Said it before, will say it again and again because it's still all too true: To indict Trump is to risk further insurrection; to give him a pass is to guarantee his tyranny
The principle adopted at the height of the Islamist terrorism boom was "We don't negotiate with terrorists." The principle served us well.
We need a new principle to deal with existential threats to the constitutional order: You must indict. Trump is setting up the narrative that he has the strength to intimidate his political enemies. This bluff must be called. And the indictment must go big. No Al-Capone-tax-fraud-charges style of managing a problem. A trial must be about reasserting the ideals of how our self-governance is to operate.
The utter contempt Trump has for those begging for his support is out in the open. And they still grovel before him. Vance and the others have lost whatever self respect they once had. The Ds should show that clip on their ads - how could anyone vote for a candidate who abases himself so publicly? Waiting for the clip of Vance actually doing what Trump said.
To those "mainstream Republicans" who cannot bring themselves to vote for a Democrat, write in John McCain - a man who stood for the very principles you claim to hold on to, a man who saw the danger Trump posed and stood up to him every way he could, a man who gave his country almost everything a person can.
If you believe in angels, make him yours. Tell today's GOP "COUNTRY over party", because until they lose massively at the polls, they will not reform, they will acquiesce with their silence and we'll end up with a country none of us recognize, none of us want.
Nah. We should be much more concerned that Biden had the gall to mention fascism in his speech and didn’t just recite the lyrics to “Get Together” by the Youngbloods. And that he had the nerve to discuss democracy alongside his policy goals. And what an imperfect messenger he is. And the marines were in the background. And, like, he stutters or something.
Love you guys but, man, some of the tut-tutting of the last couple weeks is already in the “wow, that take didn’t age well” category.
If repeating a lie over and over causes people to believe it, then isn't the antidote to repeat the truth over and over so people will believe it? I don't mean, "the election was NOT stolen". I mean simply this: "Voting for today's GOP anywhere on the ballot is an outright danger to our democracy, our rights, and our freedoms. Vote them out of office now, while we still have elections where every vote counts."
Everyone, especially organizations like the Bulwark, who have conservative credentials, forums, and large followings on social media, should be sending out this same message, over and over. It won't change the MAGA minds, but it might start to take hold with the Independent and Republican voters we need to defeat trumpism and the threat it poses. The so-called "mainstream Republican" office-holders have acquiesced with their silence, incredibly believing if trump were to die, their problem would be solved....
So... can we call them fascists now? They're a bunch of saluting ethno-nationlists who want to create a dictatorship for a single man and imagine locking up and murdering their enemies. Can we stop quibbling over whether or not they're fascists? If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, we can stop calling it a featherless biped.
I have had Trump Derangement Syndrome since I realized what he really was in 2016, but not what anit-anti's believe TDS to be. Trump is deranged and I have a problem with him being in any position of influence!
As I have said before, there WILL be violence. Better to get it out of the way while the GoP isn't in control--because the GoP will not hesitate to use violence (official and unofficial) to counter an "insurrection."
This is what happens when you keep kicking the can down the road, year after year. election cycle after election cycle.
I would much rather have the tyranny of the Left than the tyranny that the Right is going to bring, even though I am not a fan of either one--but you ARE going to get some form of tyranny. There is no escaping it at this point--we sped by that off ramp (the non-tyranny one) quite some time ago.
All of this is the result of our electoral system combined with the low character nature of our culture and society--and our worship of wealth. There are a LOT of things that need to change.
We have a system of faux democracy. It is based upon the competition of the political class for status and power through elections. The system was largely designed to maintain the status quo--with major shifts only happening as a result of large scale political/cultural upheaval--the two major instances being:
The US Civil War
The Great Depression
The 2 World Wars also had some effects--but those got entrained largely in the Great Depression changes.
Barring such events change is very slow and often non-existent. Lots of cosmetic stuff gets done, that looks good but doesn't have the supposed intended effect either because it is based upon unsound theory or it gets sabotaged in the political process.
Politicians deliver performance art to the masses and the real goodies to their sponsors. The masses only get goodies when they get angry enough that it looks like the torches and pitchforks are going to come out or the political class needs something from them (usually, their votes or buy in to a large scale project that the political class wants).
As I have said elsewhere, if you somehow have a society without an elite class, institute elections and you soon will have one... and that class will work hard to preserve its privileges and hand things off to their progeny. At some point they will feel secure enough in their power and status to thumb their noses at the people, as we are seeing now.
This is, of course, on top of the economic elite class that our system creates--and the two work together quite happily for the most part to secure their situation.
Fit me for a tinfoil hat, but I'm dead certain that QAnon is the most successful active measure ever undertaken by the Russians or anyone else: Consider:
1) DNC hack, at Trump's suggestion; Stone's ongoing relationship with Guccifer 2
2) Lacking anything more juicy than that the DNC preferred a candidate who was electable, cheese pizza orders were posited to be a clue
3) The clue pointed to child rape, cannibalism, etc. in the basement of Comet Pizza--Pizzagate
4) When Comet was found not to *have* a basement, the crew at the IRA in St. Petersburg was undeterred. They metastasized Pizzagate out of the basement into the rest of America via "Q."
5) General Flynn, Sydney Powell, Ginni Thomas, et alia....
The Christ-honoring service this a.m. celebrating a woman whose life reflected: honor, duty,integrity, humility, respect for her fellow citizens vs. a rally on Sat. celebrating a godless man whose life reflects pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, sloth.
Last night I watched Ken Burns documentary, The U.S. and the Holocaust. I was struck by the similarities between Hitler's early rallies and Trump's recent Q-Anon inspired rallies. It's not only the disturbing speeches. The expressions on the faces of the attendees is frighteningly similar. The ability of both men to 'zombify' people to mindlessly carry out violence on their behalf is apparent.
There's a fundamental fallacy in how news of Trump and the MAGA set is handled. MAGA currently receives safe harbor in the Republican Party. But the GOP's midterm prospects are bleak, precisely because of the toxicity of the MAGA set. Most voters will have two very simple choices on the ballot in November: vote for Democrats to enshrine in law the rights we thought we had, but that the GOP actively wishes to abolish, or vote for Republicans to guarantee a wide-scale loss of rights, particularly for marginalized populations.
MAGA more or less owned the primaries, because they're an extremely reliable voting block, but nobody seems to reckon that against the entire population that votes in a general election. This fall, I doubt MAGA will compose more than 15% of the nation's electorate.
So the Nazi salutes and the intimidating game of thrones themed posters of the former guy(I like that term very much) are a clarion call to a minority of the smaller party.
People will turn out in November to defend abortion rights, same-sex marriage, support for Ukraine against a real-life practicing fascist, bodily autonomy, action against climate change, and other red-line issues. MAGA voters will turn out for spite and revenge, and be far less numerous than the former group.
Since Democrats are the pro-democracy party, and MAGA is fervently anti-democracy (little d) *and* pro-political theatre *and* pro-political violence, dems need to get used to fighting HARD in the political theatre space, because if they don't, they're showing that they are weaklings at the intermediary stage of "mean tweets" that they have no backbone for the political violence part. When you tell a bully exactly how fucking weak you are, you are letting him know the limitations of your anger. He's gonna KNOW that you don't have the stomach for political violence if you can't even take the mean tweets, which makes going to political violence route all the more tempting because the bully knows it is a tactic that their political opposition won't be able to beat them on.
If Democrats in office refuse to fight back in the political theatre space, they are letting MAGA know *exactly* how to make them look weak. Every bus that gets sent to Chicago, DC, or NYC, or Martha's Fucking Decadent Vineyard without a *return fire* response from Democrats is making them look weak as fuck to the roughly 80% of Americans who don't really pay attention to politics. These are the voters who only catch headlines like "Florida sends buses full of 10k immigrants to NYC" and "Elected Democrats respond with WORDS to getting shitted on by MAGA governors."
If the Dems keep playing with political weakness like it is fire, they're going to lose November turnout--not from their base, but from "meh" voters. Everything is about the "attention economy" now, and MAGA is winning that attention fight. Every day that passes from now until November 8th that lacks a theatrical political response from Democrats (beyond fucking WORDS) on the immigrant busing issue is another day that they're going to lose potential voters who see the Dems as weakness incarnate.
Said it before, will say it again and again because it's still all too true: To indict Trump is to risk further insurrection; to give him a pass is to guarantee his tyranny
The principle adopted at the height of the Islamist terrorism boom was "We don't negotiate with terrorists." The principle served us well.
We need a new principle to deal with existential threats to the constitutional order: You must indict. Trump is setting up the narrative that he has the strength to intimidate his political enemies. This bluff must be called. And the indictment must go big. No Al-Capone-tax-fraud-charges style of managing a problem. A trial must be about reasserting the ideals of how our self-governance is to operate.
I would rather mug shot him and risk a street fight than let him free and risk it all.
The utter contempt Trump has for those begging for his support is out in the open. And they still grovel before him. Vance and the others have lost whatever self respect they once had. The Ds should show that clip on their ads - how could anyone vote for a candidate who abases himself so publicly? Waiting for the clip of Vance actually doing what Trump said.
To those "mainstream Republicans" who cannot bring themselves to vote for a Democrat, write in John McCain - a man who stood for the very principles you claim to hold on to, a man who saw the danger Trump posed and stood up to him every way he could, a man who gave his country almost everything a person can.
If you believe in angels, make him yours. Tell today's GOP "COUNTRY over party", because until they lose massively at the polls, they will not reform, they will acquiesce with their silence and we'll end up with a country none of us recognize, none of us want.
Nah. We should be much more concerned that Biden had the gall to mention fascism in his speech and didn’t just recite the lyrics to “Get Together” by the Youngbloods. And that he had the nerve to discuss democracy alongside his policy goals. And what an imperfect messenger he is. And the marines were in the background. And, like, he stutters or something.
Love you guys but, man, some of the tut-tutting of the last couple weeks is already in the “wow, that take didn’t age well” category.
If repeating a lie over and over causes people to believe it, then isn't the antidote to repeat the truth over and over so people will believe it? I don't mean, "the election was NOT stolen". I mean simply this: "Voting for today's GOP anywhere on the ballot is an outright danger to our democracy, our rights, and our freedoms. Vote them out of office now, while we still have elections where every vote counts."
Everyone, especially organizations like the Bulwark, who have conservative credentials, forums, and large followings on social media, should be sending out this same message, over and over. It won't change the MAGA minds, but it might start to take hold with the Independent and Republican voters we need to defeat trumpism and the threat it poses. The so-called "mainstream Republican" office-holders have acquiesced with their silence, incredibly believing if trump were to die, their problem would be solved....
So... can we call them fascists now? They're a bunch of saluting ethno-nationlists who want to create a dictatorship for a single man and imagine locking up and murdering their enemies. Can we stop quibbling over whether or not they're fascists? If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, we can stop calling it a featherless biped.
I hope everyone listens to the NYTimes clip. The reference to one people etc sounds like Hitler.
I have had Trump Derangement Syndrome since I realized what he really was in 2016, but not what anit-anti's believe TDS to be. Trump is deranged and I have a problem with him being in any position of influence!
As I have said before, there WILL be violence. Better to get it out of the way while the GoP isn't in control--because the GoP will not hesitate to use violence (official and unofficial) to counter an "insurrection."
This is what happens when you keep kicking the can down the road, year after year. election cycle after election cycle.
I would much rather have the tyranny of the Left than the tyranny that the Right is going to bring, even though I am not a fan of either one--but you ARE going to get some form of tyranny. There is no escaping it at this point--we sped by that off ramp (the non-tyranny one) quite some time ago.
All of this is the result of our electoral system combined with the low character nature of our culture and society--and our worship of wealth. There are a LOT of things that need to change.
We have a system of faux democracy. It is based upon the competition of the political class for status and power through elections. The system was largely designed to maintain the status quo--with major shifts only happening as a result of large scale political/cultural upheaval--the two major instances being:
The US Civil War
The Great Depression
The 2 World Wars also had some effects--but those got entrained largely in the Great Depression changes.
Barring such events change is very slow and often non-existent. Lots of cosmetic stuff gets done, that looks good but doesn't have the supposed intended effect either because it is based upon unsound theory or it gets sabotaged in the political process.
Politicians deliver performance art to the masses and the real goodies to their sponsors. The masses only get goodies when they get angry enough that it looks like the torches and pitchforks are going to come out or the political class needs something from them (usually, their votes or buy in to a large scale project that the political class wants).
As I have said elsewhere, if you somehow have a society without an elite class, institute elections and you soon will have one... and that class will work hard to preserve its privileges and hand things off to their progeny. At some point they will feel secure enough in their power and status to thumb their noses at the people, as we are seeing now.
This is, of course, on top of the economic elite class that our system creates--and the two work together quite happily for the most part to secure their situation.
Fit me for a tinfoil hat, but I'm dead certain that QAnon is the most successful active measure ever undertaken by the Russians or anyone else: Consider:
1) DNC hack, at Trump's suggestion; Stone's ongoing relationship with Guccifer 2
2) Lacking anything more juicy than that the DNC preferred a candidate who was electable, cheese pizza orders were posited to be a clue
3) The clue pointed to child rape, cannibalism, etc. in the basement of Comet Pizza--Pizzagate
4) When Comet was found not to *have* a basement, the crew at the IRA in St. Petersburg was undeterred. They metastasized Pizzagate out of the basement into the rest of America via "Q."
5) General Flynn, Sydney Powell, Ginni Thomas, et alia....
6) The Steal
7) the Insurrection
8) The Threat
The Christ-honoring service this a.m. celebrating a woman whose life reflected: honor, duty,integrity, humility, respect for her fellow citizens vs. a rally on Sat. celebrating a godless man whose life reflects pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, sloth.
Such a contrast. 😔
Last night I watched Ken Burns documentary, The U.S. and the Holocaust. I was struck by the similarities between Hitler's early rallies and Trump's recent Q-Anon inspired rallies. It's not only the disturbing speeches. The expressions on the faces of the attendees is frighteningly similar. The ability of both men to 'zombify' people to mindlessly carry out violence on their behalf is apparent.
There's a fundamental fallacy in how news of Trump and the MAGA set is handled. MAGA currently receives safe harbor in the Republican Party. But the GOP's midterm prospects are bleak, precisely because of the toxicity of the MAGA set. Most voters will have two very simple choices on the ballot in November: vote for Democrats to enshrine in law the rights we thought we had, but that the GOP actively wishes to abolish, or vote for Republicans to guarantee a wide-scale loss of rights, particularly for marginalized populations.
MAGA more or less owned the primaries, because they're an extremely reliable voting block, but nobody seems to reckon that against the entire population that votes in a general election. This fall, I doubt MAGA will compose more than 15% of the nation's electorate.
So the Nazi salutes and the intimidating game of thrones themed posters of the former guy(I like that term very much) are a clarion call to a minority of the smaller party.
People will turn out in November to defend abortion rights, same-sex marriage, support for Ukraine against a real-life practicing fascist, bodily autonomy, action against climate change, and other red-line issues. MAGA voters will turn out for spite and revenge, and be far less numerous than the former group.
Since Democrats are the pro-democracy party, and MAGA is fervently anti-democracy (little d) *and* pro-political theatre *and* pro-political violence, dems need to get used to fighting HARD in the political theatre space, because if they don't, they're showing that they are weaklings at the intermediary stage of "mean tweets" that they have no backbone for the political violence part. When you tell a bully exactly how fucking weak you are, you are letting him know the limitations of your anger. He's gonna KNOW that you don't have the stomach for political violence if you can't even take the mean tweets, which makes going to political violence route all the more tempting because the bully knows it is a tactic that their political opposition won't be able to beat them on.
If Democrats in office refuse to fight back in the political theatre space, they are letting MAGA know *exactly* how to make them look weak. Every bus that gets sent to Chicago, DC, or NYC, or Martha's Fucking Decadent Vineyard without a *return fire* response from Democrats is making them look weak as fuck to the roughly 80% of Americans who don't really pay attention to politics. These are the voters who only catch headlines like "Florida sends buses full of 10k immigrants to NYC" and "Elected Democrats respond with WORDS to getting shitted on by MAGA governors."
If the Dems keep playing with political weakness like it is fire, they're going to lose November turnout--not from their base, but from "meh" voters. Everything is about the "attention economy" now, and MAGA is winning that attention fight. Every day that passes from now until November 8th that lacks a theatrical political response from Democrats (beyond fucking WORDS) on the immigrant busing issue is another day that they're going to lose potential voters who see the Dems as weakness incarnate.