#A Dictator On Day One

[originalleftist]

During Trump's Term, General Mark Milley Personally Intervened To Prevent Trump Starting A War With China Or Using Nuclear Arms.

But if Trump is reelected, there will be no General Milley. Central to Project 2025 is to restaff the Federal government (those positions not eliminated entirely) with partisans loyal only to Trump, not the Constitution.

A second Trump presidency won't be like the first. There will be no "adult in the room"- they'll all be fired. There will only be yes men, egging on Trump's darkest impulses- or blundering into disaster through shear stupidity and incompetence.

"But how can he do that", you say?

Who's going to stop him? Congress? It can pass laws, but it has no independent means to enforce them, even if Republicans didn't end up holding it too. The Supreme Court? You mean the same Supreme Court who's 6/3 Republican majority voted to keep him on the ballot despite being an adjudicated insurrectionist, and to give him Presidential immunity for many of his crimes?

If Trump is reelected, he will be, as he promised, "a dictator on day one". There will be no one around him to stop him from doing whatever whim strikes his increasingly demented brain.

Studies have shown that a full-scale nuclear war would wipe out nearly all food production in the Northern Hemisphere (and do considerable damage elsewhere) due to the pollution temporarily blocking out the Sun (the so-called "nuclear winter"). Which means that a majority of the human race (those not killed outright in the initial detonation or within the early days from radiation poisoning) would likely die a slow, agonizing death of starvation.

This election isn't just about saving America. It's about saving the world. It is very possible, with zero hyperbole, that if Trump wins reelection, most of the people reading this will not live to see him leave office.

[deadpresidents]

Over 1,500 pardons to insurrectionists who attacked the U.S. Capitol, violently attacked police officers, tried to overturn an election, and looked to kill his own Vice President.

Apparently, one of the sentences he's commuted includes Enrique Tarrio, the Proud Boys leader who was convicted of sedition.

This is the America we live in. Trump didn't lie about any of this stuff. He told us what he was going to do and be: a dictator on Day One.

Do I have to say it? Okay, I might as well: ELECTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES.

[unfamiliar-ghostly-system]

Shoutout to endogenics and other plurals who don't have DID who don't have a headspace, who struggle with having a loud head, who can't control their headmates, who don't have a fun time with being plural, who struggle with being plural, who don't have fictives at all, who wish they weren't plural, and who aren't just "having a great silly time" or whatever.

[guaxinimraccoon]

The USA's election result unfortunately heavily influences the rest of the world's political scenario. I'm not only worried for USA's citizens but for my own country which is astonishly influenced by it's politicians

Stay safe, take care, donate, fight - don't underestimate the power your voice has, it's the only way to change this fucked up system

[originalleftist]

His mind is probably going.

Mark my words, if he wins, JD Vance will be President soon enough. Not that that is REMOTELY better. We'll have traded an old fascist dictator we know for a young fascist dictator we don't.

Listen. I'm sure yall are tired of the politics.

But this

Is really weird behavior from both a candidate and a former president.

[bossuary]

Even before I was captured, my life was not really my own.

[tomorrowusa]

People who have heard Trump in private understand better what a danger he is to the country. Disproportionately this group consists of those responsible for protecting the United States.

Mark Milley was head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the top ranking person in the US military. He's one of the people Trump used to call "my generals". Now Gen. Milley is calling Trump "fascist".

Mark Milley, the US Army general who Donald Trump appointed as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, now says the current Republican presidential nominee is a “fascist to the core” and says no person has ever posed more of a danger to the United States than the man who served as the 45th President of the United States. Milley, a decorated military officer who became a target for right-wing scorn after it became known that he expressed concerns over Trump’s mental stability in the wake of his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden, is described by journalist Bob Woodward in his new book, War, as incredibly alarmed at the prospect of a second Trump term in the White House. The Independent obtained a copy ahead of the book’s October 15 release date.

This wasn't a gotcha sort of thing. Gen. Milley went out of his own way to talk to Bob Woodward.

Woodward writes that when he approached Milley at a reception, the general spoke first and told him: “We gotta talk.” He told the journalist that “no one has ever been as dangerous to this country” as the former president. He asked: “Do you realize, do you see what this man is?”

At his retirement ceremony Gen. Milley famously said...

We don’t take an oath to a king, or a queen, or a tyrant or a dictator. And we don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator.

Of course Trump has promised to be a dictator on day one.

It's always easier to acquire dictators than it is to get rid of them.

[dollypopup]

hm. idk, maybe the reason Luke Newton isn't announcing new projects or posting any Bridgerton content is because some of you demons treated him like hot trash instead of a creative that you wanted more work from and he decided fuck it, this isn't worth the stress. you know, like a lot of creatives who get mistreated do?

like this is a man who went from couch surfing in a friend's house and bartending to make ends meet, deciding that the Bridgerton audition was the last one he'd do before he quit, to suddenly being recognized on the street because that last audition propelled him to star in a global show where fans who have zero media comprehension blamed him for his character's actions and literally stalked him at any hotel he happens to stay at. he went from being a dude doing musical theatre and shopping at thrift stores and recording random songs with friends and posting silly memes on Twitter to being harassed on his only social media page and his friends insulted and his partners bullied by his supposed 'fans' and anything he posts being so microanalyzed that he can't do a damn thing without someone coming out the woodwork screaming about how he's the WORST and won't he think of the FANS!?

like damn he can't have a girlfriend without being harassed, he can't travel without being harassed, he can't like or not like social media posts without being harassed, he can't post a fucking MEME without being harassed, he can't take a vacation or cut his hair or hold someone's hand or just live his life without being blamed for some bullshit or another. but yeah, okay, 'when will Luke Newton come back?' as if it isn't your fault he's AWOL now

[elpeadro]

Part 1: The Good Ending

Part 2: The Bad, Tragic Ending

If the writers wanted CaitVi to be their canon OTP so bad, they had two ways of going about it…sike there was a secret third ending all along!

THE DISJUMBLED, TONAL MESS OF AN ENDING WE GOT:

Despite the pacing and dialogue issues of the first three episodes, I have nothing bad to say about Act 1’s ending. Caitlyn’s corruption arc, while extremely rushed in getting to this point given where her characterization was at in season 1, reaches its climax as we see just how far she has fallen: being willing to shoot a child, lashing out and hitting Vi, saying some incredibly bigoted things toward Vi, and, the pièce de résistance and one of my favorite scenes in the entire show, becoming the dictator of Piltover as the enforcers and Noxians beat their chests in salute to her. When Ambessa drapes that cloak over her shoulders and Caitlyn thumps her fist against her chest, it feels like the birth of a monster - and I mean that in the best way possible.

And she is a monster…except her actions are mostly confined to two music montages in episodes 3 and 4 and then shuffled off to the side for Warwick in Act 2 and the Machine Herald War in Act 3.

Just as it is a major problem when she goes from naive and priviledged, but good-hearted S1 Caitlyn to “let’s commit war crimes against a civilian population” S2 Caitlyn in the span of the Heavy is the Crown + Hellfire montages, it is even more a problem when the near-entirety of her dictator era is confined to the Paint the Town Blue montage. Because while I would begrudgingly accept the former being rushed to set up the latter’s payoff, the writers don’t pay it off.

At the end of episode 3, Caitlyn ascends to dictatorship. At the beginning of episode 4, she is questioning Ambessa, the justifications for martial law, and Maddie even suggests she could reinstate the council and remove herself as dictator. Can you say ‘jarring’?

That’s not how this works! You don’t write a good character having a fall from grace into a villain arc, then fast forward through the lowest and worst points of said arc. It’s like they made her a dictator just for the flavor it would give her character combined with the angst of her and Vi breaking up. Which, that’s bad writing process to begin with, but it’s especially bad when the writing has her BECOME A FASCIST DICTATOR.

You absolutely cannot evoke the political imagery of fascism only to not follow through on it. It is a conscious, deliberate choice to write and animate the end of episode 3 and the opening montage of episode 4 as they are presented.

In the Paint the Town Blue montage, we see: 

banners with the Kiramman crest being hung up all over the city

security checkpoints for Zaunites with armed enforcers standing watch

a prison with watchtowers and tall, barbed wire fences

enforcers acting as riot police (complete with riot shields)

Zaunites throwing Molotovs at said riot police

unarmed Zaunites running from armed enforcers

a Zaunite prisoner being photographed standing against a wall with a bag over their head (I really want to point this one out)

an enforcer stepping on the head of a Zaunite who is already laying on the ground and being handcuffed by another enforcer

Zaunite rebels hiding in a boarded up shop from armed enforcers

Zaunite prisoners being marched forward with their hands behind their heads

an enforcer beating someone

a line of Zaunites kneeling with their hands cuffed behind their backs as an enforcer beats another prisoner

Caitlyn being framed in shadow with a brooding, sullen look

graffiti of Jinx as a revolutionary figure waving a blue flag

In short, a dictator’s regime putting up propaganda posters and symbols, political repression by the state, mass imprisonment, police brutality, civilian resistance against an authoritarian state, and people rallying around a revolutionary symbol. And don’t forget the opening of episode 3 where we hear the recording of Cassandra Kiramman say “the people of the Undercity deserve to breathe” only for Caitlyn to immediately go “umm actually no they don’t; time to weaponize toxic, carcinogenic smog against them and revoke the most basic of human rights.”

(Side note: “Paint the Town Blue” as the song for this montage doesn’t feel right, tonally. A bit too energetic and idk, peppy? This is a montage showing an oppressed group of people being brutalized by a fascist state. Maybe go for something somber and/or horrifying? Or something that makes viewers sick from how angry they are at the sight? Just a thought.)

If the writers were going to do something with all of this, then they did a good job - song choice notwithstanding. 

The problem is they don’t. Not a single character confronts Caitlyn over the atrocities she committed.

When Vi sees her - the woman who broke her heart, who betrayed her, who became a dictator and stepped on the necks of Vi’s people for a year - she’s more annoyed and mad at Caitlyn for attacking her on accident than she is for, I don’t know, THE WHOLE DICTATOR THING? Season 1 Vi would’ve let Caitlyn absolutely have it, if not outright fought her for what she did to Vi’s city.

In what is one of the most stunning bits of character assassination I’ve seen, Jinx APOLOGIZES to Caitlyn for killing her mom.

Ekko got written out of the story to where he never interacted with Caitlyn this season, because if he was giving her shit in season 1, then he would’ve let her absolutely have it, even harder than Vi did.

Sevika got written out of the story entirely after episode 4.

Jayce never comments on it once he gets back.

Mel never comments on it once she gets back.

The writers try to trick us with Vi and Caitlyn’s argument in episode 8, and then Caitlyn’s one-sided venting to Jinx in the jail cell about how they can never repay their crimes, but those are both so weak and half-assed.

We never see Caitlyn realize the weight of her crimes. She needed to have a scene where she “wakes up” and is horrified at how far she’s fallen and all the terrible things she’s done. We don’t get that. She’s already woken up and questioning things when we see her for the first time in episode 4. Nor does she suffer from the guilt of said crimes. Again, I’m going to complain about the blatant Macbeth reference in her part of the intro credits, because how do you deliberately evoke fucking MACBETH for a character who undergoes a villain arc and commits these horrible actions only to not have her crumble under the weight of her sins…you know…like what happens in Macbeth.

So Caitlyn isn’t held accountable either externally or internally. This wouldn’t be a problem if handled properly. A villain doesn’t have to be held accountable nor realize they’re a bad person to be an effective, satisfying character.

The problem is the tone of everything that comes after the opening of episode 4.

It’s almost like the writers are actively trying to have Caitlyn commit as few on-screen, bad actions as possible during her dictator era. Really all she does is threaten Singed with the prison cells she has deemed too inhumane to use. (Oh yay! She hasn’t been as awful as she could have been). After that, she immediately flips back to Vi’s side to help save Warwick, has a very surface level argument so people can say “but Vi did call her out”, “wins” Vi’s affections over Jinx and has sex in a jail cell with Vi going down on her (that sex scene could be its own post god I hate it), gets to be one of the good guys in the war without any pushback, and gets her happy ending with Vi.

The framing of all of this, both textually and by word of God via the authors, is simply incompatible with the weight of her crimes. 

The jail cell scene is presented as Vi and Caitlyn reconnecting and finally coming together, complete with a happy pop song - ignoring Vi’s sister being clearly suicidal and Vi certainly having trauma from spending 7 years in prison where the warden beat her enough times that he didn’t bother keeping count, to say nothing of Caitlyn not having earned Vi’s trust and intimacy. (Also, Vi couldn’t have gotten any pleasure or attention? They couldn’t have taken it to an actual bed?)

The way Vi talks about herself going behind Caitlyn’s back is unhealthy and toxic. (“I went behind your back (for my sister, who has committed far less heinous crimes than you, who just watched the kid she sorta adopted die right in front of her and is now a mental wreck, after you locked her up using your unilateral power as dictator of Piltover.)”)

Vi being very, very emotionally fragile and in no way composed enough to have sex is ignored. (It shouldn’t have to be said, but if someone is this close to having a breakdown and has already punched the wall until their knuckles are bruised, you absolutely should not have sex with them when they’re in such a vulnerable state.)

The “I’m the dirt beneath your nails” line is framed as cutesy and romantic, when that’s actually a horrible, demeaning thing for someone who is a member of the oppressed class to say about herself when her partner is a member of the oppressor class and quite literally was a dictator that violated the human rights of people like Vi, called them animals, and said their blood made them this way.

And most importantly, Caitlyn never has to confront the fact that she became a dictator and did all of these terrible things while in power.

Which, I truly cannot believe I am having to say this, but if you aren’t going to touch on the fact that a protagonist went down a dark path and became a fascist dictator, DON’T WRITE HER BECOMING A FASCIST DICTATOR.

(Or you embrace the tragic, toxic nature of leaving that stuff unaddressed, as discussed in part two.)

TL;DR: the ending CaitVi got is framed as a happy ending, except Caitlyn didn’t put in any of the work for it to be anywhere near a happy, healthy relationship, so it comes across as hollow, forced, and tonally off.

[sskk-manifesto]

I find the lines change of this scene really interesting

[originalleftist]

This is what Donald Trump said about a member of his own party, a white Republican elite, who dared to go against him.

Imagine what he'd do to everyone else.

Back in 2020, Donald Trump retweeted "The only good Democrat is a dead Democrat". I will never forget realizing that the President of my country had just declared a war of extermination against me, my family, and millions of others who shared our views.

He meant it. He proved that on January 6th, when he sent a mob to lynch his own Vice President for not helping him to carry out a coup.

His supporters mean it too.

Yesterday in one of my classes, we talked about the genocide in Cambodia in the 70s. How a third of the country is thought to have died.

That could be us. It could be the whole world.

This election is not a fucking game. It's not "both sides" and it's not business as usual. If we lose, we won't get to just try again in four years.

And if you sit it out, or God help you vote for that fucking man, then the blood is on your hands, and you will never wash it off.

Vote Blue.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Alice Herman at The Guardian:

Kamala Harris appeared on The Howard Stern Show on Tuesday, calling Donald Trump a “sore loser” and receiving an endorsement from the host, Howard Stern.

Her appearance on the radio show, whose listenership skews white and male, comes as Harris embarks on a series of sit-down interviews on popular talkshows and podcasts, including Stern, The View, the podcast Call Her Daddy and the Late Show With Stephen Colbert. During the show, Harris blasted Trump for his comment that he would be a “dictator on day one” and called him a “sore loser” for his role in promoting false claims of widespread voter fraud after the 2020 election. “Understand what dictators do,” said Harris. “They jail journalists, they put people who are protesting in the street in jail.” The interview comes just weeks after Trump, who has appeared on Stern’s show in years past, claimed on Fox News that the host “went woke”. Stern shrugged off the charge last year, telling listeners that he takes “woke” as a compliment and that “the opposite of being woke is being asleep”.

The interview also hit on personal subject matter – from therapy (she’s not seeing a therapist currently), to her preferred choice of breakfast cereal (Special K), to her family. During the interview Stern asked if she thought there were Americans who would refuse to vote for a woman. “Listen, I’ve been the first woman in almost every position I’ve had,” said Harris. “I believe that men and women support women in leadership. And that’s been my life experience and that’s why I’m running for president.” Stern revealed that he plans to vote for Harris.

Appearing on The Howard Stern Show Tuesday, Kamala Harris gave a stern warning that Donald Trump seeks to act like a dictator if he is elected again.

From the 10.08.2024 edition of Howard 100's The Howard Stern Show:

[tennessoui]

wine party au!!!!!!!!! god i love those snarky assholes so much! and their three thanksgivings. so perfect. i imagine obi-wan has a wine pairing for each course and anakin has a 5-gallon bucket of sangria from whatever half-drunk bottles of wine he found in the fridge mixed with whatever fruit was on sale.

oh for sure obi-wan takes it all very seriously as if one of the people he invited was going to do a full new york times write-up of his thanksgiving preparations. meanwhile anakin, in his mind, takes the important stuff seriously which is that everyones there and everyones fed and everyone has enough to drink should they want to and as host he has to do the least amount of dishes possible, etc etc

he probably crafts a thanskgiving delicacy cocktail that's just purple and red koolaid mixed together with a shit ton of vodka and with a cranberry garnish. obi-wan has never been so hungover in his life, which suchs cause anakin's thanksgiving comes before obi-wan's, so obi-wan is very hungover and trying to carve a turkey while thinking very meanly about stabbing anakin with this big long knife instead

and also like. just imagine their christmases lmao

[hale-nathan]

Trump Weird News - Without Doubt - Comparison

Not A Shadow Of A Doubt

[fiona-fififi]

...

[unovaslankiite]

Prolly gonna be my one and only rwde post (cus the fanbase is rancid and I'm not rlly a rwby fan, just a person who watches the show): some of you rwby fans are too comfortable using your queerness as a shield to silence BIPOC voices about the racist writing and your 'precious' bigoted CRWBY. You guys unironically act/think that just because you have to deal with queerphobia; you are IMMUNE to being bigoted yourself and you are INCAPABLE of parroting bigoted beliefs. Cus I know there will be a dumbass ant1-rwde posters who will try to drown out this post by saying its 'lies from the EVIL RWDE!!!': You would rather weaponize your queerness to bash on BIPOC voices, while claiming to care about our voices. You would rather be complicit with the racist writers and their racist writing, just because your racist writers gave you a queer ship. There is no shame nor issue in projecting the abused you suffered onto the characters, however you refuse to see through the characters and their writing through a BIPOC lens. You do not get the right to impose your perspective of the characters at the expense of BIPOC voices, you do not get to twist our voices to be alt-right bigots because we called out RWBY's rampant racism. You do not get the right to say you give a shit about BIPOC and have #BLM in your bio when you fervently defend your bigoted company. You do not get to pretend to care about racism when you buy merch off of your bigoted company. My fellow BIPOC (especially the queer BIPOC): why are you guys so comfortable dismissing your fellow poc about their discomfort with RWBY's racist writing? BIPOC are not a monolith with the same opinions about racism in media; but some of you guys are weirdly comfortable with turning a blind eye to your fellow BIPOC getting dogpiled by the white fandom. We can and will disagree, you not agreeing as a BIPOC about RWBY's racist writing is not what I take issue with. The issue lies within you upholding the racial colourblindness in the fandom; like how the fandom was ok with throwing the racism under the bus in favour of queerness, you are ok with throwing your BIPOC peers under the bus for white queerness. Sincerely, a POC who has been watching the fandoms rampant racism problem ever since 2019.