the app.Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% off 💙 80% offI'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe

Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% off 💙 80% offAren’t you sick and tired of having self-righteous Republicans come storming into the room with faces contorted into rage and spewing spittle in every direction?They wag their fingers at us. They tell us we have to “tone down our rhetoric.” They accuse us of violence and immorality. They tone police us. They tell us what we can say and when. Then they shove a Bible into our faces with enough force to break our noses and never offer us even a second for a rebuttal.I’m so done with that.They started when we were innocent little babies. They started their accusations before we even had the capacity to speak. The first thing they did when they looked upon our cherubic faces was to point and scream and name us all “Sinners!”They screamed so loud they caused us to cry and they haven’t stopped screaming since. Every time they hurt us and we ask them to stop, they turn and point and act like that’s a proof of our corrupt nature.At every step along the way, conservatives and Republicans have leveraged our innocence to their own advantage. They’ve betrayed their status as mentors. No matter how hard we worked, we were “lazy.” No matter how much we achieved, it wasn’t “good” enough. No matter how much pain they subjected us to, they told us to “stop whining,” and “suck it up.”The premise was that they were the perfect ones. They were the ones with all the secrets. They were the ones we had to listen to and obey in order to one day become as worthy as them.That’s the lie they told us, even as they insisted that we were “corrupt” and “evil” and “immoral.” But now their lie has been exposed. It turns out that the conservatives and the Republicans were the evil ones the whole time.I’ve been reflecting on this a lot lately. A few weeks ago, I had to face border patrol with my family as I returned to the country. My stress levels were so high, I developed a vision issue in my right eye. I’m pleased to say that I made it through immigration. My wife and children were not detained or molested. In that moment, I felt an initial wave of relief that has been steadily replaced by anger.The fact of the matter is, I’ve never done anything that would warrant being subjected to such an assault. I pay my taxes. I’ve never been arrested. The only thing on my record is a couple of minor traffic violations from back when I was in my twenties.That’s it.Yet I’m the one that is forced to feel ashamed when I enter the country. Meanwhile sex offenders, criminals, and child rapists are allowed to occupy the highest offices in the land. When we call them out on it, they trot out the same Republican grooming and conditioning.They act like we’re somehow at fault for simply bringing up the fact of their transgressions. They act like we’ve violated the laws of decorum, and that behavior is more damning than all their collected crimes against humanity.They’ve managed to shame us into silence. They insist they’re the “moral majority.”But what kind of moral majority enables, defends, and elects child rapists?I’m done. I’m not listening to them any more. In fact, how dare they stomp into a room and attempt to use volume, intimidation, and physicality to make us bear the burdens for their crimes.It’s over.Lately, I’ve been getting into fights with people on the internet. I know it’s petty and a waste of time, but we have to practice using the ammunition that’s at our disposal.When Republicans say, “Well, at least we know the difference between a man and a woman.” I reply with, “Well, at least our side knows the difference between an adult and a child, and we also know the meaning of consent.”We have to train ourselves into going on the attack. Do not defend yourself to the political party that protects and enables child rapists. Do not defend yourself. Our job isn’t to understand them. Our job isn’t to work with them. Our job is to oppose them. Full stop, no exceptions.Derrick Van Orden is the congressional representative in our district. Lately, he’s been posting ads about not having men in the women’s locker room. I reply with, “I oppose allowing Derrick Van Orden into women’s locker rooms. We all know he only attacks the transgender community because Republicans want an excuse to get into children’s pants.”Allow yourself to make aggressive comments like these. It leaves the party of pedophile enablers fumbling and desperate. Once you see that it can’t be unseen. Once you allow yourself to call them out as the true oppressors, you’ll understand why they’re always so aggressive.Republicans are desperate to hide their criminality. Every accusation is a confession. They’ve only been allowed to get away with it this long because we’ve gotten defensive rather than going on the attack.But aren’t you sick of it? Aren’t you sick of having adjudicated sex offenders stomp into a room, insult you, and accuse you of depravity? Aren’t you sick of watching them stomp over your rights and the rights of your children? Aren’t you sick of seeing them commit crime after crime after crime without ever having to endure any accountability.I’m sick of it.Above all, I’m sick of all these child rape apologists in politics and in the media who have the nerve to think they can scream and yell and cast judgement at me.I’m done.They call themselves the “moral majority.” It’s time for us to laugh in their faces.HA!They don’t even stand up for the rights of children. They stomp all over the rights of women and immigrants and the LGBTQ+ community and the marginalized and the oppressed.Republicans and conservatives are verifiable awful human beings. They should be ashamed of themselves. We need to stop talking about “bipartisanship.” The only time we should be reaching across the aisle is to put them in handcuffs.It’s time that we called them out on their depravity. We can’t succumb to the pressure of a status quo that was never real. Don’t listen to the propaganda and the lies, instead insist on looking at the receipts. We need to start making arrests.When we get back control of our country, we need a law-enforcement agency that’s dedicated to combing the country to arrest and imprison traffickers, rapists, and the money launderers who enabled them. We’re not going to just destroy their criminal empire, we’re going to burn the wreckage and salt the ashes.Remember this the next time a Republican comes stomping into a room screaming nonsense and waving the Bible like it’s a hand grenade. Don’t get small, GET BIG! Don’t get quiet, GET LOUD! Don’t control your emotions, LET THEM COME OUT IN A ROAR!I’m sick and tired of having men who have committed unspeakable crimes against humanity have the nerve to think they can judge me. How dare they. It’s done. I’ve heard enough from them to last a hundred lifetimes.It’s time that the party of child rape enablers was forced to face the accusations they’ve long leveled at the innocent. Judgment day isn’t coming, it’s here. Accountability is next and we will not be stopped because no matter how hard they try, they’ll NEVER force us to be like them.Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% off 💙 80% offI'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe

Hello Everyone!This was another delightful conversation with Margaret Williams, MS, ACC and Letters from a Feminist. I always feed off of Margaret’s energy and I always leave my conversations with her feeling empowered and renewed. Early on in this conversation, I was discussing how government spending gets inflated when it’s distributed to preferred contractors (who are often related to the guy handing out the contracts). I misspoke and said “union.” I want to make clear that I am pro-union because those organizations make sure the people who do the work actually get paid. My issue is with expenses that get inflated to enrich certain privileged and abusive people. I corrected myself in the moment, but I wanted to underscore that concept.After a little while, Zulfina joined us and she’s delightful as always. Be sure to subscribe to these fine ladies.Thank you Ms.Yuse, Sandra, John Delaney, NeuroDivergent Hodgepodge, David A Henry, and many others for tuning into my live video with Margaret Williams, MS, ACC and Letters from a Feminist! Join me for my next live video in the app.Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offI'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe

Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% off 💙 80% offHello Everyone,It’s always my great privilege to have these conversations with Dr. Yamicia Connor and A. Eevie Bateman. As I said in the talk, I only wish I had a larger platform to help give Dr. Connor the attention she deserves.In this video, she walks us through the data that suggests the collapse of our healthcare system is imminent. This isn’t an ideological conversation where politicians throw around phrases like “free handouts” and “socialism.” This is a conversation where we look at the numbers, and the story those numbers tell is not pretty.What’s become clear to me in the course of my talks with Dr. Connor is that political debate on this issue is nothing more than a distraction. We need action right now. When it comes to healthcare, mistakes cost human lives. As the latest Republican murder bill comes into full effect, we’re going to lose friends and loved ones. It’s happening.As Dr. Connor said, this isn’t “somebody else’s problem.” It’s going to happen to you and the people you love. This is a problem we can’t afford to ignore.We have to get used to having uncomfortable conversations that go against the rules of cultural decorum. We have to recognize those rules were only put in place to perpetuate a system of exploitation. Speak out. Yes, people will get angry if you tell them the truth. Yes, that will be uncomfortable. But I promise you it will be far less uncomfortable than watching your friends and family die due to incompetence and malicious governance.We still have the power to change the course of history, but it’s going to require community action. Please watch this video. Take notes. Ask question in the comments. Compel other people to watch it. Most of all, share, share, share. If you share with a note, you can share dozens of times a day. It’s our obligation to bring this reality into the national conversation. We can’t allow politicians to distract from this problem with soundbites and corporate-approved remarks. We need solutions, not false accusations of socialism. We can make it happen, but we have to act now.Thank you The Rebel Crone (Shālah), Leon Brown, Jr., Ben Ulansey, PJ Schuster, Stuart Cohen, and many others for tuning into my live video with Dr. Yamicia Connor and A. Eevie Bateman! Join me for my next live video in the app.Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% off 💙 80% offI'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe

Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% off 💙 80% offBy our senior year, we knew we were surrounded by injustice. But we didn’t have the knowledge or the support to extract ourselves. We waited patiently for our promised power to arrive, never recognizing that our teachers and mentors labored hard to ensure we remained forever suppressed.This cycle doesn’t change, it just gets bigger and more difficult to perceive.Mr. Thornbush taught English. He strolled through the hallways with a big smile on his face, but something about him always felt off. He wore baggy clothing and jackets with patches over the elbows. He dressed in Earth tones of brown, gray and green.He loped along offering pleasantries to the other teachers. They’d laugh as they hurried by. Was he popular among his peers? It’s hard to say. Maybe they disliked him because he seemed more inclined to forge strong bonds with his students.Did they think he blurred the lines and got a little too close sometimes? Perhaps.Still, kindness was in short supply in our community, so those of us with aspirations to leave gravitated towards him.The guise of the affable teacher crumbled when an approach brought visible signs of irritation. I soon discovered that friendly face that he showed the world disappeared when he was alone and disinterested. That didn’t scare me, I’d grown up with that same expression of dismissal at home.My situation with Mr. Thornbush was unique. I needed him. Flawed or not he remained a step I could leverage into a launchpad. Not in the sense the school pressured me to perceive him, but in another way.My way.It didn’t matter that he was obviously a liar and a con. He’d been to college at least. He liked to brag about his time there to the class. He brought in his papers and told us stories about what he’d done to pass.That was knowledge I had to posses.On day one he promised that he would be that sort of mentor to us—to all of us. On day one in the afternoon he proved without question that this promise was a lie. He didn’t like to be cornered, even though in every other moment his body language screamed an invitation.It didn’t make sense to me until I observed how he got on with the girls. That’s when the charm came out. That’s when I understood.He liked to pull a desk around to face us and then he sat on it hunched over with his legs spread wide. He caressed the books he taught. He tried to start conversations, but nobody ever wanted to talk.I talked, but I didn’t provide the kind of conversation he wanted.He was only interested in innocent girls who might be dazzled by the fact that he had memorized a couple lines of poetry. He was interested in desperate children who had grown up surrounded by tractors and bales of hay who would become intoxicated by the promise of an ancient rhyme.What do ancient poets know about life and love and lust? What might they tell us?Mr. Thornbush’s schtick was the suggestion that he knew, that he’d be willing to tell. He could speak whispered words of love to children and they’d listen. It would all be allowed because he hid his seduction within the pages of a poem written hundreds of years ago.“What do you think the author meant? What do you think the author felt?”He waited for a girl to raise her hand and find her courage and share more of herself than was wise. Then he’d be there to encourage it. “Yes, yes, tell me more.”But the girls in my class did not read. There were just over a hundred of us in total. I’ve seen the trope in movies where girls are the readers, and I didn’t understand it until I left my town. That may be the norm, but it wasn’t my norm. We had brilliant girls in my class, our valedictorian was a girl. We had two exceptional mathematicians, a chemist, and a historian, but we didn’t have any readers.Except for me.After about three days of classes where Mr. Thornbush asked a question then spent the rest of the hour angry that none of us said anything, I raised my hand.At first, he appreciated the effort. A voice from the chorus inspires courage in others. But still the girls did not speak.The little sparkle of delight in his eye turned again to irritation. He didn’t want to sit, spread eagle on a desk, having conversations with me. He was looking for girls to impress. He lived for that moment.“Tell us English teacher! Tell us about love and these feelings we have. Guide us into womanhood with your gentle hand. We are new to the world and curious and full of passion that only you can understand.”That’s what he wanted.He didn’t want to waste his time talking to an eager, awkward, well-read seventeen year old boy who was already showing signs of not being impressed.What a strange thing it was to come to realizations about life, literature, and the world in that classroom.Mr. Thornbush was probably less than forty years old then. He was more or less pleasant looking, but only when compared to other teachers. There were a few in that school that barely held on to life. The older ones were from the era of black and white projector films and pocket protectors. They couldn’t have understood us if they tried, and most of them didn’t.They were people caught in time capsules of nostalgia fading into indifference. They barely acknowledged Mr. Thornbush when he passed them by.Our English teacher had read literature, but so had I. It became comical to watch as the girls took the class he presented at face value. They couldn’t read the subtext.It became more comical still when they began to approach me instead of him for clarification.“Walter, you seem to understand this, what does Mr. Thornbush expect of us?”That was the second time in my life when I found myself the target of jealousy from an adult man. The first time had been with my dad, who resented the affection shown to me by my girlfriend.I think he felt that should more appropriately be given to him.After all, his favorite thing to say was, “Look at all the things that I give.”At the end of the lectures, Mr. Thornbush retreated to his desk in the corner and glowered. The girls came to me. I wasn’t particularly handsome or popular, but I liked the attention, and everybody knew I liked to read.So, even though it was natural that I’d have that moment in the larger scheme of things, Mr. Thornbush seethed. It made me somehow feel unclean.But again, I’d grown up that way. Feeling unclean wasn’t a deterrent. Instead, it was something I’d sort of accepted I’d never be able to escape.As the weeks went by, an unspoken battle raged between me and Mr. Thornbush. It was almost comical. He’d throw a wink and a smile and a flirtatious turn of the head to a girl, and she’d diligently take down notes not recognizing the advances for what they were.Within earshot of Mr. Thornbush they’d ask, “Walter, what did he mean?”I wouldn’t say, but I’d hint at the meaning so that only Mr. Thornbush knew I understood. I’m not sure that I meant it as a warning. I just did things based on instinct then. I spoke the words that came into my head and only found out later that they were true in more ways than I ever knew.You can cut the legs out from beneath a man once you’ve seen the part of him he tries to keep hidden from the world. You can cut him right down to nothing, but you have to be careful. A threatened man becomes desperate and there’s nothing they won’t do.I’d learned that lesson in books, but I hadn’t walked through it yet. The threat lingers and grows in the atmosphere like hate or passion or a gathering storm.Later in the year, Mr. Thornbush became frustrated. “Do you think that I don’t want to be like Walter, and come to school in flannel shirts every day?”“Actually, it’s a wool shirt,” I said.His eyes flashed.Back then I wore these oversized wool shirts. I had many different patterns.A few weeks later, he gave a book to the girl who had decided to be my girlfriend. I had several girlfriends in high school, and it was always their decision. They picked me, I was too shy to pursue anyone.He hadn’t shown much interest in her until he found out that she was involved with me. She told me this.“It was weird,” Danielle said. “He came shuffling over with his big smile and he gave me a book. He told me that he thought I should read this book, that I’d really, really like it. But he held the book weird. He had one hand underneath it like a server offering you a tray. Just before giving it to me, he placed his other hand on top of it in a caress.”Her face scrunched up in confusion. “When I got home I flipped through the pages and I found this,” she held up a piece of paper. I took it and looked at it.It was a page from a calendar. It listed all the days Mr. Thornbush’s wife would be out of town.“I guess I should be flattered,” Danielle said. “Do you think he wants me to come over?”“I think he feels he’s entitled to you. Obviously he wonders why you’re wasting your time with me when he’s so much better.”“Ew.”We made it to the end of the year. Mr. Thornbush became increasingly frustrated, but he was in the wrong and he was a coward. His opinion meant increasingly less as we went on.I extracted from him the knowledge that I needed. You see, he couldn’t impress the girls unless he actually provided something of merit. He did teach us how to write a research paper. He taught us MLA format.Not long ago, I was looking through my personal library and I found the MLA handbook I’d stolen from his shelves.That’s the kind of student I was. That was my level of defiance. I stole things like the school’s MLA handbook.I showed that to my daughter and she laughed.A few years later, I was at the library at my college when Mr. Thornbush showed up with his class. He’d done the same thing back when I was in school. We’d taken a field trip to the library and Mr. Thornbush had allowed us to check out books with his card.This time his wife had come along, so there was a different energy in the room. She stood beside him observing. I found her rather impressive. She recognized the subtext and I found that compelling. Maybe she’d learned she couldn’t trust him to be alone.A girl in the class recognized me. Her name was Katie, and she was the younger sister of one of the girls in my class. She came over, “Oh my goodness, look who it is! Come and say hello to Mr. Thornbush.”I didn’t want to, but she took me by the elbow and that was impossible to resist.Mr. Thornbush wasn’t happy to see me. He looked smaller now. Maybe I’d grown taller, or maybe he’d just been broken. His wife stood beside him and smirked.“Look,” Katie said giggling, “you’re wearing the same coat.”I looked down at Mr. Thornbush. It was true. It was a dark green jacket from L.L. Bean. It had a lot of pockets, but no patches over the elbows. Mr. Thornbush shuffled. My impression was that he deeply desired to dress like the kids in his classes, but not like me.“You guys are twins,” Katie said. Then she reached up to brush her fingers through my hair and said, “I guess this isn’t going to last too long.”I smiled. I found her friendly gesture to be pleasant.Mr. Thornbush’s wife’s eyes got wide and she laughed. The laugh was pleasant, but I heard the subtext of pure mockery. It was an “I told you so” in the form of a laugh.Mr. Thornbush said nothing, he seethed. He shuffled awkwardly in my coat. Well, hadn’t he said before that he wanted to be like me?There wasn’t a lot left to say. “I should let you guys get back to your research.”Katie grinned, then she gave me a big hug in front of jealous Mr. Thornbush and his wife. “Watch out for him,” I whispered.“I know,” Katie said. As she pulled away, she gave me a sly wink that made me think she knew Mr. Thornbush to be a joke. I realized that she was the reader in that class. She’d picked up on even more of the subtext than me.I took my leave.There are many men like Mr. Thornbush out there. There are many kids who help each other get past them.We shouldn’t have to.Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% off 💙 80% offI'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe

Andra Watkins and I are back for another talk on dismantling narcissists. I really appreciate these talks and I think they can provide us with insight into what we need to do in order to transform our society. You can follow Andra here:Thank you Letters from a Feminist, Rick Kohut, An Mcgreevy, Acejonesz, Susan R, and many others for tuning into my live video with Andra Watkins! Join me for my next live video in the app.Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offI'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe

Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% off 💙 80% offHello everyone!This was a wonderful talk with Mary Louve and Santana Inniss. Mary is running for Senate in Delaware. You can check out her web page here:MaryLouveOfficial.comWe covered a variety of issues including women’s rights, accountability, healthcare, and impeachment. I appreciated the passion in this conversation. It’s always encouraging to see people of integrity stand up and insist that we’re not going to tolerate injustice any longer!You can find Mary here:And you can find Santanna here:Thanks so much for watching!Thank you A. Eevie Bateman, LeftieProf, Mandy Ohman, PJ Schuster, Karola Spring, and many others for tuning into my live video with Santana Inniss and Mary Louve! Join me for my next live video in the app.Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% off 💙 80% offI'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe

Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% off 💙 80% offOne of my uncles was proudly, some might say defiantly, illiterate. He married my aunt when she took a teaching job in Kentucky. Hank never took her lessons all that seriously, much to the irritation of my grandmother who was also a teacher.That relationship didn’t last, unions that are based on mutual spite rarely do. But his family became intertwined with mine. It almost parallels the ongoing battles between the DNC and the GOP. They fought. They mocked each other. They never really tried to make any progress.In the end, the women and children did all the suffering.Hank was always around, and he used to delight in battling my father. My father was a farmer, but he’d been trained as a lawyer. He was good at what’s called “book learning,” and he liked to rub it in Hank’s face. Hank thought himself a master of “common sense,” and he rubbed my father’s face in it ruthlessly.My father made the mistake of believing that somebody who is illiterate is inherently inferior. When you stop and think about it, that’s no different than any other form of dehumanization. But no matter how many times Hank got the better of him, my father would never recognize his personhood.When people maintain an ideology at the expense of facts, they become abusive. Every time.Hank taught me that people who are illiterate become cunning. When I was young, I thought Hank was terrifying. My father traveled through life going from book to book. During the in-between moments, he was barely present. His eyes were glossed over and vague. It was like the real life minutes didn’t count. The only thing that mattered was the dreamy fantasy of literature.Meanwhile, Hank spent his life in the moment. At the dinner table, when the other members of my family drifted off into their thoughts, Hank’s eyes would pierce through you. He had a keen mind, and since it couldn’t extract information from words, he pounced on nuance in the movements of people.He could read you, and he was devastating.Hank could not be beat at checkers. That’s a statement that sometimes makes academics snort. “Well, that’s a child’s game,” they say dismissively. Some of them maintained their delusion by not dignifying their hypothesis with an experiment.Abusive people tend to not give their subordinates the chance to beat them.Others sat with Hank and got obliterated. I played him only once when I was at the age were I’d become decent at checkers. He humbled me, partly because I’d already been subjected to my father’s conditioning that I was somehow “better.” Hank taught me otherwise and I remembered.Much of Hank’s persona was to dominate others. Unlike my father, I began to observe and I noticed he, at least, was smart enough not to get into contests he couldn’t win.He often bested my father in poker too. Hank’s strategy was to never look at his cards. The dealer placed them face down on the table, and Hank never even touched them until it was time to show or the dealer scooped them up again. He read the players with his superior insight that came from not ever being distracted by letters.You shouldn’t dismiss people like that.Once, we went and joined Hank at the races. I lived in the far off country where rowdy men got together, formed a track out of dirt, and behaved recklessly. Everything Hank enjoyed was astonishingly dangerous. We sat in the rickety bleachers that were as likely to collapse as support us. There were no barricades to prevent a thrown tire from slaughtering half of us if it bounced into the spectators.I don’t know why we went there. Perhaps my father felt a need to defeat Hank on his own turf to prove himself. The fact that he needed to prove himself showed that Hank had already won.Before the start of the race, Hank leaned over and pulled my dad’s shirt, “Hey Todd,” he said, “I bet you a dollar number 10 wins.”Right away I knew my dad shouldn’t take the bet. I saw that instinct pass over his features. Then his mind kicked in with the self-defeating justifications and pride. I knew he was done.“Wait a minute,” my father said, “you’re saying that if any other car in the race wins, then I win the bet?”Hank just nodded with a grin on his face.“Okay, I’ll take that bet.”The race started. The engines roared. It was dark and my senses were assailed by the smell of exhaust and the clouds of dust. The race was perhaps five or six laps around a course that was marked by old tires.It didn’t take too long to see that every other car was outclassed by number 10. It was a blue car with white numbers on the door. By the time the checkered flag came out, number 10 had lapped the whole field.My father opened his wallet and handed the dollar to Hank. Hank took it with a smile that reminded me of the devil himself. It wasn’t about the money, it was about the victory and he savored it.On the way back to the parking lot, my father tried to salvage his decision. “When you think about it, I made the right bet.” He said. “I had seven options, he only had won. What if number 10 had gotten a flat tire?”But number 10 didn’t get a flat tire. My father had lost. Even so, he couldn’t see the fact that disproved his mythology of identity. He believed that Hank was “less,” so any victory Hank managed over him was an exception rather than a proof of inadequacy.I didn’t take the same lesson. I saw a proud man who’d just been humiliated who was trying to wriggle out of accountability.“This is Hank’s domain,” I said. “He knew who would win.”“It was a bad bet,” my father insisted.I ran into the same thing when I went to college and I ran into academics who had never gone toe to toe with a guy like Hank. These were proud professors, secure in their authority, who knew they could lecture me when I tried to bring them news about the working of the world.These men and women with too much pride, money, and education don’t understand there are people in the world who are impossible to outmaneuver in checkers.It’s the pride that gets you.Men like Hank trick you into vulnerability, then they exploit it. They read the world like it’s a book, and they have a feral intensity that exists outside the understanding of a college degree.Don’t dismiss them. Don’t allow them to coerce you into playing their game. Don’t surrender before the contest even begins.Elites have been caught in this cycle of defeat for more than ten years. When are they going to recognize the facts that disprove the idealized narrative they’ve told about themselves? When are they going to acknowledge how much they’ve lost?Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% off 💙 80% offI'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe

Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offHello Everyone!I’ve seen Melissa Amour’s content on Substack but this was my first time talking to her. This was a delightful conversation! I always feel inspired when I talk to people who are concerned about the direction our country is heading and who are willing to discuss the productive actions we can take.We’ve got a lot of serious challenges ahead. Melissa and I started off talking about strategies to preserve your mental health, but then we expanded to more political and social issues. I felt really inspired after this talk! I appreciate that Melissa took the time to introduce me to her audience. You can find her here:I look forward to our next talk!Thank you Ben Ulansey, PJ Schuster, Joanna, Coffee is Life ☕️, Leilani, and many others for tuning into my live video with Melissa Amour! Join me for my next live video in the app.Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offI'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe

Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offI'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe

Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offIt’s with a melancholy sense of fondness that I recall the neighbor’s dog Ruckus. He was a 40-pound pit bull, and he became my friend.Our neighbors moved in over a year ago. I’m too old now to make a good guess about anyone’s age. The people I meet all seem like toddlers to me. They motor through the world, accidentally breaking things. Then, they look up with soulful eyes and make a silent plea for mercy.It breaks my heart to witness their terror. I’ve neither raised my voice nor my hand, but people always look into a stranger’s face and assume the worst.Young people often look at you the same way as a dog, with round eyes filled with love. They make a silent plea for help that too often goes ignored.The struggles of a young familyEarly on it became clear that there was trouble in paradise. I came home one night to find squad cars in the driveway.“Has somebody been killed?”That’s always the first thought that goes through my mind. I parked, went into my house, and found my wife staring out the kitchen window.“What’s going on?”“Our neighbors are having some sort of domestic disturbance.”I followed her gaze and saw that the yard was covered in clothing. Usually that happens when a young man starts throwing it out the window. Our neighbor stood talking with the police, agitated. Across our yard, I could hear the officer muttering, “I know man… I know.”She left himThe girl’s mother came. She went into the house to prepare a bag. A moment later, the mother and daughter left. They took Luna with them, that was the other dog. The cops left a little while after that.The boy stayed home with Ruckus.There was a sad period of quiet that lasted a few weeks.Then, the girl returned. She moved back in. As before, Luna and Ruckus hung out in the yard. My dog, Kuzo, would see them and start to bark his silly bark. He’s not a mean boy but he has a job to do.Little by little, I got to know themEvery now and then, I’d bring Kuzo outside just as the boy brought out Ruckus. We started having semi-frequent conversations.“Sorry about my dog barking, he’s not mean,” I said.“That’s perfectly okay, dogs love sitting in their yards and barking at each other,” the boy said.I’d developed a bad feeling about him based on the incident with the police, but I realized that wasn’t entirely fair. I had to remind myself that I’ve certainly had arguments with my wife that do not represent who I am as a person. There was no evidence of physical violence, which would have been a different matter.There’s enough judgment in the world without me having to add to it.You hope that people will repent and try to do better. You hope, but it’s a slippery slope. It feels more like justice to cut them off forever, but our system favors abusers. Those of us watching can’t succumb to the temptation to fight brute force with brute force.We have to model love and understanding. We have to.Can kids even make it anymore?Young people are up to their eyeballs in stress. There’s never enough money. You can’t keep a roof over your head. Health care is impossible to afford. Of course, our young people fight with each other, our society does nothing to help them.In the summer, the boy made sure to come by to purchase lemonade from my daughters every time they put up their stand. He called me “sir” even though I repeatedly told him not to. The girl chatted with my wife from time to time.Then she began to show, and I thought it all made a bit more sense. I knew the odds were against them, but I hoped they’d make it.The air conditionerThe baby came, and the relationship seemed to work for a while. It appeared as if the boy was putting boyish things behind him and at least making an effort to do better.During a stretch of really hot days, I knocked on their door. The boy was surprised to see me.“Hi,” I said, “I’ve had this air conditioner in my garage for a year. It still works and I just took it apart and cleaned it. You can have it if you want.”The boy reached for his wallet. “How much?”“No, seriously, nothing, I’d just throw it away but I prefer to see it used because I know it still works. I also know it’s hot being at home with a baby and I thought this might make you more comfortable.”“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” the boy said.From our house, I could see the air conditioner stuck in the window. It made me happy. As the days went by, I hoped that their chances grew.The happy dream of a loving family unitAbout six months ago, the girl left again. She took Luna and the baby with her. Again, the boy was left at home with Ruckus.Ruckus was a handsome boy with a solid build. He’s got that tough, pit bull face that makes you concerned if you don’t know a dog, but when you get close to him, he starts wagging his whole body. He flops himself on his back to show you his belly, and his face curls into this close-eyed smile of absolute satisfaction.It’s hard not to fall in love with a face like that.Ruckus is a good boy. My dog barked at him, but Ruckus never barked back. He just stood there confused as if wondering why the two of them couldn’t be friends.Dogs have so much love to give it’s painfulThe only time Ruckus barked was when the boy left him out, alone. I don’t know where the boy went. Maybe drinking. Maybe out for long rides on his motorcycle. This has been going on for the last few days. The absences have been getting longer.Ruckus started to whine at night, and I found I couldn’t sit around and do nothing. Maybe I did the wrong thing. I still have some reflection to do.The neighbors called the police on the boy, but the police didn’t do much. I guess they have bigger problems to worry about than the suffering of a dog.I decided to model care, and I took Ruckus under my wing.Take care when falling in loveWhat are the rules about giving food, water, and shelter to your neighbor’s dog? I don’t know. All I knew was that Ruckus needed those things, so I provided them. I stopped short of unclipping him from his leash to take him for walks, but in the absence of the boy, I wanted to help.I didn’t know if the boy was coming home to see him. Maybe he came when I wasn’t around.I checked on Ruckus twice a day to make sure he wasn’t dirty or in distress. He got used to seeing me walk up. He wagged his tail, smiled, and threw himself on his back for a pet. My daughter started to come and pet him too.“He just needs some love,” she said.“All living things need love,” I replied.My wife warned us to be careful about falling in love with Ruckus. Once you call a dog by its name and give him food, he becomes a member of your family. But that’s a good thing, even if it’s only for a couple of days.“Don’t worry Mommy, we won’t fall in love.”But that’s not the kind of thing you can guard against, and I should have known better.Where was the boy?One day turned into two, two turned into three. The forecast was positive. It wouldn’t freeze. It wouldn’t rain. I’d given Ruckus a cushion, and he had shelter from the sun. He had water and food, but where was the boy?On the evening of the fourth day, I went over to see Ruckus. As always, he came bounding out from under the porch, smiling, body wagging. I gave him a scoop of dog food, I filled up the water bowl, then returned to my house.I resolved to take Ruckus to the shelter in the morning. I’d given the boy as much opportunity to do the right thing as my conscience would allow.As I walked away, I saw a pickup truck pull into the neighbor’s driveway. I thought they might have seen me returning from their yard, so I went over to explain.“I cared for him…”A man jumped out of the pickup who looked like the boy. Although he was older than the boy, to my perception, he seemed just as much a child. But there’s a difference between a man and a boy. This man was thicker, and more in control of himself. Still, I had the impression that he was dressed up for a night of dancing.We have too many boys who insist on remaining boys well into manhood.“I was just checking in on Ruckus,” I said. “I wanted to make sure that he had water.”I started feeling kind of emotional, the way you feel at a funeral. I decided not to speak anymore. Would he be angry? Was he about to start yelling me for “messing” with his dog?That which was left unspokenThe man wasn’t angry. Instead, he looked both agitated and relieved. He put his hands together as if in prayer and said, “I’m so sorry, thank you so much.”Energy crackled in the air. I found that I didn’t want to know the whole of what was going on, but the possibilities ran through my mind. Our conversation was short, but revealing.“He slipped his collar yesterday, I gathered him up,” I said.“Thank you, thank you,” the man replied. He tripped over his own words. Had he feared that he’d come only to find the dog was gone or dead?“He’s a good boy,” I said. I managed to say it without allowing my voice to crack. “He’s a very good dog.”“Yes. He is, he is a good dog,” the man said. “All he needs is a little more attention.”I nodded my agreement and I decided that was enough of the conversation. I went back into my house.For the love of a dogThroughout our talk, Ruckus was there. It was clear he recognized the man. He was barking, his tail was wagging, he was as excited and happy as I’d ever seen him.I still had concerns.I went inside and told my wife that somebody had finally come for Ruckus. My wife went upstairs and I set about getting ready for bed.When I came upstairs, I found my daughter embracing my wife, tears streaming down her face.“Didn’t I tell you?” my wife said. “Didn’t I tell you what happens when you feed a dog and pet it every day and call it by name?”My daughter nodded, but she kept crying.Sharing a sense of loss togetherLater on, my little girl felt better and I was able to hug her and talk to her too. “We don’t know that Ruckus won’t be coming back,” I said. “The important thing is that he was gathered up by somebody who loves him. He was gathered up by somebody who came looking for him, who was worried about him.”I knew what she felt. I wished we could keep him too. I’d love for him to live with us and always have a warm place to sleep and plenty of food and water and pats and love.But the dog belonged to the boy, and the boy didn’t have his life in order. I feared too for the woman and the baby who was stuck with the anchor of a boy who refused to become a man.I cuddled up with my daughter and shared her sadness. I tried to hope for the best.I won’t know how the story endsA few months ago, the boy told me that he didn’t have a chance to renew his lease.“I wanted to,” he said, “but I didn’t get back to the landlord in time.”“When are you moving out?”“May 31st.”“Well, let me know if you need help carrying boxes. You should come over for a grill before then.”His face lit up at the invitation. My thought was to talk to him, and maybe take the time to explain a few things. A moment like that can make all the difference. But I haven’t seen him since.Even though the odds are against them, I’ve decided to believe that it will all work out. I imagine the boy and the girl will patch things up. I imagine they find joy in raising their baby. I imagine Ruckus and Luna running in a big yard wearing smiles of contentment larger than their faces.It pleases me to think that the story has a happy ending. If the truth turns out to be something else, then I’d rather not know.Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offI'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe

Hello Everyone!This is the second time I’ve had the privilege of talking with Dr. Melissa Bird. She joined me, Margaret Williams, MS, ACC and Nick Paro to discuss her recent congressional campaign. Although she didn’t win her primary, she earned over 20% (and counting) of the vote.That 20+% represents a huge amount of power. Those are people who trust Dr. Bird and who will listen to her endorsement. Therefore, it behooves the nominee to listen to what they expect of their representative.It’s also something to build on. Dr. Bird did this with no media support other than from podcasts like mine. Although I’m sad that she didn’t win the nomination, it’s important to recognize how much we did accomplish. There are always more elections, and I know that Nick, Margaret, and I will do everything we can to elevate the platforms of compassionate and courageous people like Dr. Bird!Also, Dr. Bird recommended the following book (not an Amazon link):The Rediscovery of AmericaWe’ll be talking again! People like Dr. Bird give me hope for the future!Thank you Jason Odell, A. Eevie Bateman, Beth Cruz, Dr. Eric Lullove, LeftieProf, and many others for tuning into my live video with Margaret Williams, MS, ACC and Nick Paro! Join me for my next live video in the app.Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offI'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe

Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offDeidre Keller is another one of the awesome people on Substack who is out of my pay grade 🤣. She teaches lawyers for a living! How about that? But like me, she’s ready to do something about the fact that Americans are groomed to become the docile enablers of her own oppression. Stick around this talk to the end, Deidre’s summary is fantastic!Thank you The Rebel Crone (Shālah), Ms.Yuse, Jolie, NeuroDivergent Hodgepodge, Bluesin’ Bob, and many others for tuning into my live video with Deidre Keller! Join me for my next live video in the app.Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offI'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe

Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offOf all the awful teachers I had to deal with in high school, among the most awful of them all was Jerry Puffball.We called him Jerry. We let his name roll off our tongue like we were spitting out a cockroach.“What class do you have next hour?”“Jerry.”“Did you do the homework for Jerry?”“Nah, Jerry can do his own homework.”He looked like the kind of person who might pull off his human mask to reveal the lizard face beneath. He kind of rolled when he walked, like he was riding a stationary bicycle instead of standing upright. He didn’t know what to do with his arms. They were set at a weird angle like the plastic action figures we used to play with. Also, his head constantly rotated as he moved around, but his eyes went in the opposite direction sort of like the liquid metal assassin in Terminator 2.He never smiled. He had tight lips like a frog and a long forked tongue that used to dart out to keep his eye moist.Jerry. How we hated Jerry.When he lectured, he used to sprinkle his words with pregnant pauses as if he were trying to emphasize the momentousness of every syllable. That only worked if you were a fool. The rest of us knew he’d developed this speaking tick to give himself time to think of something to say. He gave that away by the fact that his eyes always went up and to the right.Then he’d lick them with his forked tongue and make a weird shudder with his neck muscles like he’d just swallowed a gerbil whole.The comical thing was that my dad hated him too. I had a hard time with my dad, so anything that irritated my dad left me feeling a little conflicted, especially when it was somebody I hated as much as Jerry Puffball.For some reason, my dad had to go and watch him give a speech somewhere. I don’t know how that happened because my dad didn’t like to be involved in anything related to me or the school. There was one time I called him to come and pick me up from somewhere and he refused, so I had to hitchhike home on the interstate.But he went and saw Jerry Puffball speak. When he came home, he did nothing but rage about it.“Who was that blithering idiot? He spoke for ten hours and said absolutely nothing. Then he wandered around the stage like a half clubbed penguin too punch drunk to escape. What a colossal waste of my time.”“He’s the guy who gave me a C in computer programming.”“Well...” then my dad’s brain fizzled out because he loved to punish me, but that would mean having to admit Jerry Puffball was right about something. Since he’d declared him loathsome, he couldn’t contradict me, so he just started grumbling incoherently.But though he hadn’t fooled my dad, Jerry Puffball had fooled the school board. They were dazzled by the fact that he had a Master’s Degree, or at least he said he did. They didn’t see too many Master’s Degrees up in our town of two thousand angry, unemployed loggers.Also, Jerry was all into computers. The members of the school board knew that computers were the future. They were all excited about computers.Jerry had a program called Virtus Walkthrough. You could use it to design architecture. It looked like a poorly rendered version of Castle Wolfenstein, but the school board ate it up and sent Jerry all the money he could spend.He spent it on a batting machine because the only thing that connected him to humanity was his love of baseball. I had friends who had the misfortune of being coached by Puffball. There, as with any lecture he gave, it was clear that Jerry didn’t prepare his remarks in advance.“He told us to move our hands really fast when we run,” Jeff said. Then he paused for effect and looked up and to the right and tried to lick his own eyeball in mockery of Jerry.I laughed.Jeff started frantically swinging his arms. “Faster! Move those arms faster! Also, clench your butt hole!”“What?”Jeff looked at me. “That’s what he said. He said we had to clench our butt holes when we run.”“Isn’t it always clenched?”“He told us to clench it harder.”Then Jeff started to run down the hallway, his arms pumping furiously, his butt hole clenched, his tongue darting out to slither up his cheek.I laughed so hard I couldn’t breathe. “Stop, stop!”But Jeff just went back and forth, staring vaguely forward, his eyes scanning the lockers like Jerry or the liquid metal killer from Terminator 2.The whole baseball team is going to look like a bunch of half clubbed penguins.And they did, and they lost. It didn’t matter that the school board gave them the money for an expensive batting machine. But that didn’t sour them on Jerry. Maybe he’d managed to plant some sort of reptilian seed in their frontal cortex with a lizard like proboscis. I wouldn’t put it past him.Within a few weeks of the first course I had with Jerry, he flipped out because somebody stole the batteries out of the remote control. He slithered up to the front of the room and presented us with an ultimatum. “Those batteries better be returned or there will be consequences.”Another kid, Josh, decided to take matters into his own hands. “I’ll just buy some batteries.”“No man!” I said. “Screw that! We didn’t take the batteries. Call his bluff.”“Nah.”“I’m serious dude, screw that guy. What’s he going to do, he’s got no evidence.”Teachers telling us that we’d be subjected to some horrific punishment was something I gave up believing back in grade school. Never confess! That’s the first thing you learn when you’re subjected to unspeakable torture every day. Confession is a false promise. Once you confess, you get it worse!But Josh must have been from some soft, kind and loving family. He presented the batteries and Jerry was all smug and satisfied about it. “They weren’t the original batteries that were taken,” he said, “but they will suffice.”I really wish we’d seen him flip the hell out when his empty bluster of a threat was ignored, but oh well. I got him in the end.The jerk did give me a C in computer science, but he taught me one thing. He taught me that in order to learn from a class where Jerry was the teacher, I’d have to teach myself from the book.I wrote a program that created an endless loop and burned out a computer.That’s supposed to be impossible. Jerry said so and he had a master’s degree in computers according to the school board.“It’s a fail safe,” he said with eyes that were too wet and which failed to focus on anyone in the room. “You can’t do it. Computers are smarter than us.”Well, I didn’t try, but I did it anyway. It was a consequence of not realizing that Jerry would never bother to teach us anything. The computer sat there sparking and smoking. “Look, it’s the fourth of July!” I said.Jerry wasn’t amused.That was the end of my junior year. I would be stuck with Jerry as my teacher for Calculus as a senior.I remember the principal coming in at the end of Computer Science and saying, “Every student in this room is also taking Calculus.”When he said that, I kind of winced because I knew Jerry hated me and I sort of expected him to show it. But he just stared at the waste paper basket and nodded distantly. “Good,” he said as if he’d just been served a plate of recently killed ferrets for dinner.When calculus rolled around, I told everybody what we were in for. “This guy won’t teach us jack squat. He won’t be prepared. We have to learn ourselves from the book.”“Yeah, whatever,” everybody said. They hadn’t dealt with Jerry before, so I couldn’t really blame them for not believing me. Plus, it’s a big pain in the ass to try and teach yourself calculus from a book. But I did it. Once you figure out how, it’s not so hard. The book had the cover of a violin on the front because the hole in the violin looked like the symbol for an integral. Math people are a hoot.Predictably, everybody in the class struggled but Grady. Grady’s success was nothing Jerry could take credit for. He’s a damn math savant. I didn’t realize that until I got to be 50 and I realized I’ve never met anyone in the world who could just glide through calculus like he was going through a slide at the water park. Grady was the kind of guy who would buy a graphing calculator for fun and then sit around programming it to do astonishing things. We got along well because 90 percent of the time Grady knew everything from pure intuition, but the other 10 percent of the time I could fill in the gaps because I’d read the book.Whenever I explained something to Grady, he just laughed as if he was foolish for not having realized that before. He gave me too much respect for my contributions. I didn’t know what I was talking about, I was quoting the book.On the tests, I got better grades even than Grady because Grady just didn’t care. He knew math backwards and forwards and Jerry’s little tests didn’t matter to him. I think Jerry didn’t like that I was the best Calculus student because the wreckage of his burned out computer still sat against the back wall.I put up with it for most of the year, but Jerry really started to piss me off. At the end of the first semester, he gave us a bizarre question. “If a six foot tall man is walking past a light pole at 5 miles per hour, what’s the rate at which his shadow grows as he passes?”You get all these b******t questions in calculus. There’s one scenario called Gabriel’s horn. It’s a horn that has infinite surface area but finite volume. Math people think that’s just hysterical. The rest of us are like, “Whatever, we just want to get out of this classroom.” Grady didn’t even bother to listen to that lecture, he’d deduced the existence of that and stranger objects in second grade.So, I diligently did Jerry’s ridiculous problem and handed it in. Jerry marked my answer wrong. He marked everybody’s answer wrong and laughed at us for how simple our responses were.“Okay then,” we said. “How do you do it?”He was one of those teachers who used an overhead projector, but he always kind of mounted it with one leg like a freak of nature. He liked to wear these absurdly tight pants and gray leather shoes so he could grind up against the projector as a form of dominating us I guess.So, he grabbed his marker and bit off the cap like it was a wriggling amphibian. Then he started doing the problem. He got about two seconds in when it was clear he didn’t know what he was doing. I think he realized he was supposed to have written that the man was walking away from the light pole, but he had him passing it, so that made the math way more complicated because instead of a lengthening shadow you have a curving shadow.Math always gets more complicated when there are curves.Anyway, Jerry worked on it for a while and he gnawed on the marker cap. Then he froze and just stood there for like fifteen minutes. The only thing that moved was the fan at the back of the projector that spun in desperation as if it were signaling for help.Grady just sat there silently laughing. He always knew when the math joke was on the teacher and he appreciated it more than anyone.The bell rang.“Okay, we’ll get back to this next time,” Jerry said. But we never did. He never told us how to solve it, and he never admitted that he was wrong.Jerk.But I got him eventually.About three quarters of the way through the year, we had another of Jerry’s dreaded tests. The previous test, he’d given us bright yellow scratch paper.Jonathan, another student, the salutatorian in fact, had requested a different color. “That yellow kind of freaked me out, can it be another color?”Jerry laughed at that, he liked learning of new ways that he’d managed to torment us. “Studies have been done,” he said, looking up and to the right to make up whatever b******t he was about to spew, “that the color of the scratch paper changes how you think.”Whatever.He got done handing out the scratch paper which was blue. Then he started handing out the test.“I expect you’ll find this test easy. I completed it myself just before class.”“Well, how long did it take you to do?” Jonathan asked.Jerry, in his typical smug and superior voice, still only making eye contact with things like the table legs and the ceiling tiles instead of real human beings, uttered, “It took me approximately nine minutes to do.”For some reason that pissed me off and I decided I couldn’t let that kind of self satisfied bragging go uncontested.“Well,” I said, using my unabashed booming voice that’s capable of drowning out national anthems at sporting events, “how many did you get right?”Every muscle in Jerry’s body puckered up so tight I think he ruptured his butt hole. Jonathan’s eyes got wide in that look that says, “That’s really funny, in fact that’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard, but I think there will be consequences for saying that.”All the other students went silent because they’d been conditioned by abuse never to laugh at an enraged authoritarian.Everyone that is except for Grady. Grady hadn’t got the memo.Not only did Grady begin roaring with laughter, he threw himself down on the table and started smacking it with his hand. He laughed until he cried. Grady didn’t care. He knew math better than everyone except for maybe six people living in the world.Jerry finished handing out the tests in silence, then he went to sulk in the moist, hollowed out log he’d set up in the corner of the room. He flicked on a heat lamp and waited for us to be done.I did fine on the test, everyone else failed.“You guys gotta read the calculus book, Jerry won’t teach us squat.”On the final exam of the year, Jerry gave us the same question about the man passing the light post that he couldn’t figure out before.I copied the same answer I gave the first time. Screw Jerry. If he was going to rehash his failures of the past, then I’d make him acknowledge my successes.How many did you get right, Jerry?How many?Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offI'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe

Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offI'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe

Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% off 💙 80% offI finally got to debate Ben and Peter about the Odyssey. It was a friendly debate and it actually helped me appreciate the film even more. Peter’s got some funny stuff coming up, including a return of his “Peter and Phil” show. Be sure to check that out!Thank you Victoria, Susan, Adam, and many others for tuning into my live video with Ben Ulansey and Peter W. Murphy 🧭! Join me for my next live video in the app.Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% off 💙 80% offI'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe

Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offI'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe

Aw, it’s been a while since I talked to the Mouthy Renegade Writer. We go back a long way at this point. I used to write for his publication on Medium. When Medium’s Boost program came along, I was one of the first people to apply. Then I got to know the person in charge of the program and recommended Mouthy (and a ton of others) to become Boost editors. We’ve discussed the strategy of writing a lot over the years and he’s always been super supportive.Eevie set this up and you all know how much I rely on Eevie! She’s been a force doing candidate interviews. Even though she called me the “fiercest fascism fighter,” I think that’s a title I share with her and many others (Mouthy too).This was supposed to be a wind down session, but we got a little political again. Still it was a lot of fun. Our mission was to laugh a lot: mission accomplished! I hope we get to do this again soon!Thank you Cat: Poli-Psych, LeftieProf, Billy Bumbo, Nick G, A Dude On The Couch, Under the Golden Boot, and many others for tuning into my live video with The Mouthy Renegade Writer and A. Eevie Bateman! Join me for my next live video in the app.Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offI'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe

It’s always my privilege to talk with Natasha K., Robert Danna and Laci Loew. You can follow them here:Thank you A. Eevie Bateman, LeftieProf, Stuart Cohen, Erin Bishop, Janet Hill, and many others for tuning into my live video with Natasha K. and Robert Danna! Join me for my next live video in the app.Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offI'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe

This was a fun talk with Mark of SwampWatch.org. SwampWatch is a independent resource/news site that keeps track both of corruption and how to fix it. I particularly appreciate the actionable takeaways. We can’t just rely on clickbait media that erodes our mental health. We need to get orgnazied and take action.You can also check out SwampWatch on Substack here:Thank you Amy Gabrielle, Cryn Johannsen, LeftieProf, Mandy Ohman, Ms.Yuse, and many others for tuning into my live video with SwampWatch! Join me for my next live video in the app.Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offI'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe

Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offI’ll vote for David Crowley, but I don’t know who he is. Yes, I understand that Tom Tiffany is a loathsome MAGA who has been working really hard to cover up for child rapists for the last year. He needs to be defeated, but until the end of my days I’ll insist that the best person to defeat him was Francesca Hong.Why do I think that?Because while David Crowley was dropping out of the campaign because of a lack of support, Francesca Hong was building a grassroots movement like nothing I’ve ever seen. She was out there talking to people. She came to talk to me twice. She was listening to our concerns. Then, she took our concerns onto the national stage.She showed us how to fight back against MAGA and she was winning. Unfortunately, like so many others, she never earned the support of the DNC.Francesca Hong is and remains a fighter. When you’re up against a criminal regime that’s busy building concentration camps and arming domestic abusers who are cosplaying as law enforcement, you need somebody willing to fight for the people.But on Tuesday, August 11th, Hong lost the gubernatorial race by around 3,000 votes even though she was polling with a double digit lead.What happened?To put it simply, the rich, out-of-touch, consultant class of the DNC stepped in. These were a bunch of jerks who spent the whole campaign cycle floating around in their swimming pools within their gated communities. One day one of them happened to wander into the kitchen where he turned on the television and saw Fox news spewing lies and propaganda about the people’s choice to govern. As smart as these consultants think they are, it never occurs to them that Republicans save their fiercest attacks for the candidates they fear the most. Why do DNC consultants listen to the right wing more than their own base? Why do they always take the lies of the right at face value?Anyway, armed with a spreadsheet and his rich privilege, the consultant roused his buddies, got a couple suitcases full of money from daddy, and showed up at the networks. The next thing you know, everyone in the state of Wisconsin was subjected to a run of cheap-shot, MAGA style, fearmongering ads that began with, “Tiffany needs to be defeated, but Hong isn’t the right choice.”The result was the narrowest of wins with the majority of the people choosing between “Hong” and “Not-Hong.”“Not-Hong” won, but what is it? What’s the identity? I knew who Hong was and she aligned with my values. The DNC has replaced a vision with a mystery and that’s dangerous.Today, all the consultants are sitting around patting each other on the back, because they believed the right wing lies that were based on absolute terror over the fact that Hong had created such a powerful movement. What truly breaks my heart is that the consultants managed to suck all the air out of the state. We’ve gone from having a candidate that inspired some genuine enthusiasm with an army of supporters, to having to do internet searches for “Who is David Crowley?”Do the consultants even know?I was chatting about this today with Anthony Christian. What’s got me concerned is that this is what the “we’re smarter than you so be quiet” DNC consultant class always does. Rather than take two seconds to recognize that Francesca Hong was leading because she was onto something, they took a look at some spreadsheets about a week before the campaign ended and decided she must be defeated at all costs.Crawley didn’t win because he was going from county to county generating support. He’d pulled out once already. Some establishment power decided to “anoint” him and that’s frustrating.Now comes the second wave of attacks where anyone who criticizes these events is set upon by a horde of keyboard warrior flying monkeys. The DNC has to earn the votes of Hong supporters. It’s as simple as that. Just say nice things about her. Stop following the MAGA playbook. We’re sick and tired of it.Read the room.The problem is that these consultants never calculate the cost of their dishonest tactics. If they’d run a fair campaign and did what Francesca did, I’d be all for it. If they had boots on the ground and an army of millions of enthusiastic volunteers, I’d say, “Okay, that is a candidate who has a chance of winning.”But when they just swoop in at the last minute and sink the popular nominee with a bunch of lies and fearmongering, it deeply hurts our chances.The simple fact is that the reason we were enthusiastic about Hong wasn’t because of her in particular, it was because of what she stood for. She wasn’t b**********g us. She was listening to the people and voicing our concerns. We need that!As we look around the smoking ruin of this nation, it’s clear that we have to make some major changes. We have to change our culture and get to a place where rapists and con artists aren’t constantly elevated to the highest offices in the land. We’re sick of seeing all our taxpayer dollars stolen to finance genocide and child rape.All that’s done because the general public has been brainwashed into accepting an abuse culture over the common sense notion that public funds should be spent on public good.That’s what we need people to say. But when the Democratic establishment looks up from their sudoku in their mansion to reply, “but they’ll call us communists,” then we all feel pretty betrayed.What we need are leaders who have the courage to defend the rights of all people to have their viewpoint respected. We’re sick and tired of the lawless right being seen as the default ideology.As I said before, I am disgusted by Tom Tiffany and I will absolutely vote for David Crowley. But I’m just one vote. There are other voters that need to be convinced, and the simple fact is that the entitled consultants have really irritated a lot of people. The best thing they could do right now is show a bit of respect to Francesca. I’d love to see her on the campaign trail every day. I’d love to talk to her again. I’d love to see her on the national media fighting for us.We need that voice!What we don’t need is yet another milquetoast politician lecturing us about the need for “bipartisanship.” Read the room buddy, the right is literally out there murdering us.I’m going to continue to advocate for common sense policies like funding public schools and ensuring we have access to healthcare. I want to see lawless men who abused their office held accountable. If you want to call me radical, I hope you have the courage to insult me to my face.But we don’t ever actually get to see these consultants do we? It’s so frustrating when you see a person of courage doing the actual work, only to have her rightful prize stolen at the last second and given to the choice of nepo babies. David Crawley might be a good guy, but he didn’t put in the campaign work like Francesca did. If he loses, that’s on the establishment—but they never seem to practice much accountability.We’ve seen this happen again and again. We gave the establishment all the power they needed in 2020 to save us from this, and they didn’t even try. They had the authority to lock up this corrupt, criminal regime. Instead, children are getting raped in concentration camps, and schools are getting bombed abroad.The entitlement class has blood on its hands. That’s the whole reason why a popular candidate who has actually had to work for a living could come within a percentage point of winning the nomination.If David Crawley loses, the consultants will be to blame. They’re the ones who ran the MAGA style hate ads that insulted and divided the voter base. They’re the ones that don’t think they ever have to apologize. Even if they do pull out the win, it’s not enough to elevate somebody who “isn’t MAGA.”We need a person of integrity willing to fight for our children. If David Crawley is that person, then he needs to prove it like Francesca Hong did. That will be the strategy that gives him the best chance of defeating Tiffany. I’m just terrified the consultant class is too insulated, out-of-touch, and entitled to recognize it.Democrats need to respect and embrace the movement Francesca Hong started. If they’re embarrassed by it, they should join the other party.Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offI'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe

Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offI'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe

Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offI always appreciate these talks with LC! This is a challenging topic, but these are the conversations we need to have if we’re going to prevent the exploitation of decent and innocent people. We can no longer afford to be passive.Thank you Ben Ulansey, Ashleigh Alauren, PJ Schuster, Acejonesz, Dar 🇨🇦, and many others for tuning into my live video with LC - Silence is Complicity! Join me for my next live video in the app.Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offI'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe

Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offI noticed the problem on the way to the airport. My eye felt itchy. Every time I looked at something bright, it was like I was looking through Vaseline. I saw the world through a soft focus lens. That’s great for a Christmas card, but it’s not ideal when you’re trying to avoid trucks on the highway.Fortunately I have two eyes. I closed one and drove with the other.We were on our way to visit my wife’s mother. She’s a nurse. I mentioned my eye.“It’s tired out,” she said. “That’s because of too much screen time. You’re not twenty anymore.” Then she ran and got me some eye drops. “Three times a day put in two drops, you’ll feel better.”I started following her recommendation. I woke up in the morning, put in the eye drops and noticed that my vision improved. I went downstairs. I got my coffee. I sat down on the sofa and picked up my smartphone for some comfort scrolling.Instantly it was as if somebody stabbed me in the eye.“Arghhh!” I cried.“What?” My wife said.“Looking at this phone makes my eye hurt again.”My wife gave me her best look of unamused authority. “Then stop looking at the phone, genius.”I put the phone down. Almost instantly my eye felt better. Of course it felt better! What have we been doing to ourselves? We spend all day every day staring at light sources. They might not be as bright as the sun, but we stare at them incessantly. We turn off our screens and shut our eyes and in the mornings our fingers twitch to hold our little comfort devices once again.What’s wrong with us?For the last two years, I’ve been hunkering down at home. The GOP has made the country unsafe. You can’t drive around your state anymore out of fear that you might get pulled over and shot by some domestic abuser cosplaying as a law enforcement agent.The first thing I noticed when I returned to a big city was how everyone has become captured by their devices. In the old days, people hid their cell phones in Lima, Peru. You didn’t want them to get stolen. Today, people are walking right into traffic. The same is true in Minneapolis and Chicago. When you take your seat on the airplane, it’s next to some zombie who is engrossed by the tiny screen.We used to stare at books. That was better for us because at least the page was wide enough that your eyes didn’t have to cross in order to read. Why is everything vertical display? If it was horizontal display, we wouldn’t all be going blind.But nobody reads horizontally because it’s uncomfortable to hold the phone sideways. The discomfort of a sore wrist is now, blindness is a concern for the future.Blindness!“But I have to work,” I protested to my wife.She pointed at my computer.I tried it. The image is bigger so you don’t have to strain. The screen is wider so you don’t have to go cross-eyed. There are fewer apps so you don’t get caught scrolling.Imagine giving up all your days watching sunsets and your grandchildren playing because you burned out your eyes on an endless zombie scroll.The screen is still bright on a computer, but I switched to dark mode. Instead of a beacon of bright white light, I looked upon text resembling a star field. I felt better.“This works.”“Great, now do it at home.”There’s nothing like physical pain to compel you to give up a bad habit. The days went by. I’m not saying I’m perfect. I’m not saying it’s easy. But every day I cut a few more minutes off my total screen time.For the last three days, I haven’t held my smartphone at all. I realized I don’t need it. My eyes need the break. The best part is that when you give the phone up, you can give up your data plan. You can stop being dependent on notifications.“Ding! Ding!”Aren’t you tired of hearing that noise? Aren’t you tired of jumping up from the task you were doing or the book you were reading or the conversation you were having?Aren’t you tired of finally getting some time together with your family only to have all of them sit around plugged into an independent device? We used to watch movies, link up, and experience the same thing together.Now, everybody watches all alone, and they feel lonely. They’re also going blind.Get a portable alarm for your bed. You don’t want that smartphone in there anyway. You can’t turn them off. You can’t take the battery out. They’re always recording. Do you want naked pictures of yourself all over the internet?For navigation, use a map. For photos, use a camera. For payments, use a credit card. It’s not inconvenient.Do you know what is inconvenient? Going blind!It’s been a month since I first noticed something wrong with my vision. I’ve been diligently putting in the eye drops. I’ve cut down on my screen time. I have a few appointments scheduled with the optometrist and doctor. But I already feel better.Giving up my smartphone improved my vision, but it also improved my sense of wellbeing. Those devices aren’t helping us. Those devices are toxic. They control us. They make us stressed out. They make us go blind. They’re too expensive.Switch to a flip phone and regain your freedom. Preserve your eyes for the sunrise. You’ll thank me someday.Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offI'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe

Narcissism affects our personal lives, our families, and our government. Andra and I try to provide some advice on how to get through it.Thank you A. Eevie Bateman, Jason Gael, PJ Schuster, Ana warner, KarenC-Book Collector📚⚖️🗽🗳️🧿♒️, and many others for tuning into my live video with Andra Watkins! Join me for my next live video in the app.Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offI'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe

Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offThere are so many people out there who are so convinced of their superiority that it would take an act of God to make them see otherwise. Even then, they’ll probably embrace denial.I’ve talked to so many rich people who are so out of touch you wonder what keeps them tethered to the earth. These are individuals who never have to worry about their car breaking down. If something bad happens to them, they just start screaming at their chauffer.The only thing they care about is their own personal comfort. They’ve always lorded money and power over other human beings, and they’ve grown complacent in seeing their servants as less than human.But what happens when the floor drops away from beneath their feet? What happens when both the billionaire and the janitor find themselves in freefall with the ground rapidly approaching?They’re equal then.Actually, that’s not true. The janitor is far more important. The janitor knows how to sanitize a public area. He knows how to work with his hands. He knows how to overcome problems.The only thing the billionaire knows is how to threaten the people who work for him. When the illusion of power and money that has propped him up his whole life is gone, what purpose does he serve?What purpose?But this doesn’t just apply to billionaires. A lot of people are about to find out they’re not nearly as special as the world has always told them they are.I’m talking about the loser writers who got six figure deals on the strength of an AI generated manuscript. They’ve gone soft living in a gated community laughing at hardworking men and women who have taken the time to practice their craft.“Suckers!” they say. “Losers.”They know they can crank out some garbage on the weekend and have it propped up by an advertising campaign no real human being can overcome.But what happens when the money’s gone? What happens when the corrupt mechanism that lifts up this meritless population collapses under its own weight?If you look around modern society, it’s become obvious that everything is false. Malicious entities own the media. Malicious entities prevent decent people from getting ahead.There’s not enough money to pay the rent as it is, and the powers that hide themselves in shadows are doing everything they can to squeeze us of even more.Turning the dial to pain is the only thing they know how to do. They do it and laugh and point. They’re secure in the belief that they’ll never be held accountable. They believe that because they’ve never experienced it. They’ve seen rich and entitled monsters traffic, rape, and murder children and nothing’s ever happened.So, they’ve grown drunk on their own power.They’ve forgotten that power is an illusion and that we are all mortal. Whatever delusions people harbor about “superiority,” are going to leave them high and dry.If you commit yourself to an ideology of lies, you will fail eventually. You might have a brief moment of stolen luxury, but sooner or later the bill comes due.It’s going to happen.It’s going to happen soon.The simple fact is that a culture that’s built on cruelty is not sustainable. The USA has only managed to exist this long because we’ve had brief moments of progressive action that led to mutual prosperity. We keep riding the wave. The progressives lift us up and the conservatives drag us back down.They’ve dragged us too low this time. Their lie has been exposed. The whole thing is coming down.It’s the nature of evil that it eventually eats its own. There are people who watch and think, “Well, if everyone else is corrupt, why not me?”Then there are others that resist. There are others that stand for compassion and decency. There are others who are abused and laughed at and ignored and treated with scorn.That’s us.Despite all the hardships, we don’t capitulate. We meet the obstacles the nefarious men place. We develop our talents. We educate. We keep receipts.The con artists and the liars ride along on a wave that somebody else had to labor to create. That wave is losing its steam. It will drop. The forward motion of the criminals will stop, and we’ll rebuild.We, the workers.We, the people of merit.We, the meek.We’ll inherit the earth.It’s inevitable. It’s going to happen. When it does, all those men and women with their luxury cars and clothing and superior attitudes will find themselves standing shoulder to shoulder with the rest of us. From habit, they’ll feel a compulsion to demand, “Labor for me! Do things for me! I insist that I’m entitled to my accustomed leisure and luxury!”The rest of us will say, “No.”And the look on their face will be something to see.We are on the precipice of a grand moment of accountability. I give you permission to enjoy it. The fate of the human race is about to be seized by people of integrity.It’s been too long coming. Judgment day is approaching. That’s a certainty.The power of the government is derived by the consent of the governed.We revoke our consent.Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offI'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe

This was a great talk with Deuce Davis! He likes to “reality check” a lot of conservative publications and I think that’s critical work. I absolutely loved this conversation and I look forward to talking with him again. You can find him here:Thank you Evan Stern, A. Eevie Bateman, Skutt Hope, Stuart Cohen, Ms.Yuse, and many others for tuning into my live video with Deuce Davis! Join me for my next live video in the app.Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offI'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe

Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offIt’s always a pleasure to sit down with my friends Will Fullwood and Frederic Poag. For the last two years we’ve all been extra motivated to brainstorm the strategy that will lead us to a better future. It feels like we made some progress in this talk. I hope you enjoy it!Thank you A. Eevie Bateman, Cat: Poli-Psych, Jason Gael, Mandy Ohman, PJ Schuster, and many others for tuning into my live video with Will Fullwood and Frederic Poag! Join me for my next live video in the app.Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offI'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe

Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offWith the deranged right, every accusation is a confession. So, when they run around labeling everyone as a “communist” it’s because they’re confessing that they are the actual communists.Yes, American politics has become a never ending refrain of “I know you are but what am I?” It’s infantile, but here we are.Take the always odious and uninformative Fox news. It’s a communist propaganda station that eats, breathes and defecates communism. They use public air waves and public infrastructure and probably public subsidies to spew lies about how they work hard and everyone else is a “cheat” somehow.They recently called me a “socialist” in a hit piece even as they took my content and didn’t pay me. If they’re so into “capitalism” where is my check? It kind of seems to me that the only thing that Fox news stands for is self-righteous indignation and theft.I’m getting so sick of these right wing authoritarian communists that are nothing but parasitic attachments that live off the labor of the working class. That’s the whole damn Republican party. They all have state funded healthcare, but they scream and rage and do everything they can to prevent people who actually work from getting it.They’re WORTHLESS! They’re CORRUPT! They’re FRAUDS!Republican states literally cannot survive without blue state money. That’s because Republicans try to solve every problem with “thoughts and prayers.”Oh, the toilet is backed up? Thoughts and prayers!Oh, the infrastructure is breaking down? Thoughts and prayers!Oh, it hasn’t rained for three months and all the plants are dying? Thoughts and prayers!They’re really, really good at thoughts and prayers. The problem is that thoughts and prayers don’t do a god damned thing.You know what does do some good? Hard work! But communist parasitic Republicans are allergic to hard work. If you mention it, they accuse you of “attacking” them. They live in this perpetual grievance culture where they scream and yell complaints even though they never so much as raise a finger to help anyone at anything.How did they manage to get to power everywhere? Well, when you don’t have the integrity to actually put in a hard day’s work, and if you are completely without shame, you are basically handed a leadership position just like a former robber baron can hand his worthless kid the presidency. A lot of legacy fortunes were made from theft and prostitution rings, and a lot of the entitled dregs of humanity that inherited those fortunes are sitting in office.Lying, cheating, and stealing always works great in America. This is a nation that was built on genocide and slavery. The communist Republicans love it. They can spend all day committing crimes, and then blaming others for their transgressions.The public eats it up because Republicans own all the media distribution mechanisms. That’s what happens when you lie, cheat, steal, and murder your way into power.We’ve been putting up with this crap our whole lives. I’m fifty! That’s half a century of Republican communism b******t. They steal my labor. They steal my intellectual property. They refuse to pay me and they insult me to boot.Their fundamental trick is to get us on the defensive. They say, “You’re a communist!” What they want us to say is, “No I’m not.”Don’t do that.Never get defensive with lying, cheating, stealing, communist Republicans. They want us to squirm. Never squirm for them. Instead, remember the lessons you learned in grade school.“I’m rubber, you’re glue, whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you.”Or just call them a communist all the time. “Communist. Communist. Communist!” It’s hilarious. When you use their own confessions in the form of an accusation against them they get all confused. They turn their heads to the side like a dog.“Wait… we’re the ones calling you a communist,” they say.But don’t let them finish. “Stop with that Republican communism talk again, you communist, communist, dictator, child-rape enabling communist!”Oh, by the way, remember how they were all mad about us calling them fascists a while ago? They literally spent every single day whining about getting called fascists even as they built concentration camps and set forth a masked gestapo to abduct, murder, and rape innocent people.Somehow their objection was the fact that we used the label that applied.What was the response of the do-nothing center? Did they prosecute the secret police and defund the concentration camps? No. They basically apologized and sent our oppressors even more money. When the government sends Republicans money do you know what I call it?I CALL IT COMMUNISM!Don’t ever retreat from them. Meet them head on.Today, the right is jumping all over the word “communist.” This after years of lecturing us to not use “inciting rhetoric.”The layers upon layers of hypocrisy are overwhelming, but that’s because you’re trying to make sense of it. Stop taking it at face value. You don’t defeat bullies with reason, you defeat them with volume.If they call us a communist, say, “No, you’re the communist.”Say the word over and over and over until it loses all meaning. Never defend yourself against an absurd accusation. Instead, just return the accusation. Treat them like they treat us, which is without any respect.Does that make us like them? No! Do you know why? It’s because they don’t DESERVE any respect. We do! That’s why we’re different. The communist right hasn’t EARNED respect. Also they don’t show anybody any respect. They want everything for free which is why they’re a bunch of communists!Our side stands for using public funds for public good. That’s common sense.The right stands for being a bunch of disrespectful, worthless parasites that take all of our money and use it to buy child trafficking islands.Do not defend yourself to them.Go on the attack. The right is awful and we’re under no obligation to keep funding their loathsome, lazy, and entitled ideology. Take the gloves off. The Republicans can’t even fight for themselves, that’s just one more thing they insist others have some obligation to do for them.I’ve had enough.Quit defending yourself to the People’s Republic of Child Rape Enabling Republicanistan. They call us “communists” to hide their own guilt. Make them carry their own water for a change. Enough is enough.Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offI'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe

Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offThis was a wonderful conversation with my friends The Feminist Lens and A. Eevie Bateman about the challenges women are facing because of the cruelty of the Republican, authoritarian movement. Throughout this talk, I referenced this conversation with Dr. Yamicia Connor. Please restack that if you can.Here is Dr. Connor’s research:* Using AI tools to evaluate our representatives* Graphics on the lack of adequate health care by state* Graphic on the rise of the maternal mortality rateAlso, make sure to subscribe to all three of these brilliant women.Thank you LeftieProf, Tig Manzueta, SOSalty Resists, Stuart Cohen, Ms.Yuse, and many others for tuning into my live video with The Feminist Lens and A. Eevie Bateman! Join me for my next live video in the app.Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offI'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe

Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offI'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe

Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offA man at the gym today started telling everyone about his unfaithful wife. We didn’t ask him to. He simply sauntered up to everyone who entered, greeted them, paused, and then launched into his whispered tirade.He didn’t approach me. I kept my distance. But I observed him and I didn’t like what I saw.He had the mannerisms of a child predator. I’m not accusing him of being a child predator. I’m just saying that there’s an essential part of me that screams an alarm when it sees certain signals. If I’d seen him coming down the street, I would have gently directed my children across the road.“My wife didn’t come home last night,” he said again and again. “In twenty-seven years, this is the first time. She slept in somebody else’s bed. No matter what happened, that’s a fact.”I realized that he kept retelling the story as much to convince himself as anyone else. Over and over he told it. I heard about how he’d caught her texting before she drove off to her AA meeting. I heard how she sent the kids a text that said, “Good night.”“Not I love you, nothing like that. Just good night!” he said this over and over as if it proved something.He told the story about how she got drunk and fell down the stairs. He told everyone about how she accused him of pushing her. He said that she told the cops that he pushed her. He said that when they took her into the hospital, she just kept saying over and over that he pushed her.He told this story to a man. He shook his head in solidarity.He told this story to a woman. She broke eye contact and went to grab some weights. She wasn’t rude, but she turned her back on him and excused herself from the situation. I watched, ready to intervene if he pursued.He didn’t.But then the next person came into the gym and he latched on again. “My wife didn’t come home last night. In twenty-seven years, this is the first time she hasn’t slept in my bed.”I’ve seen this guy in the gym before. His inflections are grating. When he says “right,” it’s like there’s a “w” at the front of the word, and the word “eye” in the middle. “I’m gonna teach her what’s right.”The word “right” drags on and lingers like a threat.He told us about the lawyer that he hired and how he has a restraining order set to be delivered in a few days. “She’s gonna come face to face with reality in a few days,” he said with a smug grin. He looked a bit like James Carville when he said it.He thinks he’s inevitable.This went on all throughout my workout. It didn’t escape my notice that this man belonged to a class of men that behaves this way. I can’t recall ever seeing a woman come into a public place and start telling every person in the room about how her husband didn’t come home the night before. This guy was talking like he was campaigning. It was deliberate that he kept repeating the same speech over and over just loud enough for everyone in the whole gym to hear.He wanted us to hear.I’ve never seen a woman do that.I call men like this the “whisper society.” Throughout my life, living in rural spaces, they’ve always been there. In rural towns, you have the appearance of rule of law, and elections, and participation in democracy, but everyone knows who really holds the power.In every town meeting, in every public event, there are two or three old guys who sit in a corner and observe and never say anything. When the meeting is over and the public has gone home, the mayor walks over, bows his head, and gets his orders. It’s not up for debate. The whisper society makes its decision and the elected officials do what they’re told.This guy in the gym was following that pattern. He was turning strangers into his flying monkeys. He was programming them so that they’d take his narrative and spread it to the winds.Men do this. Women don’t behave this way.I found myself thinking of the wife. If I was married to a guy like that, I’d probably start drinking too. Among his talking points, he was demanding full custody. These disgusting men are always like this. They demand full custody because they know it hurts.We live in a society where men don’t take their responsibilities seriously. That’s how we ended up with restrictions on reproductive healthcare. Men don’t bother to familiarize themselves with how women are sentenced to death by agony if doctors are prohibited from addressing complications due to pregnancy.The majority of men just don’t care. They’re never going to have an ectopic pregnancy, so they don’t even bother to recognize that such a thing exists. Most men don’t know that babies get fevers, or that they need their diapers changed, or that they need to be fed.The list goes on and on and women do it all. But then, after decades of being forced to carry every burden, when the time comes to get away, these same men know full well how to leverage all the injustices of our legal system.“I got myself a lawyer,” the man boasted. “I called and asked for a female lawyer.”Whenever a man uses the word “female,” it’s more than a red flag. It’s a flashing red light accompanied by a fire alarm.“I told this lawyer, ‘I need the mama bear. Will you be the mama bear for my kids?’”It was all a carefully constructed narrative. This guy wanted to present himself as the victim. He was a prisoner to the grievance ideology. He was speaking in a shouted whisper to everyone who came near as much to convince himself of his righteousness as anyone else.The people let him talk.I finished my workout. I was sorely tempted to approach him. “Sir, I overheard your situation. I have one question for you.”“Yes?”“Who did you vote for? Did you vote for Kamala? Did you vote for reproductive healthcare rights? Did you vote for child care? Did you vote for education?”But I didn’t have to ask. Even as I type those questions, I can see his face contort into rage. Men like that can approach you with a smile, but it doesn’t take long to see the true face beneath the mask.I wonder if there’s an age difference between the man and his wife. Was he thirty-five when he met her, and she was eighteen? Today, he’s spending his free time complaining to every stranger about how the life he was promised will never be his to claim. He’s telling everyone that his wife is to blame.I didn’t approach him. I just left. I knew the answers to all my questions.The wife wasn’t there. She didn’t speak one word. Yet, after listening to him, I find myself believing her.Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offI'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe

Your support makes this newsletter happen! If even these discounts are too expensive, but you want to be a sponsor, please reach out to me directly and I’ll send you a coupon!Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offHello Everyone!This interview is from January 28th, 2026. It feels almost like a lifetime ago! I’d come across an advertisement for Francesca Hong on social media and I sent out an email inviting her to come on for a chat. At the time, she was the outspoken candidate in a crowded field that the establishment said “didn’t have a chance.”As of right now, she’s the frontrunner!I remember this interview with such fondness. After it was over, I sat for a moment and thought, “I just interviewed the next Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez!” I was just delighted with the possibility that somebody like Fran could be our next governor. I even set up another interview along with Melissa Corrigan, she/her in an attempt to get some of the bigger platforms on Substack to pay attention.The bigger platforms didn’t really help, but that didn’t stop Fran. She’s been working tirelessly. She’s out knocking on doors and discussing the issues all the people know are the actual problems.Today, I woke up to the news that Abdul El-Sayed won the Senate primary in Michigan against an AIPAC funded candidate. Once again we see that big money is not enough to beat big integrity. The people are fed up with establishment lies. They want something different!It has been a joy to me to see Francesca Hong take off. The first thing I remember was the endorsement from Ro Khanna. Then came the appearance on Hassan Piker. From there, it’s just continued to build and build and build.Meanwhile, the DNC is out there trying to pull its typical b******t. We’ve seen candidates drop out of the race in an attempt to “consolidate” around some milquetoast moderate that refuses to stand for anything.All across our media and political spectrum we’ve seen Democrats who couldn’t be bothered to denounce the criminality of Republicans. Yet these corporate candidates always find their voice to attack common sense ideas like defunding genocide so we can help our communities and kids.The people have had enough.Over the last few weeks, I’ve sensed a major shift. The establishment is growing desperate. They thought they could sit back and allow this criminal regime to run roughshod over all of us, and that we’d have no choice but to turn to them in the midterms.But they forgot about the primaries!I’ve been working on this really hard for the last two years. There have been so many great candidates who have come forward to say, “Enough is enough!” There have been so many members of independent media that have done everything we can to platform these candidates. Remember, the corporate entities are not helping. Both in politics and in media, the people doing the real work are the ones working on a shoestring, grassroots budget.That’s Francesca Hong! She’s not taking big money. That means she has to work a hundred times as hard and she’s happy to do it because that’s how much integrity is WORTH to some people.It’s worth that much to me too!It’s hard to believe that the primary season is almost over. For two years, I’ve been saying that we can’t wait for the midterms. The fight is NOW! It does us no good to elevate the same representatives who failed to support us the last time we gave them power.Fortunately, the whole country is waking up to this. We’re seeing a wave of for-the-people candidates win big. Fran’s up next in the state of Wisconsin. You can check her web page out here:FrancescaHong.comAs always, I want to thank all of you for accompanying me on this journey. It’s often been terrifying. We’ve witnessed horrific abuses and corruption from our government since 2024. But the momentum is on our side. We’re getting wins. We have to celebrate those wins.It’s because of all of you. My publication isn’t the biggest publication in the world, but it doesn’t have to be. All of you gave a little bit of a boost to Francesca Hong and Melat Kiros and so many others. When Fran wins, perhaps we’ll see clips from this interview on Fox news again (I hope they pay me this time). We’ve done pretty damn good for a platform that’s entirely funded by THE PEOPLE, especially during an era of Republican economic terrorism. I deeply appreciate that even when faced with the terrible cruelty of this regime, you’ve managed to find a way to support me. I could not have done this without you, and look at what we achieved!I’m so proud of all of you. I’m proud of all the candidates we helped to elevate. As I look around and see more and more people of integrity win their primaries, I can’t help but feel that change is inevitable.But this is only the beginning. We’ve still got a lot of work to do. Still, I’m making the transition from desperation to hope, and it feels so good! Remember that the candidates we elevate are not going to succeed unless we have a progressive media to defend them. The bigger I get, the more I can do to ensure these candidates are able to implement their policies for the benefit of all.Thank you so much for your support! Keep encouraging your friends and neighbors to turn away from the lies of centrist and right-wing news. Bring them over here! It’s more fun!Be sure to share this post, and if you’re in the state of Wisconsin, make a plan to VOTE! Thank you all again so much just for being here and for helping to make this change happen! Celebrate! You made this happen! It was YOU!Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offIf you want to support me, but these discounts are still outside your budget, just send me a direct message with a request and I’ll make you a personal coupon. Those coupons renew at that rate, so it’s good forever. I’d love to have you on as a sponsor because that gives me even greater visibility.I’d Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.I'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe

Thanks for the support! 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offHello Again Everyone,This is the second and final part of my discussion with Ericka Kopp and Dr. Yamicia Connor. This video was embedded in part one, but I posted it here as a separate entity to increase visibility. The content is important, and in this video we go through the resources Dr. Connor created for us.* Using AI tools to evaluate our representatives* Graphics on the lack of adequate health care by state* Graphic on the rise of the maternal mortality rateIf you saw this already, then watch it again. We’re sidestepping all the lies and distractions that are inherent to our political and media mechanisms and telling you the truth about the dangers we all face.The Republicans have completely dismantled national healthcare and you and everyone you care about is going to suffer as a consequence unless we make changes. We have to DEMAND not ask for universal healthcare NOW! We can’t allow con artists and felons to use the power of the government to crush us into pulp for the sake of their personal profit. It’s disgusting that it has gotten this far, but we’re not going to allow it to continue.Please make appeals to your friends in politics and in the media to address this issue. It’s not going away and nobody’s coming to save us. Also, share, like, and restack this post, it makes all the difference. A. Eevie Bateman, This Will Hold, Will Fullwood, Arturo Dominguez, Frederic Poag, The Feminist Lens, Chris Resists, Ellie Leonard, Cryn Johannsen, Elizabeth Silleck La Rue, Esq., Melissa Corrigan, she/her and everyone else! Thanks so much for helping. We’ve got to make the American public aware of what we’re up against.We won’t stop fighting until everyone is saved.Thank you Jo Kooser, Niki~🚫 Hope 🚫💲⏰💣🇨🇱, Cheryl D, Stephanie Hernandez, mums, and many others for tuning into my live video with Ericka Kopp and Dr. Yamicia Connor! Join me for my next live video in the app.You make this newsletter happen. Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offI'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe

Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offHello Everyone,If there’s just one discussion of mine that you take the time to listen to, please let it be this one. Dr. Yamicia Connor has been working very hard to monitor all the data that’s available and it points to an absolutely terrifying picture. She’s an OB-GYN and I honestly don’t know where she gets the strength to do the additional work of monitoring the collapse of our healthcare system.I wanted her to meet Ericka Kopp just for a joining of brilliant minds. Ericka, too, was blown away by the tools that Dr. Connor has created, and pledged to share this information with her friends still running for office.This is how we make change. We talk about important issues. We present those issues to politicians and the media. Those issues then become part of the mainstream narrative.I had to break the interview into two parts because of technical issues. Here is Part II. I will be posting both of these as independent articles to help distribute this content to my other networks.During this talk, we went through three resources that Dr. Connor created. Here are the links:* Using AI tools to evaluate our representatives* Graphics on the lack of adequate health care by state* Graphic on the rise of the maternal mortality rate What I want to everyone to take away from these videos and resources is that this is the kind of conversation we need to be having. We can no longer afford to spin our wheels in malicious, obstructionist arguments where people insist on the need to “listen to the other side.”Friends, people are dying. It’s no longer a question of whether universal healthcare is the right thing. The question is how quickly we can implement it. Our healthcare system is on the verge of total collapse. That’s a fact. You and your friends and your kids are going to die because you’ll be denied treatments that could save your life.That’s where we’re at.If you know some big creators, have them reach out to Dr. Connor. A point of emphasis is that the Big Beastly Bill hasn’t come into effect yet. When that happens, it’s going to be awful. In two out of every three counties in the United States, there is no OB-GYN. Republicans are sacrificing our women and children. It’s as simple as that.Please make appeals to your friends in politics and in the media to address this issue. It’s not going away and nobody’s coming to save us. Also, share, like, and restack this post, it makes all the difference. A. Eevie Bateman, This Will Hold, Will Fullwood, Arturo Dominguez, Frederic Poag, The Feminist Lens, Chris Resists, Ellie Leonard, Cryn Johannsen, Elizabeth Silleck La Rue, Esq., Melissa Corrigan, she/her and everyone else! Thanks so much for helping. We’ve got to make the American public aware of what we’re up against.We won’t stop fighting until everyone is saved.Thank you Jo Kooser, Niki~🚫 Hope 🚫💲⏰💣🇨🇱, Cheryl D, Stephanie Hernandez, mums, and many others for tuning into my live video with Ericka Kopp and Dr. Yamicia Connor! Join me for my next live video in the app.You make this newsletter happen. Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offI'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe

Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offI'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe

Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offOnce again, I had the privilege of spending an hour with two absolutely brilliant women. This is the third conversation I’ve had with Karen Elizabeth Park and Deidre Keller about the normalization of violence in US public schools. Now that the primaries are almost over, I expect I’ll have more conversations like this in the future.I had two other conversations with Karen about her experiences in a rural Wisconsin school. I often write about the horrors I endured in my youth, and it has been validating to talk to Karen who has experienced the same thing as a teacher. In this conversation, she discusses the event that eventually led to her leaving the school. We had a few technical issues, but Deidre was able to join us a few minutes in. Stay strong everyone! It’s encouraging that we’re having conversations like this. 10 years ago, nobody listened to me. We still have a long way to go, but this is progress!Thank you Jason Gael, Sacred Storylines 🎨, The Rebel Crone (Shālah), Mandy Ohman, Stuart Cohen, and many others for tuning into my live video with Deidre Keller and Karen Elizabeth Park! Join me for my next live video in the app.Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offI'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe

Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offI'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe

Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offI’m old enough to have seen history get rewritten multiple times. We go through periods where some topics are acceptable to discuss, and others must be hidden away. The older I get, the less inclined I am to play those games.If the facts don’t fit the narrative then there’s something wrong with the narrative, not the facts.For example, I remember 9/11. In the immediate aftermath, there was plenty of speculation about the missteps that contributed to that event. On radio talk shows, people were willing to discuss how the CIA had deliberately trained terrorist groups abroad as a form of cheap warfare against uncooperative governments.When the actions of our agencies result in attacks on our country, it’s called “blowback.” They have a name for it. You’d think this consequence would lead to demands to discard our most unscrupulous strategies. However, our leaders know they can always pivot to a narrative of extreme patriotism to sway public opinion. Responsible people who continue asking serious questions are discredited or treated with hostility.I think again of Ignaz Semmelweis. Born in 1818, he became a respected doctor in his time. He proposed that the infant mortality rate could be reduced if doctors simply washed their hands between deliveries. For his troubles, he was committed to a mental asylum where he was beaten to death. This is yet another instance of people rejecting the facts that challenged their accepted narrative.History is full of such examples.Today, Barack Obama is often and rightfully referred to as the greatest modern president. If you were to scroll through social media, you might get the impression that he was always embraced by the Democratic party.But I was there. I saw how he was treated when he decided to run for president. I remember.The DNC didn’t want him.The truth is that every single argument that the establishment is currently deploying against DSA candidates was once used against Obama. “He’s ‘unelectable’” they said. “Americans won’t vote for a Black man.” “Americans won’t vote for a person with that name.” “There are ‘safer’ candidates.” “This election is too important to risk, we should run somebody else.”And yes, as always, they had someone in mind. Historically, the DNC hasn’t trusted the people to select the people to lead the party. They don’t think we’re “educated” enough to make a good decision.In 2008, we were coming off the unmitigated disaster of the Bush presidency. The country was in economic freefall as it always is after Republicans get power. As always, the establishment Democrats had done nothing in the way of resistance, and they were licking their lips at the prospect of an easy presidential win. They felt it was their “entitlement.”The trouble is that the DNC operates on seniority instead of merit. The moment Obama threw his name in the hat, there was grumbling. They considered him an “upstart” who was attempting to jump ahead of the line. The majority of the corporate Democrats preferred their anointed candidate: Hillary Clinton.These days, it’s common to see memes of Hillary and Barack sitting together laughing about something the Republicans have done. You often see social media flooded with the “She was right about everything” content. These are examples of how power in the United States uses the media to rewrite history.But I was there. I remember the contemptuous way Hillary spoke about Obama. There was a particular comment that stuck with me because it was so odd. During the primaries, she was angry that Obama was steadily gaining momentum and she remarked, “If we used the system of the Republicans, I’d already be the nominee.”I hadn’t formulated much of an opinion on Hillary at the time, but I thought, “Why did she admit that? It’s like acknowledging her strategy wasn’t built for the competition she entered.”Meanwhile, young and brilliant Barack Obama had taken advantage of fledgling social media. He was getting out the vote with a promise of a progressive movement, that, unfortunately never came to pass. I expect that once he got into office, he encountered headwinds of a strength and origin he didn’t anticipate. We’ve seen that happen before as well. To put it more clearly, the DNC has a history of rejecting popular candidates and popular policies.Look around.When it became clear that Obama was going to win the nomination, Hillary had to be placated. Again, even in the most recent election cycle, we’re seeing corporate democrats who are unwilling to rally around progressive leaning candidates who win primaries. I know, people are going to say, “But Obama was a moderate, he was never progressive.” There’s truth to that statement, but it’s also true that much of his support came from the hope that he’d be progressive.We were all so hopeful! Finally, we had a president who’d use the power of the office to help the people! He had a 60 seat senate majority for the first two years of his presidency, and yet forces within the corporate Democrats managed to keep their foot on the brakes to prevent generational change.While we were watching Obama, it was easy to dismiss the concern that some sort of deal must have been offered to Hillary to earn her support. But at the end of Obama’s second term, everybody knew that Hillary was running. In the early days, she was coy about the campaign, but there was something off about her press appearances. She kept laughing and refusing to admit that she was going to run, but nobody truly believed that wasn’t her ambition.She was trying to create a narrative that we were begging her to run against her will.I want you to pause for a moment and consider Hillary Clinton as a candidate. When it comes to Obama and even Biden, we can recall great speeches. Yes, I know Biden’s ability to command a room has largely been overshadowed by the poor debate that ultimately ruined his political career. But even in his later years, he managed to craft some memorable moments. Consider the State of the Union address when he tricked the hostile Republican contingent into agreeing on no cuts to Social Security.Now, can you think of a moment when Hillary Clinton has ever given an inspirational speech? When it comes to Hillary, the only two phrases I remember are “basketful of deplorables” and “get over yourself.”She never came close to the joy and enthusiasm of the Kamala campaign. You might have noticed this before, except for this coordinated effort on the media to recreate Hillary Clinton as something she never was.On top of that, the corporate Democrats have long run on the motto that in order for them to win, they had to appeal to the “center.” That meant running candidates that would convince moderate Republicans to switch parties.But I’ve lived most of my life in rural, conservative areas. One thing I can tell you that’s an irrefutable fact is that Republicans hate Hillary Clinton. The only person they hate more than Hillary Clinton is Nancy Pelosi. If the party trots out Hillary as the nominee, there’s zero chance that you’ll sway moderate Republicans. Zero. Remember, this was all happening during the era of Rush Limbaugh. That odious creature was on the radio twenty-four hours a day planting the seeds for conspiracy theories about rich people who owned private islands where they sex trafficked, tortured, and sometimes ate little girls and even babies.At the time, we dismissed them. When they turned that rage on Hillary, we called them foolish. None of this was a secret to Hillary, and I believe she had a strategy to counter the bad press.When you regard 2016 with the benefit of hindsight, there are a couple possibilities that shouldn’t be dismissed. Hillary Clinton might not be a great orator, but she’s extremely intelligent. If you’re an unpopular candidate, how do you win an election?Well, one solution would be to trick the opposition into running the most odious candidate in history. If it works out, you’d turn the campaign into a layup. But if you were wrong, you’d set the country on the path to dictatorship.Look around.We too often forget that the creature currently occupying the Oval office used to be a Democrat. He used to be one of those big donors. They were friends. There are plenty of pictures of him together with the Clintons.The DNC loves to influence the primaries for both parties. The entitled “gated-community” Democrats have often tried to get cute by supporting extreme Republicans. I remember Mitt Romney criticizing them for that, “You’re playing with fire.”We haven’t just been burned by this strategy, they’ve scorched the whole Earth.Let’s also not ignore the pictures of Bill Clinton partying with Epstein. Do you remember the photo of the two of them in their garish shirts? Two disgusting old men who should be picking their grandkids up from school, who are instead leering at underaged girls.Again, this is a case of a fact that doesn’t fit the established narrative. That picture exists. Epstein island exists. There are many prominent names mentioned in those files. Democrats have managed to covertly support extremist Republicans to try and manipulate races. I’ve been interviewing primary challengers to do-nothing Democrats for a year who have also faced pressure to quit. The Democrats cannot get their finger off the primaries. They threw 60 million dollars at Haley Stevens because they insisted she was “more electable.” You saw it in New York. There was plenty of party support for Cuomo even though he lost the primary and his presence in the race threatened their ability to win the seat.The Democrats play too many games.Once Hillary Clinton announced her candidacy, the DNC instantly began to disrespect the voters. They’ve subsequently changed their primary process, but in 2016 the nominee was largely determined by “superdelegates.” Essentially, this was a group of elites who we were told were smarter and better and superior in every way to the general public. They had superdelegates, they lectured, because the DNC didn’t trust the people to select an “electable” candidate.They were still kind of petulant about the fact that Obama had gotten in. They didn’t appreciate how he’d managed to capitalize on social media to get out the vote, so they dismantled that system. The Republicans saw that misstep and pounced. Since 2016, social media has become a right-wing propaganda tool for fascists. Meanwhile, the Democrats say, “Oh, no!” but they refuse to take any accountability for their mistakes.Because of superdelegates, Hillary Clinton came out of the gate which what appeared to be an insurmountable lead. I remember all kinds of articles explaining what superdelegates were, and lecturing us all to just shut up and accept it because it was “Hillary’s turn.” If there was any whisp of criticism, we were called misogynistic, much the came way you’re accused of antisemitism these days if you object to genocide.We’re not allowed to have respectful conversations.Well, everybody got the memo except Bernie Sanders. He launched his campaign and for a while it looked like 2008 all over again. Hillary became increasingly hostile. I voted for Bernie in the primaries then Hillary in the general. Like everyone else, I was distracted by the threat of the billionaire former Democrat who used to party with the Clintons and Epstein.I said before that I have always been a liberal voice in conservative areas. I saw, first hand, how the actions of the Democratic party drove voters away from Bernie into the open arms of MAGA.“The DNC cheated Bernie,” they said. “I’ll NEVER vote for that party.”I tried to explain to these scorned voters how the Republicans offered a greater risk, but they wouldn’t listen. Hillary didn’t help either. She lambasted Sanders and all the progressives that wouldn’t get in line to support her and instead deserted to the Republicans. This became the corporate line, and at no point does anyone seem to recognize that the DNC is covertly acknowledging that progressive ideas do appeal to Republicans.The DNC claims the only overlap is in the center, but by their very admission we see that the left has great appeal as well.Once the new Republican president was sworn in, things began to emerge. Sanders took the DNC to court and a judge ruled that the party had a right to rig the primaries against him. Then there were the leaked emails that suggested the DNC undercut Sanders. In 2020, there was the disaster in the Iowa presidential primaries where Pete Buttigieg was announced the winner over Sanders despite some questionable counting. Again, if you asked questions about this result, you were labeled as “homophobic.”You’re not allowed to point out the contradictions in the party narrative. When MAGA does that, we say it’s a cult. But it’s just business as usual with the DNC.This has all been a very bad look. The DNC is a party that desperately needs to rebuild trust, but every time it has the opportunity, they’re more willing to attack popular candidates and insult voters than simply embrace a strategy of victory.We’re seeing it now. Prominent Democratic figures and strategists are using dehumanizing language like “turds” and “parasites” to describe DSA candidates. For the first time that I can remember, anti-establishment candidates are pushing through the resistance. Go and watch some of the speeches of Abdul El-Sayed. He’s been openly critical of the DNC which, even though they promise to help us, never seem to remember those promises after they get sworn in.Every time I interview a progressive challenger, I say the same thing. “In 2020, the voters gave the Democrats all the power they needed to stop the rise of authoritarianism, and they didn’t even really try.”I realize that it’s uncomfortable to examine facts that challenge aggressively supported narratives. Nobody likes to be accused of antisemitism or homophobia or racism or misogyny. But if there’s anything the last couple of years have taught us, it’s that the US government is more corrupt than we’d ever believe.Shortly after the 2016 election, an anonymous individual began posting on a 4chan message board about how the government was run by child traffickers and pedophiles that ate children. They went by the handle QAnon.At the time, I dismissed those allegations as an absurd conspiracy theory. But then we got to look at the Epstein files. The QAnon accusations and the Epstein files line up too much to be a coincidence.At this point, I’m done abiding by generally accepted pressure narratives that already blatantly contradict the truths of my lived experience. I have no more patience for media campaigns from either political party that attempt to rewrite the achievements of their odious candidates.Look around, it’s a scorched earth.We’re not going to fix this until we bring the receipts and we start holding every single awful person accountable for their crimes. The events of the 2016 election fill me with disgust. I remember the complete lack of enthusiasm the general public had for either candidate. Yet even today, we see a coordinated media campaign dedicated to staunchly defending the actions of Hillary Clinton.That’s as foolish as wasting 60 million dollars on a candidate you insist is “electable.” Who is paying for that?We are.Maybe it’s time that we started holding Democratic leadership accountable for their failures? Have any of the “gated community” democrats living the high life with their massive portfolios and state funded healthcare, ever offered apologies for losing winnable races? Or are they all still calling us “deplorable” and asking us to “get over ourselves?”I think you know the answer.They’re doing fine. We’re the targets of abuse from our own government. The least they could do is recognize that some of us have suffered terribly in the last decade. We are done putting up with the hubris and entitlement of the elites.We’re done.How about this as a strategy going forward? We listen to the candidates the voters select, and then treat those choices with respect? Stop with the social engineering, and force-feeding us corrupt representatives with lies about their “electability” and “fund-raising.” The narrative has collapsed. It’s time for the elites to get over themselves. It’s time for the people to take back their country.Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offI'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe

Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offHello Everyone! The 2026 primary season is coming to a close and that represents the end of a really challenging year. I’ve been doing all I can to elevate anti-establishment candidates who are willing to work for the people rather than do the bidding of their corporate overlords.Emily Berge was the second candidate I talked to. I simply reached out to her campaign after seeing an advertisement on social media. I live in her district, so this campaign is special to me. I’ve gotten to know her very well.I’ll always remember one instance that turned me into a lifetime Emily Berge supporter. It happened during the horrific ICE deployment to the Twin Cities, shortly after the murders of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti. My wife is an immigrant and over the last year I’ve often been fearful for her safety and the safety of my children at school.When protests became too much for ICE to handle in Minneapolis, they began to flee the city. Unfortunately, ICE started showing up in my community. I got word that they were planning a raid on our schools, so I kept my kids home for the day. My wife went in to work and it was constant stress until she came home.In something of a panic, I called up Emily. She was employed as the council president for Eau Claire at the time. She took my call and told me exactly what they had planned to ensure the safety of all our residents. During the course of a ten minute conversation, she significantly eased my concerns.When I got off the phone, I realized that I’d never previously even considered a reality where a politician would actually take your call and address your fears. Now I realize that’s not just the kind of representation we should demand, it’s what we deserve.The simple fact is that the United States government under Republican leadership has been tormenting the American public. The corporate owned Democrats have done little to stop that suffering. In fact, at every critical vote, enough Democrats always seem to defect from the party to ensure every cruel and anti-Constitutional initiative of the Republicans gets funded.The DNC sends strongly worded letters to criminals and authoritarians, and they only rouse themselves to real action when it comes to suppressing for-the-people progressives.In the interview I linked above, Emily talks about how she called Washington DC when she was thinking of running. She discusses how they told her they didn’t want a primary and how they urged her not to run.In that moment, she says, she knew she had to run. Washington doesn’t get to choose who represents a district, the voters do. Emily ran to give people a choice!No matter what happens in this primary, I will be forever grateful to Emily Berge for her courageous campaign. She gave me hope, and she was always there to listen to my concerns. She’s told me that she expects me to hold her accountable when she gets into Congress, and I don’t think I’ve ever been more proud to support a candidate.To learn more about Emily, check out her campaign page here:BergeForCongress.comMake a plan to get out and vote for Emily on Tuesday, August 11th!Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offI'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe

Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offI'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe

Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offI’m feeling hopeful. I’m feeling a lot of joy! I’m feeling powerful! After what we’ve been through these last two years, we DESERVE to feel like this!Friends, we are manifesting our new reality! We are using the collective power of our will to transform our future. We’re diverting the stubborn river of culture. We’re winning. We are inevitable! We will not be stopped.Are we going to win every single election? No.Do we have to? Also no.Yesterday evening, somebody posted a note that showed Abdul El-Sayed was leading. I glanced at the note, hit “repost,” and added, “Take that AIPAC!” Then I went to bed.This morning, I woke up to a bunch of replies, “Um, Walter, that’s an early report, they’ve only counted like 10% of the votes.”I appreciate the people who made this distinction. I know that a lot of people spent the night refreshing their browsers to stay up to date. But I honestly wasn’t worried. We’ve GOT this! We’re going to win! I BELIEVE! I mean, have you watched a video of Haley Stevens? Throwing tens of millions of dollars in campaign “donations” at her was an act of desperation.The other side is desperate. They are desperate. They know they don’t have control of the narrative anymore and they don’t know what to do. They’re trying to protect themselves by “fixing” the races. But no matter how much money they spend, they can’t get the results they want.If you can’t trust the fix, what can you trust?Corrupt people are in full-on panic mode right now and it’s glorious. They’re coming apart at the seams. When you scroll through social media you see they’re trying to hit us with an endless, disjointed tidal wave of attacks.“Um… socialism!”“Um… communism!”“Um… fear, anger, jealousy, rage! Why aren’t you doing what we tell you to do!”Meanwhile, progressive candidates keep winning. Again, they don’t all have to win. That was never the goal here. We don’t have to take the beach, we just have to land the boat.We’ve landed the boat. We’ve fortified the progressive caucus in Congress. More importantly, we’ve got candidates out there speaking openly what we’ve long known to be true.When candidates are speaking the truth, the lies that have controlled us for so long can no longer be maintained.For as long as I’ve been alive, we’ve heard the same lies over and over again. The centrist democrats have “promised” that they care about us. They “promised” that they’ve heard our pain. They “promised” that they’d fix healthcare and education “if they only had the votes.”Yet again and again we’ve given them all the votes they’ve needed and they’ve done nothing. In fact, they’ve done worse than nothing. They’ve allowed us to be hurt, then they’ve turned and blamed us for the torture we had to endure, “Well, you didn’t support us enough. We told you so! Get over yourselves.”But guess what we did? By golly, we went out there and pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps. I’ve seen it. For the last two years, everybody’s been working. We’ve created platforms, we’ve launched campaigns, we’ve supported each other.Do you know what we did? We got ORGANIZED!I want to tell you something else, we’ve done it not because it would make us rich or because it was even likely to succeed. Nope! We did it because IT WAS THE RIGHT THING TO DO!There is a whole generation of people who have just finished their first political campaign. Before this last election cycle, they were lawyers, doctors, and educators. We’ve seen people of integrity from all walks of life say, “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!”We’ve shaken off the assumption that politics is for “other people” or for “the rich” or for “the privileged.” We decided, damn it, that’s not the way it’s going to be. We won’t be silenced any longer. We’ll muscle into these races.More importantly, we’ll get out there and speak!I’m extremely happy for the candidates I’ve gotten to know that have won their races. But I’m just as proud of the ones who campaigned hard and got a ton of votes even if they didn’t win the race. The work they did was invaluable. It’s because of them that Abdul El-Sayed, and Melat Kiros, and Franchesca Hong are finding a soft landing space.All these great people have been campaigning all across the country. They’re educating the public. They’re speaking common sense. More importantly, they’re not regurgitating some pre-approved corporate dialogue.These grassroots candidates are not owned. They’re free to work the problem. The people are responding! This is a huge win. Every single candidate that talked to me, or did a rally, or showed up at a veteran’s clinic to say a few words, they’re all part of this movement.Don’t you see?All those collective voices are joining together and transforming from a whisper into a roar.We’re getting the wins we need, even in the face of impossible odds. Awful people control all the levers of power. They control the media. They control the legal system. Even so, they do not control the hearts and minds of the American public. The sleeping giant has been roused, and once it’s awake it does not go back to sleep again until justice is served.You’ll see.You’ll see.You’ll see!I feel so proud right now about the work we’ve all done over the last two years. We’ve been feeling around in the dark and we’ve found each other. We’re holding hands. We’re lending each other support and encouragement. It’s a beautiful, beautiful thing.Yes, there’s a lot of work yet to do, but we’re not stopping. I tip my hat to all the candidates who came out of nowhere and won their primaries. I’m also so excited about all the candidates who had the courage to run and who have spent the last two years getting a doctorate level course in the American political system. I’ve spent the last two years building a platform to assist them.Can you see why I’m so excited? Since 2024, we’ve been building the plane as we’ve been flying it. But guess what, the plane is now built. We’ve learned what we needed to learn. It was never going to all get fixed in one election. We knew that from the start. Actually, sometimes it felt like things would never get fixed, but we put aside our despair and worked anyway.Now the plane is built. Now we’ve landed the boat on the beach and representatives with integrity have entrenched themselves.We’re not going to cede that ground. We’re not going to retreat. I’m damn sure not going to dismantle this plane!All the candidates I’ve talked to are a part of this. All of you wonderful people who read my articles are a part of this. You move the needle with every conversation you have and with every new person you bring to this always growing community. I’m not going to abandon my candidates whether they’re headed to the midterms in 2026 or 2028. Don’t you see? The victory is in the campaign! We’ve got an army of people of integrity out there spreading a message that defies corruption, money, and corporations.We’re speaking a message that resonates with the people. We were operating on faith before, but now we have proof of concept. AIPAC dumped tens of millions of dollars into a losing campaign. That hurts them more than it hurts us because they won’t be able to support other candidates in other races. We’ve outlasted them! All we have to do is keep doing exactly what we’ve been doing. For the last year, I’ve been operating on despair. Today, I’m operating on pure joy! I’m so proud of the candidates I’ve gotten to know. I’m so proud of all my readers. We have made an impact. We acted with courage and integrity. We’re getting win after win after win.Guess what?We’re not stopping!Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offI'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe

Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offI'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe

Your support makes this newsletter happen! If even these discounts are too expensive, but you want to be a sponsor, please reach out to me directly and I’ll send you a coupon!Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offHello Everyone!This interview is from January 28th, 2026. It feels almost like a lifetime ago! I’d come across an advertisement for Francesca Hong on social media and I sent out an email inviting her to come on for a chat. At the time, she was the outspoken candidate in a crowded field that the establishment said “didn’t have a chance.”As of right now, she’s the frontrunner!I remember this interview with such fondness. After it was over, I sat for a moment and thought, “I just interviewed the next Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez!” I was just delighted with the possibility that somebody like Fran could be our next governor. I even set up another interview along with Melissa Corrigan, she/her in an attempt to get some of the bigger platforms on Substack to pay attention.The bigger platforms didn’t really help, but that didn’t stop Fran. She’s been working tirelessly. She’s out knocking on doors and discussing the issues all the people know are the actual problems.Today, I woke up to the news that Abdul El-Sayed won the Senate primary in Michigan against an AIPAC funded candidate. Once again we see that big money is not enough to beat big integrity. The people are fed up with establishment lies. They want something different!It has been a joy to me to see Francesca Hong take off. The first thing I remember was the endorsement from Ro Khanna. Then came the appearance on Hassan Piker. From there, it’s just continued to build and build and build.Meanwhile, the DNC is out there trying to pull its typical b******t. We’ve seen candidates drop out of the race in an attempt to “consolidate” around some milquetoast moderate that refuses to stand for anything.All across our media and political spectrum we’ve seen Democrats who couldn’t be bothered to denounce the criminality of Republicans. Yet these corporate candidates always find their voice to attack common sense ideas like defunding genocide so we can help our communities and kids.The people have had enough.Over the last few weeks, I’ve sensed a major shift. The establishment is growing desperate. They thought they could sit back and allow this criminal regime to run roughshod over all of us, and that we’d have no choice but to turn to them in the midterms.But they forgot about the primaries!I’ve been working on this really hard for the last two years. There have been so many great candidates who have come forward to say, “Enough is enough!” There have been so many members of independent media that have done everything we can to platform these candidates. Remember, the corporate entities are not helping. Both in politics and in media, the people doing the real work are the ones working on a shoestring, grassroots budget.That’s Francesca Hong! She’s not taking big money. That means she has to work a hundred times as hard and she’s happy to do it because that’s how much integrity is WORTH to some people.It’s worth that much to me too!It’s hard to believe that the primary season is almost over. For two years, I’ve been saying that we can’t wait for the midterms. The fight is NOW! It does us no good to elevate the same representatives who failed to support us the last time we gave them power.Fortunately, the whole country is waking up to this. We’re seeing a wave of for-the-people candidates win big. Fran’s up next in the state of Wisconsin. You can check her web page out here:FrancescaHong.comAs always, I want to thank all of you for accompanying me on this journey. It’s often been terrifying. We’ve witnessed horrific abuses and corruption from our government since 2024. But the momentum is on our side. We’re getting wins. We have to celebrate those wins.It’s because of all of you. My publication isn’t the biggest publication in the world, but it doesn’t have to be. All of you gave a little bit of a boost to Francesca Hong and Melat Kiros and so many others. When Fran wins, perhaps we’ll see clips from this interview on Fox news again (I hope they pay me this time). We’ve done pretty damn good for a platform that’s entirely funded by THE PEOPLE, especially during an era of Republican economic terrorism. I deeply appreciate that even when faced with the terrible cruelty of this regime, you’ve managed to find a way to support me. I could not have done this without you, and look at what we achieved!I’m so proud of all of you. I’m proud of all the candidates we helped to elevate. As I look around and see more and more people of integrity win their primaries, I can’t help but feel that change is inevitable.But this is only the beginning. We’ve still got a lot of work to do. Still, I’m making the transition from desperation to hope, and it feels so good! Remember that the candidates we elevate are not going to succeed unless we have a progressive media to defend them. The bigger I get, the more I can do to ensure these candidates are able to implement their policies for the benefit of all.Thank you so much for your support! Keep encouraging your friends and neighbors to turn away from the lies of centrist and right-wing news. Bring them over here! It’s more fun!Be sure to share this post, and if you’re in the state of Wisconsin, make a plan to VOTE! Thank you all again so much just for being here and for helping to make this change happen! Celebrate! You made this happen! It was YOU!Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offIf you want to support me, but these discounts are still outside your budget, just send me a direct message with a request and I’ll make you a personal coupon. Those coupons renew at that rate, so it’s good forever. I’d love to have you on as a sponsor because that gives me even greater visibility.I'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe

I’m 100% grassroots and I need your support!Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offPeople often get challenged when they say that the corporate owned Democrats and the corporate owned Republicans are two wings of the same bird. That phrase, along with words like “socialism” and “woke” tend to end conversations before they even start.You’re told, “If you can’t see that there is a difference between the DNC and the GOP then talking with you is a waste of my time.”Never mind the fact that candidates for both parties share the same donors. There are even consultants like James Carville who owns a company called Gaslight which he uses to advise candidates on both sides of the aisle. Over the last few months, we’ve seen the Democrats fall over themselves to heap praise upon people like Lindsey Graham and Charlie Kirk, even as they refer to popular representatives like Zohran Mamdani as a “parasite.” It’s no secret that the Democrats are a right wing party. One of their favorite mantras is “we can’t go too far left.” That’s a mission statement that indicates their allegiance is with the right.The confusion about the “two wings” analogy is that a bird has a left wing and a right wing. Clearly that’s not the situation we have in the United States. Our country is a bird with two right wings. The result is a nation that’s perpetually trapped spinning in circles.The last two years have brought with them an astonishing transformation to our entire political landscape. We all had an understanding of the corruption inherent to our government, but too many of us have been astonished to see the true depth of the rot in our country.We’ve sat helplessly and watched as a criminal regime has committed terrible atrocities both at home and abroad. They campaigned throughout 2024 and told us exactly who they would make suffer. Yet, the Democrats failed to mount anything that resembled a competent response.I keep having to remind people that the voters gave the Democrats control of Congress and the presidency in 2020. That represents more than sufficient power to hold insurrectionists and pedophiles accountable. But what we’ve seen again and again from the Democratic version of our right-wing uniparty is that their only tactic is delay.More and more I’ve come to believe that the DNC resents figures like Stacey Abrams who worked hard in Georgia to give the DNC control of the Senate. In the past, I’ve said it in jest that her activism took away one of the DNC’s main excuses for failing to get anything done. If they’d had 49 seats instead of fifty, they could have continued with their familiar refrain of, “We didn’t have the votes.”But since they did have the votes, their lie became exposed.Another issue at play is the filibuster. One of my readers recently observed that it seems like the DNC, again, uses the filibuster as an excuse to not use their power for any realistic reform. Even when Obama had a 60 seat majority, the DNC establishment wasted time looking for bipartisan agreement on the Affordable Care Act.The party should be educated enough to recognize that you can’t garner goodwill with unscrupulous people. The GOP only wants to sabotage the government, and use the power of office to hurt us and extract wealth for themselves. Yet, the DNC has shown again and again that they’re more willing to work with the fascists on the right than the humanitarians on the left.Let’s start calling them out on their corruption.The fact is that the GOP is using taxpayer dollars to start a genocide at home. They’ve been building concentration camps. They’ve been funding secret police. They’ve been rounding up innocent people. They’ve been protecting pedophiles.Meanwhile the DNC is quite happy to fund genocide abroad. All we have to do is stop sending money and weapons to malicious nations and many genocides will end. But our elected Democratic representatives refuse to have any discussions on the matter.“If you don’t agree with me, then there’s no point in having a conversation.”Again, this is the language of MAGA and we see it among Democrats all the time.If the powers that anoint and elevate our worthless leaders hadn’t gotten so far out over their skis, maybe they would have been able to maintain their cruel status quo for the foreseeable future. But they made a mistake in elevating the criminal sex offender to the highest office of the land. He’s out of control, and the corruption is too obvious for anyone to keep their head in the sand any longer.We’ve also seen the willingness of the DNC to sell us out. The moment the insurrectionist was sworn in, the Democrats immediately started acting as if it were business as usual. Here was a candidate who had been Constitutionally prohibited from holding office due to his status as an insurrectionist. But the Democrats didn’t even bother to bring that up. Here was a convicted felon who had his sentencing dismissed because of the unchallenged election results.Keep in mind that if he’d lost, he’d have gone to jail. Yet nobody in our government or in our media every really gave serious attention to whether that constituted a motivation to cheat.My conclusion is that it does.It gets worse.The Democrats had the opportunity to shut down the government and obstruct the funding of an illegal death squad. Yet, just enough of their members defected to the other side to make sure billions of taxpayer dollars would again be used to bring pain and suffering to the citizens.Once again, that represents a betrayal from corporate Democrats who only held their position of power due to the hard work and sacrifice of the voters. We elected them to office specifically so they could oppose cruelty directed against us. But those Democrats betrayed their constituents, almost as if to punish us for not providing them with even more power.Throughout 2025, Schumer and Jeffries have repeated their commitment to supporting genocide abroad. They’ve also come up weak at every moment with regard to opposing the GOP. They’ve smirked about it, secure in their certainty that the GOP will be blamed for its transgressions against the American people.Let’s be clear. The corporate owned DNC, which voters provided with plenty of power to ensure our protection, stood aside and allowed the GOP to torture us rather than offer any organized resistance or support. Now, with the midterms approaching, they expect us all to come running into their open arms. Do they really think that we’d forget all the times they’ve had the opportunity to significantly improve our lives which they abdicated with a condescending smirk and a lecture.“If you don’t vote for us, you’ll get them!”The people aren’t having it anymore. It’s been astonishing for me to realize in these last few months that the true architects of our suffering are sitting in the center. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. warned us about this very thing. The first time I read ‘The Letter from Birmingham Jail’ his denouncement of the moderate stuck with me, but I didn’t fully understand.I understand now.MAGA is nothing more than the attack dogs of the center. They’re the criminals who get their hands dirty, but it’s the mafia mastermind that you need to oppose. We’ve been watching it again and again. MAGA trots out a new lieutenant. He commits all kinds of crimes. There’s public outcry, then he’s flushed down the toilet. We have a momentary reprieve before he’s replaced by somebody even worse.Meanwhile, the corporate DNC keeps us perpetually focused on the distraction. “Look at how bad that guy is. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.”Even when they have sufficient evidence to put the ringleaders away for the rest of their natural life, they defer for the sake of “decorum.” The rest of us watch helplessly as the illnesses of our children go untreated, and unregulated paramilitary forces terrorize our communities.Are you getting it yet?In the popular television show ‘Game of Thrones’ there’s a character named Petyr Baelish. He reminds me a bit of Stephen Miller. He’s not particularly noticeable. He’s not intimidating. He doesn’t possess any particular power. But at every opportunity, he advises the significant players of his time. He gets them into horrific situations which he then exploits. Throughout the series, you’ll often see allies getting into conflict, while Petyr Baelish stands in the shadows watching the destruction he orchestrated with a smirk on his face.The corporate owned Democratic party is Petyr Baelish. This is is the faction among our representatives that are quite willing to fund genocide abroad. They are just as guilty as crimes against humanity as the domestic abusers and child rapists that have been given power among the GOP. Our political parties are two right wings of the same bird. The only difference is that the Democrats are slightly better at hiding their corruption, though these days it feels like the harsh light of day is getting into every nook and cranny and criminal file.It’s all coming out. Even the billionaires and the crime lords and the oligarchs don’t have the power to stop it now.The thing that’s happening right now that’s giving me hope is that there’s been a major shift in political momentum. Just as in ‘Game of Thrones’ where Petyr Baelish is delighting in observing a conflict from a safe distance, only to have the participants turn and make accusations against him, we’re seeing the same rejection of the DNC.The party has grown far too entitled. The simple fact of the matter is that we’ve always had a mechanism in place to remove corrupt or inept representatives.It’s called the primaries.Going all the way back to 2024, the Democrats told us all that our best strategy was to do nothing and wait for November of 2026.We didn’t listen. Of course we didn’t listen because it was our necks on the line, not theirs. Jeffries and Schumer and Pelosi are just fine with their state funded healthcare and their multi-million dollar portfolios which they built using insider information that’s only available to congress and the president. They smirked and laughed at every cruel act committed against the innocent by the GOP, sure in their delusion that we’d never blame them.They’re about to be very surprised at the number of us who perceived what was going on months ago, and put into motion a plan to replace all the representatives who refuse to use the power we give them for the sake of the greater good.Neither the GOP nor the DNC own any seats in government. Those seats belong to WE THE PEOPLE, and we’re going to fill them with women and men of integrity for a change.The old lies no longer work.It’s only been in the last few months that the corporate owned element of our political system has gone into panic mode. They didn’t think that we’d be as effective as we have been in leveraging the power of the primaries. It’s true that we’re not going to change every seat, but we’ve already defeated enough incumbents so that change is inevitable.A lot of people who think they’re powerful and untouchable are about to come face to face with the error of their entitlement. I’m here for it.We’re seeing progressives and DSA candidates running campaigns on a shoestring budget, but win their primaries because the people are fed up with supporting corporate stooges who are bought and paid for. In fact, there were signs back in April of 2025 when Susan Crawford won a Supreme Court seat the GOP tried to buy.We’re starting to see unity in communities against the idea of big money owning our representatives. The status quo has gotten too lackadaisical in their ease and luxury, and they failed to notice the cracks in the foundations of their corrupt worldview.The mechanism of our oppression is coming down. We’re fighting back legally, lawfully and peacefully. Our weapons are our organization, our voice, and our vote. A transformation is coming. It’s inevitable now. You can see it already in the way the corporate establishment is flailing. They’re out of money. Their donors recognize there’s no advantage in spending millions of dollars to prop up a candidate the voters refuse to elect.My friends, we’ve already won. Even so, there’s plenty of work left to be done. If there’s one thing that the last two years have taught us it’s that we can’t afford to be complacent in our government. We have to participate. When the forces of oppression rouse themselves and begin to lecture us with lies and hate, we have to stand firm, not give an inch, and shout them into silence.When rich people insist they’re “entitled” to lead, it’s time for us to laugh in their faces and show them the door. Our for-the-people movement is going to require a for-the-people media. When the good candidates we’ve worked so hard to elevate to power are sworn in, they’re going to face an immediate headwind of attacks from the flailing, desperate, oligarch media.That’s were we come in. For my entire life, I’ve worked to push back against the lies and propaganda of authoritarians. I’ll continue to do that going forward. Every time some loathsome right-wing pundit launches a smear campaign against a person of integrity, I’ll be there to offer a defense. Every like, comment, and share adds to this effort. Every time you gently correct somebody at home, work, or at the grocery store, you play a part.Getting good people into office isn’t enough. We have to continue the work to ensure that they succeed. We have to continue to capture the men, women, and children in our society that have been deceived. We have to educate them and show them that there’s a better way.It’s easier now because we have a better understanding of our enemies. Slowly, the people are waking up to the truth. They know it in their gut that something is wrong. We have to capitalize on this moment and transform their sense of unease to conscious knowledge.First comes a rejection of corruption.Then comes an acceptance of a new social structure.Right now, we’re between those two points. Speak the truth. Let everyone know that we deserve more than two political parties that are two right wings on the same bird. We’re tired of flying in circles. It’s time for progress. It’s time for something new. Thanks for the support!Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offI'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe

Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offI'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe

I saw Tevin Davis’s cooking/commentary videos and knew I had to reach out. What a joy he is! This was such a fun conversation filled with a lot of laughs. I’m looking forward to talking with Tevin again! I'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe

I’m 100% grassroots and I need your support!Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offWith the rise of DSA candidates like Francesca Hong, we’re going to see a lot more right wing “red scare” propaganda. The first thing that everyone should recognize is that the only thing Republicans stand for is stealing our property, stealing our healthcare, and protecting child rapists. They also like to fund a masked gestapo that guns down lawful gun owners in the street.That’s the Republican party.To be clear, the United States of America has absolutely no liberal/left representation. Political figures like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders are actually right of center from a global perspective. You have to understand that the only thing they advocate is using public funds for public good. There are places in the world where the most extreme right wing candidate would never even think of proposing an end to universal healthcare.In the United States we can’t even have a polite discussion about healthcare reform. That’s how extremely right wing our whole country is.Despite that, there are many examples of public funds that are used for public good. We have to start getting in the habit of recognizing every time we go to a gym to watch a local high school basketball game, we’re enjoying the benefits of democratic socialism. Taxpayer dollars paid for the school. Taxpayer dollars paid for the road you took to get there. Taxpayer dollars pay for libraries and the food you eat and the military that protects you. Literally everything good in your life is a consequence of democratic socialism. But all that might be too much to process so let me start with a more obvious example: The Green Bay Packers!I’ve been using the Green Bay Packers as an example of Democratic Socialism for years. Recently, I saw that Francesca Hong has been making the same argument. Predictably the radical right has called her “dishonest,” but at this point we should recognize that when it comes to Republicans, every accusation is a confession.The right is dishonest. In fact, we should start insisting that our public schools teach that the Packers are an example of Democratic Socialism, as are the schools themselves. Perhaps if people started knowing that, red scare tactics wouldn’t be so effective in getting child rape enablers elected at every level of government.For those of you who don’t know, the Packers are the only community owned team. That’s right, they don’t have a billionaire owner. When you stop and think about it, you’ve probably recognized that there’s something a little different about the Packers. The fact that they’re community owned is why a city of only 100,000 people is the home of a major sports franchise.Green Bay just doesn’t fit in with the likes of Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and whatnot. It’s almost comical when you go to the stadium. It’s like it’s sitting there in a cornfield. You would have noticed what an outlier is before except that it’s been like that forever and the billionaires don’t like to draw attention to it.“What if other cities demanded that they should own their franchises too?” they say. So they buy up the media and they insist on writing hit pieces against for-the-people candidates like Francesca Hong.When the Packers make the playoffs and have a home game, it’s a huge benefit to the community. The whole weird situation came into play when the Packers got into financial difficulty decades ago and said, “Nah, we’re going to make this brilliant, generous move so that this team can NEVER leave.”That should be the model for the future because it’s PROOF that Democratic Socialism WORKS!For the right to try and suggest the Packers are not Democratic Socialism is absolutely absurd. But the thing is, it doesn’t end there. Even though so many of the teams have billionaire owners, the entire NFL is actually an example of Democratic Socialism.They have a collective bargaining agreement. They practice revenue sharing. That means that whether your team wins the Super Bowl, or whether you lose every game, you have the same amount of money to spend. That creates parity. A team that is terrible one year has a real chance of being a champion the next.Another example of Democratic Socialism is the draft. The team that finished last gets the first pick. Again, player availability isn’t based on money, it’s based on a collective agreement that’s to the benefit of the whole league.Then there’s the stadium costs, and honestly this one irritates me a bit. We all know how much the players make. The contracts are published before the ink is dry. The best players retire with hundreds of millions of dollars. We already know that the owners are worth billions. But who pays for the stadiums?That’s right, the people do.What do the politicians say when it comes to justifying the cost of those stadiums? That’s right, they say, “It’s in the public interest. These stadiums will bring in revenue to the city.”Public funds for public good is the definition of Democratic Socialism. There are a lot of positives to look at when it comes to the model of the NFL. The only exception is that I think the billionaires and players should have to pay for their own stadiums with higher taxes on their millions and billions. Let’s use the public funds for things like education and healthcare… which is what Francesca Hong proposes.But the Green Bay Packers are the crown jewel of the NFL exactly because they’re a community owned team that represents Democratic Socialism. It’s fan owned! That’s as it should be. The same thing is true of our politicians. They shouldn’t be owned by their corporate sponsors, they should be at the service of the people they represent.The people of the Untied States of America are getting sick and tired of being lectured to by corrupt people who steal the profits of our labor and then blame us for not working hard enough. We’re sick and tired of paying the privatization tax that inflates the cost of goods and services for the benefit of a small class of child rapists who own human trafficking islands.We need to make the United States more like the Green Bay Packers. It should all be community owned. We should get more of the benefits of our labor, because we’re the ones doing the work. Francesca Hong gets it. She knows. Now you know. Make sure to spread the word to your friends and neighbors.The Constitution doesn’t say, “We the corporations…”It says, “We the people!” That too is an endorsement of Democratic socialism. It’s so important, the founding fathers put it right at the top of the document. Let’s stop listening to the lies of the right, and embrace a future that actually works.Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offI'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe

I’m so grateful to Deidre Keller for setting up this wonderful interview with Foster For Florida. Dayna Marie Foster is an educator and a compassionate human being. This is exactly the kind of leader we deserve. Please help spread the word! We’re not going to win our country back by sitting on our hands. You can check her web page for more information.FosterForFlorida.comThere’s a lot of different ways to help, but one of the most important ones is simply restacking this interview. Also share it on your socials. Every little bit counts. Imagine a government where the policies Dayna discusses are embraced by all the people. We have the power to make that happen!Thank you Ben Ulansey, Pam Wade, Myra, T. Thomas Lewis, Viva Democracy, and many others for tuning into my live video with Deidre Keller and Foster For Florida! Join me for my next live video in the app.Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offI'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe