"Trump has already told us repeatedly what he plans to do, the authors write, but this time, he has the backing of 'groups working to support those promises in preparation for a second Trump term'.”
He has always had them. Over 70 million of them in various capacities. The difference is that the few who bravely and patriotically tried to control them (& him) were outnumbered from the beginning, and one by one, resigned, were fired or voted out.
“'Time and again,' they write, “predictions that Trump was not serious have proved disastrously incorrect."
Except that they mostly DID predict that he was serious. Even before he took office there was already decades of evidence that the spiteful, spoiled brat did not care about his country, or anything but his own instant gratification. What they - and I - failed to predict, is how, even after the 1/6 insurrection, so many enablers and protectors, by then nearly every GOP politician included, were every bit as serious, willing to do all the heavy lifting, and even "take bullets," for the most fragile egomaniac on the planet.
Re the painfully prolonged fat Elvis metaphor (which you did not participate in) on Morning Joe this a.m., could you hear me screaming, "Make it STOP!" from Kentucky?
Frankly ASTONISHED not to see speculation that Trump and his merry band assembling at Heritage would go after Federal Judges, since he's already doing it right now. Just for one example, he's praying that SCOTUS "will have the courage" to do the right thing on immunity and section 3, just as he prayed Mike Pence would "have the courage " on Jan. 6. How'd that turn out?
Think of Chutkan, who can now rely on capable and committed protection by US Marshals, FBI, and DHS. If he's reelected, Trump will control them all. So, there will not be the option to enforce rights in court if Trump comes after you.
Who hasn/t speculated on this? I've been telling people that the list will start with
1. DOJ -- everyone, starting with the AJ and all his/her immediate subordinates, and at the same time all the district attorneys in every jurisdiction. And simultaneously, although it may take a year or so to fully clear them out ---
2. A list of Federal judges who are "good:" and "bad", and the "bad" will be pushed out with the ultimatum -- retire with pension, or retire involuntarily later without benefits. The incentives will include one two examples being defenestrated. If this list does not already exist and is not being assiduously maintained I have never opened a single history book much less read numbers of them.
3. All state supreme court judges, same offer. Then Heritage and Federalist society minions starting in on the state judiciaries in the same wise.
4. Of course the FBI, the CIA, ICE, the rest of Homeland Security. First it will be a matter of being known as aware of the prevailing wind. Then it will be if one has put MAGA stickers on one's vehicles. Finally it will be how much of one's salary one has voluntarily dedicated to the cause, and after that with how vehemently one has gone out of one's way to exceed the average cotributions.
5. Congress and elected officials. Congress cleaned out by 2026-2028.
6. Should put this up in priority with #2. First the Joint chiefs, then whispering campaign to explain that a successful military career requires a positive MAGA vetting. Soldiers aren't stupid, they will quickly get the message, and those who don't or don't want to dishonor themselves will leave.
I've had discussions with people who don't want to believe this telling me this will take too much time. All I can say is it took about 90 days to turn the Weimar republic from a democracy to a Nazi dictatorship. It's truly amazing how an emergency decree or two can speed up events.
My expectation is the country will blow up at some point in this process ( it's possible it will do as soon as Trump is declared the winner). Two accelerating factors:
1. The trains will not run on time, systems on which lives and fortunes depend will begin to break down
2. Widespread conviction Trump not constitutionally eligible, should never have been allowed to run, no matter what those corrupt hacks on the Court ruled. CW entirely missing how destabilizing this could be
Right wing attacks on public education began in California under Gov. Reagan. He ended tuition-free college education for California residents. Critics at the time wrote the Governor thought the 60’s youth rebellion against Vietnam War was caused by students educated at California’s community colleges and universities.
Later, California’s Proposition 13 passed, and property tax revenues dedicated to fund schools, colleges and universities was forever “capped”.
In 1980, New Mexico’s right wing state lawmakers successfully passed legislation which repealed a law which invested property tax revenues in the state’s public schools, colleges and universities.
Beginning of the year. Saying that the authoritarian scare mongers were blowing things out of proportion and that we already had an authoritarian in the White House right now.
I'm still puzzled as to why handling Trump in court is viewed as some sort of challenge.
Just ignoring his miscoduct in Court, emboldens him and erodes the legitimacy and respect for the court.
Fining him is useless, because it's not his money. He'll get the money from fundraising.
But Trump is fundamentally a coward who would immediately crumble in custody.
Simple enough. Warn Trump that his outbusts will result in him spending a night in jail for contempt of court. Give him a second warning. Heck give him a third.
After that, just get the cuffs on him and take him to jail for the night.
Next day, two warnings, 2 days in jail.
Next day, one warning, 4 days in jail.
Next day, no warning, 8 days in jail.
After that, just keep doubling the jail time.
No appeals court would criticise that conduct on the part of the trial judge, and let's face it, Trump is such a little baby he'd stay quiet after his first stint in jail.
Fuck the political implications. One crucial aspect to the rule of law, is that while court proceedings are ongoing, the authority of the Court must be respected by all parties. Period.
The fact that Trump is getting treated with kid gloves while he blatantly disrespects the court process is already a failure to uphold the rule of law.
I noticed that advisors for Protect Democracy includes Professor Timothy Snyder, an Eastern European Historian. Snyder has been warning about the threats to our democratic republic since 2016. Have you ever heard of “On Tyranny: 20 Lessons from the 20th Century”?
It's on my reading list. He points out how much farther along we are than even the pessimists here generally realize.
In human affairs as well as in physics and chemistry there are event horizons and tipping points, where one realm of equilibria is stable within a range of perturbations of inputs and feedbacks, but breaks out into another realm quite suddenly, very often apparently without warning, when the right combination of inputs occurs. Call it a phase transition. Often the processes are not perspicuous and the transition comes as a seeming surprise. Sometimes the causes truly are hidden variables, but in retrospect it usually falls out that they were "hidden" only in the sense that observers went to great lengths to not see them.
I think one of these "hidden" variables has been right in our faces for the past half century or so -- unprecedented advances in the technologies of communication and information processing, employed in the twin services of venality and criminality, have birthed a technology of mendacity before which we poor primates are defenseless. I look forward to seeing whether and/or how Snyder addresses this.
By the way, if you are looking for a book that will really make you feel great about humanity (not!) try "Bloodlands" -- Snyder's history of Eastern Europe as it experienced Hitler and Stalin and their respective systems. Before you read it, though, have your spouse or partner lock up the cyanide pills until you've finished the book at least a week or more and you've had a chance to look at a beautiful sunset or two.
George Orwell got almost everything right; with the exception of this: he believed the government would have to force people to leave on the tele screens. Not even Orwell could conceive of a population that would voluntarily choose to be glued to the screens 24/7. As someone has pointed out, social media is the largest social experiment ever carried out; it is succeeding, and we are failing.
This may be the first dictatorship in history to pay for the cost of overthrowing the previous regime, not after taking power by expropriating property of its enemies or conquering other polities, but by charging fees and selling advertising in the runup to the coup.
Not a constitutional scholar, but isn't there a much easier way for Trump to stay in office beyond 2028 without DOJ intervention etc? 22nd amendment reads "No person shall be *elected* to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be *elected* to the office of the President more than once." It seems like there would be a plausible scenario where, say, Don Jr runs in 2028 with Dad as his VP, and then resigns the day after the inauguration?
Damn, you are a born MAGA legal apparatchik! Barring a Hamburger of Deliverance, we can definitely expect DJT to declare himself a continuance in office in 2028 due to (emergency, failure of election, the fact that half of Congress has disappeared after being detained for questioning)... and the argument will certainly be that no one else having won the election, he is eligible to stay put.
Not sure if that's a compliment or not but my blue liberal heart will accept it as one 😂 It seems like they wouldn't even have to be surreptitious about it, DJTJ's platform could be "elect me so I can resign and make my dad president again" and MAGA World would fall all over themselves to make it happen.
After reading through some of the playbook references above, and sleeping on it. My brain came up with one conclusion. So now I ask if what it came up with is true. Are we at war? Is this effectively the second us civil war? Are the organizations and people referenced in the playbook making war?
Will what we call it make a difference when they come for you in the middle of the night and you disappear into some Lubyanka?
This bunch has decided that it is either war -- or revolution -- or whatever we choose to call it -- or capitulation. Compromise is not even conceivable, and since capitulation is not admissible, it will be what it is. It won't be prevented short of violence -- and trying to prevent it by resort to violence necessarily destroys the village we want to save.
Sometimes Leonidas gets wiped out and Xerxes still wins.
Everything is on one's permanent record these days. Us Bulwark readers are on the lists...
Well unarmed war if there's such a thing. I'm not advocating war. However I think trump and the people surrounding him, these various institutions feeding into could well be at war. I don't think we think we're war really most people, the nyts the administration etc.. but it could be they are waging war. I'm just asking opinions not advocating for it.
Neither am I advocating either war or violence. We would lose anyway-- they have the weaponry, they have the motivated cadres of potential and actual leaders and fighters, they know what they think they want (a top-down regime run on the Fuehrerprinzip), and above all the greatest advantage any group of revolutionaries can have: an opposition that does not even realize it is targeted for destruction.
I'm afraid history is pushing us into a cul-de-sac. The most discouraging part is that we are blindly following each other toward the abattoir.
Reading the report, everything in it is dead on except the final section, with its recommendations to "take anti-democratic ideas and promises
seriously," "Create pro-democracy coalitions before the crisis arrives", "Keep a broad pro-democracy movement united against the acute, big-picture autocratic danger" and so forth.
It's not that these recommendations are wrong, it's that they are largely about as useful as a tennis coach explaining that the way to win a match is to keep hitting the ball over the net so it lands in bounds until your opponent fails to do so. This is very true but doesn't clarify how to swing the racquet correctly.
#1, #2, & #3 -- By all means and we do have some Bulwarks other scattered groups collecting under (somewhat tattered) pro-democracy banners, but if America still had a populace that really objected to anti-democratic ideas, and wanted to unite against autocratic danger, we wouldn't be facing this disaster. The recruiting offices are open, but it's MAGA where the queues are forming to join up.
With #4, supporting Republicans who stand firm for democratic institutions, there is a slight difficulty -- there aren't any.
#5, Rally around non-partisan, independent public servants -- yes, although unfortunately this is more likely to light them up for target practice and get them invited to necktie parties than embolden others to stand up against the authoritarian tide.
#6 amounts to bringing dictionaries to a knife fight, and #7 and #8, where not short on actionable detail ("training for the unexpected") have the disadvantage of volunteering everyone on your team for special attention as soon as the new regime can get around to them.
Pretty bleak. Sometimes the current of history just can't be navigated.
'Ofcourse they'd win a hot civil war' seems to be CW. Think that's wrong. Blue would control cities, thus communications, that is, both electronic (info and money), and distribution networks. Red, with its' rural base, would be at a crippling disadvantage. That's why the Bolsheviks won the Russian Civil War.
But it won't come to that. MAGA has not demonstrated the will or capacity for organized violence since Jan. 6 itself. When Mar-a-Lago was searched, there was a frightful uproar, but only one individual attempted attack on FBI office and got himself killed. One. Out of 74 million Trump voters. Since then, 4 arraignments, and nothing, not even large demonstrations despite Donald calling for them at the first one in NYC. MAGA is a new phenomenon, an almost entirely online, screen, fantasy in which the price of participation is to believe impossible things. If a handful decide to cosplay civil war, so much the worse for them.
Hyperbole again. Trump is easily the worst human to occupy the White House in my lifetime (going back to Nixon). But let's compare this modern, petty despot with some of the other "gems" that have occupied the office. Three come to mind.
Wilson was an avowed and overt racist who rolled back years of progress African Americans had made thru government programs and employment. He reinstated segregation throughout the Federal government and Washington DC.
Polk invaded a foreign country on a pretext in order to make more land available for the expansion of slavery. Polk himself was a slave owner. At least Bush II nominally "claimed" to be spreading democracy.
And of course there is Jackson. He also invaded (directly) foreign territory on pretext, and through battle tactics killed hundreds of women and children. Later, he committed genocide, killing thousands (indirectly) through his policies. Both for the benefit of existing slave owners (to remove a haven for the runaway enslaved) and later to open more land for the expansion of slavery. In addition, he was a slave owner.
Indian-killing, slavery, and segregation were all policy, and policy debates, within the scope of constitutional democracy at the time. At least two of them were (largely) ended by constitutional processes.
Jackson, refused to abide by SCOTUS rulings on the Indian Removal Act. I believe his response was, "Let them enforce their judgment." He was repugnant even for his own time.
Oh, I almost mentioned that. Yes, the least constitutional act by any of the three. His "corrupt bargain" disparagement of the (perfectly constitutional) resolution to the 1824 election was also not cool, from a civics perspective.
If Jackson had had many more moments like these, he'd have been in a similar space to Trump.
You have a good point about Jackson. On the spectrum of US Presidential vileness, he used to top the list. He was also personally a violent man whose behavior in every sphere of his life was consistent with a belief that he was special, and whatever morality and rules others should follow did not apply to him. It is probably fair to conclude he, like Trump, was high up on the narcissism spectrum.
Of course, he differed from Trump in that he was by no means an idiot, had great organizational and leadership abilities, set serious goals for himself, and worked to accomplish them with iron self-discipline.
I imagine if there is in some afterlife US Presidential Asshole club, the three of them looking down (or perhaps up) at us must be shaking their heads in disgust at their successor, muttering, how disgracefully degraded the former standards of deplorability have become. For assholery and vileness Trump certainly qualifies for admission, but in every other respect can only be regarded as a contemptible failure.
I see it as money and power destroying what intelligence and empathy the person originally had. Very few can stand up to this effect. Mr Dimon is evidently not one of them.
There have been psychological experiments showing this effect. Just giving subjects a momentary sense of enhanced power diminishes empathy.
Charlie, I simply cannot cut George Will any slack or give his his 'moment.' He has been a stalwart pillar of sanity and genuine traditional conservatism. For him to jump the shark that badly is simply unacceptable. Does he not understand how dangerous Orange Jesus is? Or, are we expecting to see George in a MAGA hat shortly? It's all just so freaking sad. There's a reason we have an 'establishment.' The establishment holds the walls together when the earth starts shaking.
Unless he has been kidnapped, and his captors have injected him with Ivermectin , and in consequence Mr. Will has suffered catastrophic brain damage, George Will is not a fool, so this cannot be accounted ordinary misprision.
We can only speculate as to motive, but possibly because he is no fool, and is fully conversant with what happens when a dictatorship comes to power and makes lists of who was on their side and who was not, he is taking out some insurance against a prospective day or night of long knives.
As a nurse, I say keep pushing all of Trump’s buttons. His facial skin looks strange, he is not capable of speaking English, his garbled language isn’t even word salad. Trump is decompensating. Push him over the cliff and let his show his true mentally ill self. I think he is close to a breakdown, which would be wonderful....
"Trump has already told us repeatedly what he plans to do, the authors write, but this time, he has the backing of 'groups working to support those promises in preparation for a second Trump term'.”
He has always had them. Over 70 million of them in various capacities. The difference is that the few who bravely and patriotically tried to control them (& him) were outnumbered from the beginning, and one by one, resigned, were fired or voted out.
“'Time and again,' they write, “predictions that Trump was not serious have proved disastrously incorrect."
Except that they mostly DID predict that he was serious. Even before he took office there was already decades of evidence that the spiteful, spoiled brat did not care about his country, or anything but his own instant gratification. What they - and I - failed to predict, is how, even after the 1/6 insurrection, so many enablers and protectors, by then nearly every GOP politician included, were every bit as serious, willing to do all the heavy lifting, and even "take bullets," for the most fragile egomaniac on the planet.
Outstanding!!! 👍 👍 👏👏👏
Re the painfully prolonged fat Elvis metaphor (which you did not participate in) on Morning Joe this a.m., could you hear me screaming, "Make it STOP!" from Kentucky?
Frankly ASTONISHED not to see speculation that Trump and his merry band assembling at Heritage would go after Federal Judges, since he's already doing it right now. Just for one example, he's praying that SCOTUS "will have the courage" to do the right thing on immunity and section 3, just as he prayed Mike Pence would "have the courage " on Jan. 6. How'd that turn out?
Think of Chutkan, who can now rely on capable and committed protection by US Marshals, FBI, and DHS. If he's reelected, Trump will control them all. So, there will not be the option to enforce rights in court if Trump comes after you.
Who hasn/t speculated on this? I've been telling people that the list will start with
1. DOJ -- everyone, starting with the AJ and all his/her immediate subordinates, and at the same time all the district attorneys in every jurisdiction. And simultaneously, although it may take a year or so to fully clear them out ---
2. A list of Federal judges who are "good:" and "bad", and the "bad" will be pushed out with the ultimatum -- retire with pension, or retire involuntarily later without benefits. The incentives will include one two examples being defenestrated. If this list does not already exist and is not being assiduously maintained I have never opened a single history book much less read numbers of them.
3. All state supreme court judges, same offer. Then Heritage and Federalist society minions starting in on the state judiciaries in the same wise.
4. Of course the FBI, the CIA, ICE, the rest of Homeland Security. First it will be a matter of being known as aware of the prevailing wind. Then it will be if one has put MAGA stickers on one's vehicles. Finally it will be how much of one's salary one has voluntarily dedicated to the cause, and after that with how vehemently one has gone out of one's way to exceed the average cotributions.
5. Congress and elected officials. Congress cleaned out by 2026-2028.
6. Should put this up in priority with #2. First the Joint chiefs, then whispering campaign to explain that a successful military career requires a positive MAGA vetting. Soldiers aren't stupid, they will quickly get the message, and those who don't or don't want to dishonor themselves will leave.
I've had discussions with people who don't want to believe this telling me this will take too much time. All I can say is it took about 90 days to turn the Weimar republic from a democracy to a Nazi dictatorship. It's truly amazing how an emergency decree or two can speed up events.
My expectation is the country will blow up at some point in this process ( it's possible it will do as soon as Trump is declared the winner). Two accelerating factors:
1. The trains will not run on time, systems on which lives and fortunes depend will begin to break down
2. Widespread conviction Trump not constitutionally eligible, should never have been allowed to run, no matter what those corrupt hacks on the Court ruled. CW entirely missing how destabilizing this could be
21 Jan 24
Right wing attacks on public education began in California under Gov. Reagan. He ended tuition-free college education for California residents. Critics at the time wrote the Governor thought the 60’s youth rebellion against Vietnam War was caused by students educated at California’s community colleges and universities.
Later, California’s Proposition 13 passed, and property tax revenues dedicated to fund schools, colleges and universities was forever “capped”.
In 1980, New Mexico’s right wing state lawmakers successfully passed legislation which repealed a law which invested property tax revenues in the state’s public schools, colleges and universities.
https://johnadamsingram.substack.com/p/nh-gop-voters-may-defeat-the-indicted/
Jamie the Collaborationist.
Beginning of the year. Saying that the authoritarian scare mongers were blowing things out of proportion and that we already had an authoritarian in the White House right now.
I'm still puzzled as to why handling Trump in court is viewed as some sort of challenge.
Just ignoring his miscoduct in Court, emboldens him and erodes the legitimacy and respect for the court.
Fining him is useless, because it's not his money. He'll get the money from fundraising.
But Trump is fundamentally a coward who would immediately crumble in custody.
Simple enough. Warn Trump that his outbusts will result in him spending a night in jail for contempt of court. Give him a second warning. Heck give him a third.
After that, just get the cuffs on him and take him to jail for the night.
Next day, two warnings, 2 days in jail.
Next day, one warning, 4 days in jail.
Next day, no warning, 8 days in jail.
After that, just keep doubling the jail time.
No appeals court would criticise that conduct on the part of the trial judge, and let's face it, Trump is such a little baby he'd stay quiet after his first stint in jail.
Fuck the political implications. One crucial aspect to the rule of law, is that while court proceedings are ongoing, the authority of the Court must be respected by all parties. Period.
The fact that Trump is getting treated with kid gloves while he blatantly disrespects the court process is already a failure to uphold the rule of law.
Truly, it's time to pop this pimple and see what happens rather than wait until it's too late.
Rule of law? What does that matter to Caesar? He will be the law, or perish.
I noticed that advisors for Protect Democracy includes Professor Timothy Snyder, an Eastern European Historian. Snyder has been warning about the threats to our democratic republic since 2016. Have you ever heard of “On Tyranny: 20 Lessons from the 20th Century”?
It's on my reading list. He points out how much farther along we are than even the pessimists here generally realize.
In human affairs as well as in physics and chemistry there are event horizons and tipping points, where one realm of equilibria is stable within a range of perturbations of inputs and feedbacks, but breaks out into another realm quite suddenly, very often apparently without warning, when the right combination of inputs occurs. Call it a phase transition. Often the processes are not perspicuous and the transition comes as a seeming surprise. Sometimes the causes truly are hidden variables, but in retrospect it usually falls out that they were "hidden" only in the sense that observers went to great lengths to not see them.
I think one of these "hidden" variables has been right in our faces for the past half century or so -- unprecedented advances in the technologies of communication and information processing, employed in the twin services of venality and criminality, have birthed a technology of mendacity before which we poor primates are defenseless. I look forward to seeing whether and/or how Snyder addresses this.
By the way, if you are looking for a book that will really make you feel great about humanity (not!) try "Bloodlands" -- Snyder's history of Eastern Europe as it experienced Hitler and Stalin and their respective systems. Before you read it, though, have your spouse or partner lock up the cyanide pills until you've finished the book at least a week or more and you've had a chance to look at a beautiful sunset or two.
Turn off the tv. Read.
Reading is what losers do. Winners enlist others.
I've been reading for 50 years and where are we?
George Orwell got almost everything right; with the exception of this: he believed the government would have to force people to leave on the tele screens. Not even Orwell could conceive of a population that would voluntarily choose to be glued to the screens 24/7. As someone has pointed out, social media is the largest social experiment ever carried out; it is succeeding, and we are failing.
This may be the first dictatorship in history to pay for the cost of overthrowing the previous regime, not after taking power by expropriating property of its enemies or conquering other polities, but by charging fees and selling advertising in the runup to the coup.
Not a constitutional scholar, but isn't there a much easier way for Trump to stay in office beyond 2028 without DOJ intervention etc? 22nd amendment reads "No person shall be *elected* to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be *elected* to the office of the President more than once." It seems like there would be a plausible scenario where, say, Don Jr runs in 2028 with Dad as his VP, and then resigns the day after the inauguration?
Damn, you are a born MAGA legal apparatchik! Barring a Hamburger of Deliverance, we can definitely expect DJT to declare himself a continuance in office in 2028 due to (emergency, failure of election, the fact that half of Congress has disappeared after being detained for questioning)... and the argument will certainly be that no one else having won the election, he is eligible to stay put.
Not sure if that's a compliment or not but my blue liberal heart will accept it as one 😂 It seems like they wouldn't even have to be surreptitious about it, DJTJ's platform could be "elect me so I can resign and make my dad president again" and MAGA World would fall all over themselves to make it happen.
This smarter person seems to think this is entirely plausible: https://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/fac_artchop/1012/
After reading through some of the playbook references above, and sleeping on it. My brain came up with one conclusion. So now I ask if what it came up with is true. Are we at war? Is this effectively the second us civil war? Are the organizations and people referenced in the playbook making war?
Will what we call it make a difference when they come for you in the middle of the night and you disappear into some Lubyanka?
This bunch has decided that it is either war -- or revolution -- or whatever we choose to call it -- or capitulation. Compromise is not even conceivable, and since capitulation is not admissible, it will be what it is. It won't be prevented short of violence -- and trying to prevent it by resort to violence necessarily destroys the village we want to save.
Sometimes Leonidas gets wiped out and Xerxes still wins.
Everything is on one's permanent record these days. Us Bulwark readers are on the lists...
Well unarmed war if there's such a thing. I'm not advocating war. However I think trump and the people surrounding him, these various institutions feeding into could well be at war. I don't think we think we're war really most people, the nyts the administration etc.. but it could be they are waging war. I'm just asking opinions not advocating for it.
Neither am I advocating either war or violence. We would lose anyway-- they have the weaponry, they have the motivated cadres of potential and actual leaders and fighters, they know what they think they want (a top-down regime run on the Fuehrerprinzip), and above all the greatest advantage any group of revolutionaries can have: an opposition that does not even realize it is targeted for destruction.
I'm afraid history is pushing us into a cul-de-sac. The most discouraging part is that we are blindly following each other toward the abattoir.
Reading the report, everything in it is dead on except the final section, with its recommendations to "take anti-democratic ideas and promises
seriously," "Create pro-democracy coalitions before the crisis arrives", "Keep a broad pro-democracy movement united against the acute, big-picture autocratic danger" and so forth.
It's not that these recommendations are wrong, it's that they are largely about as useful as a tennis coach explaining that the way to win a match is to keep hitting the ball over the net so it lands in bounds until your opponent fails to do so. This is very true but doesn't clarify how to swing the racquet correctly.
#1, #2, & #3 -- By all means and we do have some Bulwarks other scattered groups collecting under (somewhat tattered) pro-democracy banners, but if America still had a populace that really objected to anti-democratic ideas, and wanted to unite against autocratic danger, we wouldn't be facing this disaster. The recruiting offices are open, but it's MAGA where the queues are forming to join up.
With #4, supporting Republicans who stand firm for democratic institutions, there is a slight difficulty -- there aren't any.
#5, Rally around non-partisan, independent public servants -- yes, although unfortunately this is more likely to light them up for target practice and get them invited to necktie parties than embolden others to stand up against the authoritarian tide.
#6 amounts to bringing dictionaries to a knife fight, and #7 and #8, where not short on actionable detail ("training for the unexpected") have the disadvantage of volunteering everyone on your team for special attention as soon as the new regime can get around to them.
Pretty bleak. Sometimes the current of history just can't be navigated.
'Ofcourse they'd win a hot civil war' seems to be CW. Think that's wrong. Blue would control cities, thus communications, that is, both electronic (info and money), and distribution networks. Red, with its' rural base, would be at a crippling disadvantage. That's why the Bolsheviks won the Russian Civil War.
But it won't come to that. MAGA has not demonstrated the will or capacity for organized violence since Jan. 6 itself. When Mar-a-Lago was searched, there was a frightful uproar, but only one individual attempted attack on FBI office and got himself killed. One. Out of 74 million Trump voters. Since then, 4 arraignments, and nothing, not even large demonstrations despite Donald calling for them at the first one in NYC. MAGA is a new phenomenon, an almost entirely online, screen, fantasy in which the price of participation is to believe impossible things. If a handful decide to cosplay civil war, so much the worse for them.
Hyperbole again. Trump is easily the worst human to occupy the White House in my lifetime (going back to Nixon). But let's compare this modern, petty despot with some of the other "gems" that have occupied the office. Three come to mind.
Wilson was an avowed and overt racist who rolled back years of progress African Americans had made thru government programs and employment. He reinstated segregation throughout the Federal government and Washington DC.
Polk invaded a foreign country on a pretext in order to make more land available for the expansion of slavery. Polk himself was a slave owner. At least Bush II nominally "claimed" to be spreading democracy.
And of course there is Jackson. He also invaded (directly) foreign territory on pretext, and through battle tactics killed hundreds of women and children. Later, he committed genocide, killing thousands (indirectly) through his policies. Both for the benefit of existing slave owners (to remove a haven for the runaway enslaved) and later to open more land for the expansion of slavery. In addition, he was a slave owner.
Indian-killing, slavery, and segregation were all policy, and policy debates, within the scope of constitutional democracy at the time. At least two of them were (largely) ended by constitutional processes.
Jackson, refused to abide by SCOTUS rulings on the Indian Removal Act. I believe his response was, "Let them enforce their judgment." He was repugnant even for his own time.
Oh, I almost mentioned that. Yes, the least constitutional act by any of the three. His "corrupt bargain" disparagement of the (perfectly constitutional) resolution to the 1824 election was also not cool, from a civics perspective.
If Jackson had had many more moments like these, he'd have been in a similar space to Trump.
You have a good point about Jackson. On the spectrum of US Presidential vileness, he used to top the list. He was also personally a violent man whose behavior in every sphere of his life was consistent with a belief that he was special, and whatever morality and rules others should follow did not apply to him. It is probably fair to conclude he, like Trump, was high up on the narcissism spectrum.
Of course, he differed from Trump in that he was by no means an idiot, had great organizational and leadership abilities, set serious goals for himself, and worked to accomplish them with iron self-discipline.
I imagine if there is in some afterlife US Presidential Asshole club, the three of them looking down (or perhaps up) at us must be shaking their heads in disgust at their successor, muttering, how disgracefully degraded the former standards of deplorability have become. For assholery and vileness Trump certainly qualifies for admission, but in every other respect can only be regarded as a contemptible failure.
Jamie Dimon proves once again that no amount of money can buy brains or a soul.
I see it as money and power destroying what intelligence and empathy the person originally had. Very few can stand up to this effect. Mr Dimon is evidently not one of them.
There have been psychological experiments showing this effect. Just giving subjects a momentary sense of enhanced power diminishes empathy.
Charlie, I simply cannot cut George Will any slack or give his his 'moment.' He has been a stalwart pillar of sanity and genuine traditional conservatism. For him to jump the shark that badly is simply unacceptable. Does he not understand how dangerous Orange Jesus is? Or, are we expecting to see George in a MAGA hat shortly? It's all just so freaking sad. There's a reason we have an 'establishment.' The establishment holds the walls together when the earth starts shaking.
When did George Will jump the shark? I musta been in my tanning chamber to have missed that. Do tell...
https://www.dailycamera.com/2024/01/04/opinion-george-will-a-constitution-flouting-authoritarian-is-already-in-the-white-house
Unless he has been kidnapped, and his captors have injected him with Ivermectin , and in consequence Mr. Will has suffered catastrophic brain damage, George Will is not a fool, so this cannot be accounted ordinary misprision.
We can only speculate as to motive, but possibly because he is no fool, and is fully conversant with what happens when a dictatorship comes to power and makes lists of who was on their side and who was not, he is taking out some insurance against a prospective day or night of long knives.
As a nurse, I say keep pushing all of Trump’s buttons. His facial skin looks strange, he is not capable of speaking English, his garbled language isn’t even word salad. Trump is decompensating. Push him over the cliff and let his show his true mentally ill self. I think he is close to a breakdown, which would be wonderful....
More like decomposing!
That too. His face looks like the “Portrait of Dorian Grey”