#Trump Pence Out Now

[patriotictf]

"Oh my god, this can't be real," John muttered to himself as he stepped into his new apartment. The space was adorned with distinctly MAGA-themed items - red hats, banners with "Make America Great Again" slogans, and a couple of Trump-Pence signs, all immaculately arranged.

John, a staunch liberal and openly gay, felt a pang of disgust. How had he ended up here?

"This is a nightmare," he muttered, running a hand through his hair.

John stood motionless for a moment, taking in the room's overpowering display of conservative regalia. Then, a thought struck him. Maybe he could just remove all this stuff. After all, it was his apartment now.

But as soon as he attempted to take down one of the MAGA banners, he realized something strange was happening. The banner refused to budge. It seemed to cling to the wall, as if the very paint was glue.

Frustrated, John tried again, putting more force into the pull. But the result was still the same. The banner seemed stuck in place, mocking him with its stubborn resistance.

He tried another item, attempting to remove a small MAGA badge from the dresser. But just like the banner, the badge defied movement. It felt glued to the surface, no matter how hard he tugged.

John's heart began to race, a mix of confusion and panic setting in. These items were immovable. Why? How was this possible? And more importantly, what was their purpose here?

He sank down onto the bed, rubbing his eyes in disbelief. This had to be a prank. Someone had planted these items here as a cruel joke, or some weird form of psychological experiment. There was no other reasonable explanation. Or... was there?

John scanned the room again, his gaze falling on more Trump-themed items - a red "Make America Great Again" mug, a framed photo of the former president, and even a small American flag with the slogan "Keep America Great" stitched onto it.

Each item seemed to stare back at him, its presence like a slap in the face. As if the room was mocking his own political beliefs and identity.

John felt a wave of anger wash over him, but it was swiftly followed by a pang of fear. Was he trapped here? Stuck in this MAGA-themed prison, with no escape?

He stood up and began pacing, the room feeling smaller with each step. He needed to think, to figure out what the hell was going on.

Frustration grew within John as he attempted to leave the apartment, only to discover the door was impossibly stuck. No matter how much force he applied, it remained sealed, as if it had been fused to the frame.

Panic set in as he tried to use his phone to call for help, but no signal could be found. He was completely cut off from the outside world.

He turned on the TV it was on Fox News. As John frantically flicked through the television channels, he was met with an unsettling sight. Every channel was broadcasting Fox News, without exception.

No matter how many times he clicked the buttons on the remote, the channel stubbornly remained on Fox News. It was as if the TV itself had been calibrated to play only this particular station.

Frustrated and bewildered, John tossed the remote onto the coffee table, the clatter echoing through the room. He couldn't escape the barrage of conservative news and commentary, no matter what he tried.

He plopped onto the couch, a sense of helplessness washing over him. How was this happening? What strange reality had he stumbled into where every electronic item seemed hell-bent on playing Fox News on repeat?

John clenched his fists, his jaw tightening. He loathed Fox News with a passion, every segment feeling like a personal affront to his liberal beliefs. The thought of being forced to watch this drivel on a constant loop was enough to drive him insane.

He considered unplugging the TV entirely, but a sense of unease held him back. What if this was all part of some twisted plan? Unplugging the TV could have unintended consequences. He couldn't risk it.

The hours passed slowly, the TV's constant barrage of conservative news and opinion pieces wearing down John's sanity. The words "Trump" and "MAGA" seemed to be chanted over and over, a maddening chorus that filled the room.

He tried to distract himself with other activities - pacing around the room, flipping through books, even going on his laptop - but nothing could drown out the endless stream of right-wing rhetoric.

By nightfall, John was beginning to waver. He argued with himself internally, trying to hold onto his liberal principles, but the constant exposure to right-wing talking points had begun to chip away at his resolve.

He found himself agreeing with some of the opinions being broadcast, nodding in approval at times, and occasionally even finding himself agreeing with the hosts. This realization terrified him.

As he sat on the couch, John clutched his head, the internal struggle raging within him. He could feel his core beliefs being shaken to the core. Who was he? What did he truly believe?

The TV continued to blast, the host's voice droning on about the virtues of conservative values and the importance of preserving "true American" principles. Each word seemed to sink into his brain, implanting seeds of conservatism that began to take root.

John found himself agreeing more and more with what he was hearing. He started to understand the conservative way of thinking, nodding along to the rhetoric, and even feeling a pang of disappointment when they switched topics.

The liberal ideology that he had always held so dear was slowly fading away, replaced by a growing appreciation for the values being espoused by Fox News.

As the night continued, John could feel his core beliefs crumbling under the onslaught of right-wing propaganda. He was becoming increasingly receptive to the conservative narrative, no longer able to recognize the liberal values he had held for so long.

His mind was changing, slowly but surely. Fox News was rewiring his very identity, molding him into a supporter of the MAGA cause.

As John finally succumbed to exhaustion and dropped off into a fitful sleep, the room around him began to change.

Unseen forces began to take hold, slowly altering his physical form. His features sharpened, his body becoming more toned and muscular. The remnants of his once-liberal appearance faded into memory, replaced by a more rugged, conservative look.

John's hair too changed, falling out leaving him bald as a dark beard begins to grow out of his face.. His skin tone darkened subtly, taking on a more sun-kissed, masculine hue. tattoos form on his neck? thoat, arms. and hands.

As he slept, the physical transformation continued, shaping him into the epitome of a conservative man.

John's wardrobe transformed as well, even in his sleep. The liberal attire he once wore was replaced by more conservative clothing. Jeans became camo pants, his shirt became black with Make Men Men again writen across it, and boots took the place of loafers. Tattoos emerged on his body, each one reflecting a traditional, patriotic image.

He wasn't merely changing; he was being sculpted into a new person entirely.

The physical changes were drastic, but so were the mental ones. As John slept, his mind was being indoctrinated. His liberal beliefs and values were slowly being overwritten by conservative ones. He was dreaming now, visions of a strong America, traditional values, and unyielding patriotism filling his subconscious.

By the time John began to stir, he was a changed man. The physical transformation was complete; he looked every inch the conservative he was now.

His beliefs, too, had undergone a complete metamorphosis. He no longer held onto liberal ideals. In fact, he despised them.

As he sat up, groggy and disoriented, he found himself staring down at the tattoos on his arm, each one a testament to his new persona.

John's eyes flicked up towards a mirror hanging on the wall. The sight of his reflection sent a jolt of surprise through him. He couldn't believe the person staring back at him.

His appearance was that of a stereotypical conservative man. His bald head, the beard, the tattoos, the clothing - everything screamed "MAGA." He looked like a completely different person.

As he stood there, staring at his reflection in disbelief, John struggled to come to terms with his dramatic transformation.

He touched his bald head, feeling the roughness of his shaved skin. He ran his hand over his beard, tracing the thick strands that grew from his once-smooth face. He looked down at his clothing, seeing the MAGA shirt and camo pants that clung to his newly-toned body.

It was a nightmare come true. John tried to deny it, telling himself this was all just a dream. But as he pinched himself and felt the pain, he realized the horrifying truth: this was all too real. He was trapped in a body and mind he no longer recognized.

His heart raced, panic starting to kick in. He had to get out of here, find a way to reverse this nightmare. But when he moved towards the door, he found it still sealed shut.

John froze as a thought suddenly appeared in his mind, seemingly out of nowhere. It was like a strange inner voice, a thought that wasn't his own. It told him to "accept this."

He fought against it at first, resisting the idea of surrendering to the changes. But as the thought echoed in his head, it grew louder and more insistent.

For a long moment, he stood there, wrestling with his inner thoughts. The voice demanded his compliance, and it was becoming harder to resist.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity of struggle, John's resistance broke. He couldn't fight the inner command any longer. He had to "accept this."

He took a deep breath, the realization sinking in. This was his reality now. He was no longer the liberal man he once was. He was a conservative, down to his bones.

With a mixture of resignation and acceptance, he stood a little straighter, embracing his new identity.

But as he made the mental shift, John felt another, more subtle change taking place. His emotions began to reshape themselves, shifting towards the conservative values now ingrained in him.

The panic and disbelief that consumed him moments ago faded away, replaced by a sense of conviction. He no longer felt the need to fight against his new identity. In fact, he felt a growing sense of comfort and even satisfaction with it.

The voice in his head grew louder, reinforcing the new emotional landscape within him. The liberal ideals he once held dear were replaced by a staunch conservatism, fueled by inner feelings of patriotism, tradition, and strength.

John began to understand that his transformation wasn't limited to the physical. It was a full-blown mental and emotional restructuring, shaping him into the perfect American conservative.

The more he delved into this new mindset, the more a sense of calmness washed over John. His past as a liberal seemed distant and almost alien.

Now, he had a deep understanding of conservative values and beliefs. He felt a strong connection to America, its heritage, and its future.

Most strikingly, John felt a growing dislike towards liberals and progressive ideals. He had become the very thing he once despised.

John opened the no longer locked door, stepping into the blistering Florida sun, squinting against the bright light. He slipped on a pair of dark sunglasses. As he felt the heat on his skin, his new conservative beliefs began to solidify further.

He took a deep breath, inhaling the humid air. It felt like a homecoming, as if this new persona of his had been waiting to emerge.

With a determined stride, John walked down the street, a sense of comfort and certainty guiding his every step.

As he walked, the city seemed to come to life around him. He passed by people of all ages - some young, some old - but what struck him was the sense of unity that pervaded the air.

He saw American flags flying proudly, MAGA hats on people's heads, and bumper stickers supporting conservative values on cars.

This was his world now. A world where patriotism was celebrated and liberal ideas were left behind.

[deadpresidents]

"The Vice Presidency comes with plenty of indignities, but probably none greater than the one that Kamala Harris endured on Monday when she presided over the certification of her own defeat.

Standing in the rostrum of the House of Representatives, a gavel in her hand and a look of imperturbable stoicism on her face, Ms. Harris officiated as the two houses of Congress met in joint session to formally count the Electoral College votes for President.

"The votes for President of the United States are as follows," she declared after each state's totals were read. "Donald J. Trump of the state of Florida has received 312 votes." At that point, Republican lawmakers rose to their feet to applaud. Ms Harris gave a small, polite smile as she let them have their moment.

Then she continued. "Kamala D. Harris of the state of California has received 226 votes," she intoned. Now it was the Democrats' turn to stand and applaud. Ms. Harris glanced over to that side of the chamber with a little smile of thanks, then gently gaveled the body to order. After reading the votes certifying JD Vance as Vice President, she formally ordered the results entered in the record.

And with that, Kamala Harris the Vice President officially put an end to Kamala Harris the candidate's quest for the Presidency -- at least for this election. At that point, members of both parties rose to applaud, seemingly out of respect for the no-doubt-painful task she had just taken on without complaint or objection.

There was also certainly a little bit of relief that everyone had gotten through the moment peacefully, unlike the maelstrom visited upon the Capitol on this day four years earlier when Mr. Trump refused to accept defeat and inspired a mob that stormed the building to try to stop the count certifying it.

Ms. Harris made no comments while wielding the gavel beyond her scripted duties...Unlike Mr. Trump, Ms. Harris has made no effort to cast doubt upon the election but has instead accepted defeat graciously. Neither she nor President Biden has sought to pressure the Justice Department, members of Congress, governors, state legislators, or election officials to reverse the vote she lost, as Mr. Trump did four years ago.

She has not filed dozens of lawsuits that would be tossed out by judges as frivolous or unfounded. She has not repeated false fraud allegations or wild conspiracy theories that her own advisers told her were untrue.

Nor did she use her role as presiding officer to reject votes for Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance the way Mr. Trump tried to get Vice President Mike Pence to do to Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris in 2021. Mr. Pence refused, saying he did not have such power, and Congress subsequently passed a law reaffirming that interpretation.

The contrast between Jan. 6, 2021, and Jan. 6, 2025, could hardly be starker. "

-- Peter Baker, on Vice President Kamala Harris presiding over the certification of her own defeat in the 2024 Presidential election before a joint session of Congress, during the peaceful, traditional formal ceremony denied to her and President Joe Biden exactly four years earlier, New York Times, January 6, 2025.

[qqueenofhades]

Donald Is Entering the FO stage of FAFO And Oh Boy He Don’t Like It, Part Number A Lot:

The Very Stable Genius, less than 24 hours after agreeing to comply with the order not to post sensitive material, threaten witnesses, or otherwise commit more crimes while out on bail, posts a threatening message on Truth Social ("IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I'M COMING AFTER YOU!")

A few short hours later, Jack Smith and Co. file a request for a protective order, aka preventing Trump from blabbing about anything he might receive from the government in the discovery phase, by citing said threatening post as Example A that he cannot keep his fucking mouth shut;

Judge Chutkan agrees, gives Trump until 5pm on August 7 (Monday) to respond;

Trump tries his usual bullshit delay tactic by asking for 3 more days + oral arguments, which would push it back even further;

Jack Smith immediately files a counter-request for NO delay, including this absolute gem of legal snark:

Trump, flailing, insists the threatening Truth Social post was actually directed against something something the Koch brothers and other people he thinks are RINOs (this was, of course, nowhere stated and is as usual total bullshit);

Does he know one of the Koch brothers is dead? Unlikely

Judge Chutkan cursorily denies Trump's request for said delay; his legal team still has to respond by 5pm on Monday;

Trump has a Sad;

Did he learn anything, though? Of course not; he's now attacking Mike Pence;

If he keeps this up, he WILL be in violation of his bail conditions and at this point, it's pretty certain that if necessary, Smith would request the court to order him held in custody until trial;

If that happens a) I demand a live feed and b) all of a sudden, Trump would be begging for a speedy trial;

Please proceed, motherfucker.

[contemplatingoutlander]

That the Editorial Board of the premier U.S. newspaper of record is finally warning about Donald Trump is significant. As such, this is a gift 🎁 link so that those who want to read the entire editorial can do so, even if they don't subscribe to The New York Times. Below are some excerpts:

As president, [Trump] wielded power carelessly and often cruelly and put his ego and his personal needs above the interests of his country. Now, as he campaigns again, his worst impulses remain as strong as ever — encouraging violence and lawlessness, exploiting fear and hate for political gain, undermining the rule of law and the Constitution, applauding dictators — and are escalating as he tries to regain power. He plots retribution, intent on eluding the institutional, legal and bureaucratic restraints that put limits on him in his first term. Our purpose at the start of the new year, therefore, is to sound a warning. Mr. Trump does not offer voters anything resembling a normal option of Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal, big government or small. He confronts America with a far more fateful choice: between the continuance of the United States as a nation dedicated to “the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity” and a man who has proudly shown open disdain for the law and the protections and ideals of the Constitution. [...] It is instructive in the aftermath of that administration to listen to the judgments of some of these officials on the president they served. John Kelly, a chief of staff to Mr. Trump, called him the “most flawed person I’ve ever met,” someone who could not understand why Americans admired those who sacrificed their lives in combat. Bill Barr, who served as attorney general, and Mark Esper, a former defense secretary, both said Mr. Trump repeatedly put his own interests over those of the country. Even the most loyal and conservative of them all, Vice President Mike Pence, who made the stand that helped provoke Mr. Trump and his followers to insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, saw through the man: “On that day, President Trump also demanded that I choose between him and the Constitution,” he said.

[See more under the cut.]

There will not be people like these in the White House should Mr. Trump be re-elected. The former president has no interest in being restrained, and he has surrounded himself with people who want to institutionalize the MAGA doctrine. According to reporting by the Times reporters Maggie Haberman, Charlie Savage and Jonathan Swan, Mr. Trump and his ideological allies have been planning for a second Trump term for many months already. Under the name Project 2025, one coalition of right-wing organizations has produced a thick handbook and recruited thousands of potential appointees in preparation for an all-out assault on the structures of American government and the democratic institutions that acted as checks on Mr. Trump’s power. [...] Mr. Trump has made clear his conviction that only “losers” accept legal, institutional or even constitutional constraints. He has promised vengeance against his political opponents, whom he has called “vermin” and threatened with execution. This is particularly disturbing at a time of heightened concern about political violence, with threats increasing against elected officials of both parties. He has repeatedly demonstrated a deep disdain for the First Amendment and the basic principles of democracy, chief among them the right to freely express peaceful dissent from those in power without fear of retaliation, and he has made no secret of his readiness to expand the powers of the presidency, including the deployment of the military and the Justice Department, to have his way. [...] Re-electing Mr. Trump would present serious dangers to our Republic and to the world. This is a time not to sit out but instead to re-engage. We appeal to Americans to set aside their political differences, grievances and party affiliations and to contemplate — as families, as parishes, as councils and clubs and as individuals — the real magnitude of the choice they will make in November.

I encourage people to use the above gift link and read the entire article.

[edited]

[robertreich]

5 Facts About Trump’s Indictments

Trump’s defenders are still lying about his indictments. Here are 5 crucial facts you can share with whoever in your life needs to hear them.

1. President Biden did not indict Trump.

Four different grand juries — made up of ordinary citizens — indicted Trump after being presented with evidence they found compelling enough to warrant criminal prosecution.

The reason we have grand juries is specifically to help make sure no one gets prosecuted out of a personal vendetta.

2. This isn’t about “free speech”

In all four cases, Trump has been indicted because of what he allegedly did, not what he said. Lots of crimes involve speech, but that doesn’t stop them from being crimes. Even Trump’s hand-picked attorney general, Bill Barr, recognizes this defense is nonsense.

3. It doesn’t matter whether Trump believed the election was stolen

There’s plenty of evidence that Trump knew he lost the election fair and square. His claims of massive fraud were rejected by his own campaign manager, White House lawyers, and his hand-picked Justice Department officials. 

And privately, Trump seemed to admit that he either knew or didn’t care that his claims were false, allegedly criticizing VP Pence for being “too honest,” and allegedly admitting to his Chief of Staff Mark Meadows that he lost and wanted to cover it up.

But even if Trump really did believe the election was stolen, that doesn’t give him the right to allegedly commit a criminal conspiracy to try to steal it back.

4. Trump has received preferential treatment because of who he is.

Trump’s defenders complain about a two-tiered justice system.

They’re right about that, but not in the way they claim. Trump has been given special privileges most criminal defendants would never get.

In all four criminal cases, he has been released without bail. He has repeatedly been spared the indignity of a mugshot. He has not had his passport suspended or had limits placed on his ability to travel — even though two of his criminal cases involve direct threats to national security, and even though he has used social media to issue insults and threats against potential witnesses, behavior that would cause many criminal defendants to be held without bail pending trial.

5. Trump was in legal trouble long before entering politics

Some of Trump’s defenders claim the sheer number of criminal charges and civil suits he’s now facing is proof that he’s being targeted for political reasons. But you have to remember that Trump was the subject of about 4,000 legal actions before ever running for president. From his fraudulent Trump University scam to federal lawsuits over racist housing discrimination, Trump has spent his life in court because of his own shady behavior.

Trump is being prosecuted now because, as four grand juries have found, the strength of the evidence against him merits it. If we fail to hold him fully accountable under the law, the precedent will embolden future presidents to break the law, jeopardize national security, incite insurrections, and possibly even overturn an election.

The principle that no one is above the law is only true if we make it so.

[atwoodsfemalefantasy]

KAMALA HARRIS WILL PROTECT YOUR RIGHTS!!!!!

fun fact: project 2025 is coming after EVERYBODY.

women: do you like bodily autonomy, the right to leave abusive relationships, the ability to work, and birth control? Trump is coming after it.

POC: We all already know how racist that fucker is. now he's trying to shut down the office that handles civil rights. think about that for a second

queer people: Trump and Vance? they're coming for your right to get married (pssst, that also means your right to see your partner in the hospital, and other serious issues). remember when Pence was the VP? remember how hard he supported conversion therapy? yeah.

trans people: Trump and Vance want to stop kids from transitioning, trans inclusion in schools, and other basic rights for trans people

hey, even you straight white men! listen: this might not affect YOU, but imagine this world for a second. you can never ever leave your wife because they want to eliminate divorce. all those "i hate my wife jokes"? get ready to be stuck with them! what about kids? are you prepared to have a ton of kids because your wife can't get birth control? do you really want to live in a world that's controlled by the catholic church, even if you aren't religious? are you prepared to live in a world where the people around you are dying? and Trump is power hungry af. guess what? if you're not rich, you might be next. are you ready?

if ANY of these issues matter to you, you HAVE to vote blue. even if you want to criminalize abortions, if you like your right to go to work? VOTE BLUE. because Trump might take away abortions, but he's coming for working women, too. even if you think trans people shouldn't be allowed to transition, but you like your kids properly educated, guess what? VOTE MOTHERFUCKING BLUE. because Trump might take away gender affirming care, but he'll also take YOUR rights.

Trumps America is good for NO ONE! not even rich straight white men! WE ALL will suffer if he is elected. i don't care if you agree with one or two things he is proposing, remember that a vote for Trump is a vote for EVERYTHING he stands for. a vote for Trump is a vote AGAINST LIBERTY and after he takes from the minorities, he's coming for you, too.

get out the damn vote. vote blue.

[meret118]

"When I open my Bible, I don’t see any verses about abortion, but I see more than 2000 verses about economic justice. I don’t see any verses about gay marriage, but I see hundreds of verses about welcoming the stranger and feeding the hungry and healing the sick and freeing the oppressed.”

The biblical truth of that message notwithstanding, groups like Evangelicals for Harris know that it’s not one that the bulk of conservative Christians will be able to hear. But in the context of this election, they are not trying to save the conservative church from itself; they are trying to elect Kamala Harris. “When people hear about what we do, they think that we are in the persuasion business, that we’re going around trying to argue Trumpers into a different political opinion,” says Ryerse. “That’s a misunderstanding of what we’re trying to do.”

Instead, the group recognizes that there have been “inflection points” — kids in cages, maybe, or Jan. 6, or Trump’s felony conviction, or former Vice President Mike Pence’s disavowal — that have caused Christians who have always voted Republican to “begin to undergo some kind of political identity crisis,” as Ryerse puts it. “What we’re trying to do is not persuade the 85 to 95 percent that are not flippable. What we’re trying to do is make it easy for the 5 to 15 percent that are already in the midst of that political identity crisis, to say, ‘Hey, you’re not alone. There’s an on-ramp for a different way of engaging.’”

. . .

For the conversations that aren’t lost causes, however, Pagitt treads far more lightly. He has come to understand the delicate psychology of a Trump voter who has lost or is in the process of losing the (political) faith. He knows that it can be a lonely and alienating experience, that people would often rather be wrong and in community than right and by themselves. He’s talked to people who’ve driven out of state to attend Vote Common Good’s rallies in secret because they own the local hardware store and don’t want to be driven out of business, or because they pastor a church and don’t want to alienate their parishioners in states so red that their votes won’t matter anyway. He understands the entrenchment that can happen when someone who thinks they’re doing the right thing is told by the larger culture that it’s horribly wrong, and he’s careful not to “beat up on Trump too much” for that very reason. “We know the social costs that people are paying and how they internally feel,” Pagitt says. “In their experience, they’re going from, ‘I was the hero when I did this behavior. Now I’m going to do the opposite behavior. How am I still the hero?’ You have to help people get there.”

Mainly, Vote Common Good does that by telling them that they are still heroes, that their heroism remains intact. “Part of our theory of change is that behavioral change happens before identity change,” explains Ryerse. “We’re not out here trying to make more Democrats. We’re trying to get people to behave differently, i.e., to vote differently. The permission structure is, ‘Listen, I’m not asking you to be a Democrat. I’m asking you not to vote for Donald Trump in this election.’ What it does is [say], you can preserve your identity and change your behavior.”

Once behavior changes, of course, there’s the possibility of changing identity as well.

----

Terrific article! I hate what conservatives have done to my faith. We're not all like that!

I'm so glad I happened to see this. It really lifted my spirits.

Use this site if you want to read it.

[bambamramfan]

What If They Win

Too much has been written about the horse race of this election, but not nearly enough analysis about how either administration will govern. There's some fearmongering about Project 2025 or courtpacking, but that's propaganda not actual predictions.

(FWIW, I think Trump has this race in the bag, but can understand people who still hope think this is a coin flip.)

If Harris Wins...

Harris has held together a remarkable coalition of people against Trump. Mainstream Democratic politicians, YIMBY pundit technocrats, far lefters holding their nose, and Republican neoconservatives. This is no criticism, it's pretty impressive how they are coming together to defeat a common enemy, and I really really would like them to win.

But what happens to a coalition defined by a common enemy, after they win? Let's assume the best case scenario and she gets a Democratic Senate who confirms her cabinet and some SCOTUS judges.

Who supports Harris in the press, or is vote-corraling for her in Congress? Not those Republicans who hope to turn a page on the Trump era. Not a far left who has decided to hate her as a centrist sell out. Not moderate dems who will run away from any hint of weakness. Maybe a few of those YIMBY pundits who hope she's actually committed to more houses and nuclear power. But that's no political hyperpower.

What would her first major bill be? Who would support it? It will be just one scandal plagued administration with little support from any quarter that makes its ground breaking "first" for subaltern identities a disappointing token. The David Dinkens of the White House.

I predict that President Harris would have the lowest approval rating in her first year of any President we have polling for. It's gonna be brutal, and an easy 2028 win for Republicans (who hopefully won't be running 82 year old Trump.)

If Trump Wins...

This is the interesting one. I've heard a lot of people say that a second Trump term will be even worse than the first because he's fully unleased now and no one can stop him from doing what he really wants. And I think this is partly true.

I just don't think what he wants is "Republican authoritarian rule." Sure, he will probably let the Fed Society still pick the judges (which he never cared about besides thinking they should be loyal to him) and there will almost certainly be a tax cut/extension. But besides that?

In the first Trump term, he had VP Pence, Jeff Sessions as AG, governors like Chris Christie, and three establishment figures at State, Defense, and Treasury making a pact that if Trump fires one they all resign. It was an actual coalition of Republicans and Trumpists who need each other. Even Jared Kushner was pretty establishment friendly (he's the one who approved Pence.)

Jared and Ivanka are gone now, replaced by Eric and Donjr. The VP is a Thiel-acolyte who isn't anti-Republican but sure is "from the blogs." And the endorsers Trump touts are RFK Jr, Tulsi Gabbard, Elon Musk (while more and more mod Republicans endorse Harris.)

This isn't a Trump face over a body of Republicans - this is a Trump leader over all the fringe outsiders of American weirdo culture. I think Trump *actually does* want to appoint RFK to Secretary of Health, and indulge in every conspiracy, organic hippie, crunchy nonsense - which actually has a lot of believers across the country, but extremely little following in DC itself.

I think this will be hilarious beyond our wildest dreams of entertainment. It will not be a functional fascism - it will be closer to Jill Stein and Richard Branson and Andrew Tate. He'll try to pass laws that every kid in America needs to eat healthy and also work in a McDonalds.

[mariacallous]

Like millions of others who lived behind the Iron Curtain, I grew up in the Soviet Union viewing America as a beacon of hope. The difference between free and unfree was readily apparent to me as a young player on the international chess scene, and I began to use my platform to protest repressive practices back home. When I retired from professional chess in 2005, I channeled all of my energy into preventing Russia from sliding back into the hands of the KGB, the Soviet Union’s secret police and most sinister spy agency. Unfortunately, those efforts were unsuccessful: Vladimir Putin consolidated power and rebuilt an authoritarian state in the image of the Soviet regime under which I was born. Facing imminent arrest, I was forced into exile and have lived in New York since 2013. I never thought I would need to warn Americans about the dangers of dictatorship. 

Donald Trump has been breaking down the guardrails of American democracy for nearly a decade now. Generations to come will reap the consequences. His presidency—and his three campaigns for the office—have demonstrated that the institutions so many of us took for granted are, in large part, based on custom and tradition, not written law. As Ronald Reagan famously said, freedom is “never more than one generation away from extinction.” The political system we hold dear is deeply fragile, and depends on our constant commitment to uphold it. 

Trump hasn’t even won the election yet—and his victory is far from assured—but we are already seeing signs of preemptive obedience that should look familiar to many refugees from repressive regimes like me. Both the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times canceled endorsements of Vice President Kamala Harris earlier this month at the behest of their owners, a de facto silencing of two major national newspapers. It should come as no surprise that business owners are careful to avoid upsetting someone who has frequently called for his detractors to be locked up, or in the case of Liz Cheney, have guns “trained on her face.”

Given my experience, I am not willing to stand idly by and watch the beacon of hope that I am grateful to now call home slide into the authoritarianism of my childhood. This election is a choice between a candidate who has vowed to fight for America’s institutions, and one who is deeply dangerous—a candidate who I believe will bring total mayhem and destruction to this country. 

I want to speak, now, more specifically about Kamala Harris.

I have never been shy about criticizing administrations, regardless of party. I harshly condemned Barack Obama’s foreign policy—from his fecklessness in Syria to his dangerous Iran deal—as well as George W. Bush’s naivete when he claimed to have seen Putin’s soul after peering into his eyes. My criticism of both Trump and Joe Biden has been far from quiet. Only 28 percent of Americans today believe the country is moving in the right direction, and I understand their frustrations. While the situation at home certainly raises concerns, the geopolitical landscape is disastrous; the worst I have seen in my living memory. America’s prestige abroad is disintegrating. No wonder, then, that Trump’s hate-filled rhetoric is finding purchase.

But the role of the president and the vice president is not the same. With the notable exception of Dick Cheney (and perhaps Mike Pence when it counted the most), no vice president in recent memory played any meaningful role in setting policy. They do not hold the same responsibility as their boss for the direction the country takes. Biden essentially functioned as Barack Obama’s messenger, because his main task as vice president for eight years was to carry out and effectively communicate Obama’s vision—not his own. The same has been true of Kamala Harris for the last four years; her job has been to further Biden’s agenda, not her own. Consequently, J.D. Vance’s constant refrain—as vice president for nearly four years, Harris owns Biden’s policies—doesn’t make sense. It wasn’t Harris’ job to put her ideas into practice. And while she initially hewed closer to the administration’s stance, she has since stepped out from her boss’s shadow, making clear in interviews and on the campaign trail that she will not just follow in Biden’s footsteps. The policy proposals she is offering, whether you agree with them or not, are her own.

In an area particularly close to my heart—foreign policy—Harris’ agenda would represent an improvement from the status quo. Biden has spent many of his 40 years in government during a time when the threat of nuclear war was high, and that experience has undoubtedly informed his approach to foreign policy as president. Harris, on the other hand, doesn’t carry the same Cold War baggage, and has said that she would not allow Ukraine to succumb to Russian aggression. I don’t believe her administration would continue the Biden administration’s policies of betrayal when it comes to Ukraine—and Trump and Vance have obviously made no secret of their plans to essentially give in to Putin’s desire to swallow Ukraine.

Because Harris hasn’t been on the foreign policy scene for decades, my prediction is that she will hew closely to public opinion, which is currently oriented around a consensus that America should stand up to dictators. And on the domestic front, as a new president interested in being reelected—and likely constrained by a divided Congress and conservative Supreme Court majority—Harris would be unlikely to make waves and institute radical progressive policies. 

Were Harris up against a Republican other than Trump, disagreements over her limited price controls, tax policy, or stance on social issues might constitute strong arguments against electing her. In this race, however, these arguments are moot. If you disagree with her policies, start challenging her the day after the election. I certainly will.

This election is bigger than policy, as the long list of prominent Republicans who are willing to stand up and support Harris demonstrates. Former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter, Liz; former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger; former Sen. Jeff Flake; several members of Trump’s own administration, including some of the most senior. Many still align with Republicans on policy issues���some, in the case of Reps. Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, even voted for Trump in 2020. Unlike sycophantic outcasts like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who made the reverse journey from the Democratic Party to endorse Trump, these are true, dyed-in-the-wool Republicans. 

Legally, we have a choice in this election, but morally, the answer is clear: If we want to preserve America’s institutions and its standing on the world stage, we must elect Kamala Harris on November 5.

Ultimately, I am cautiously optimistic about a Harris presidency. She has the opportunity to normalize a deeply fractured political climate, to bring together the center-left and center-right under a banner of creating real opportunity for all Americans. I look forward to challenging her when we disagree, which I imagine will be often. But if her opponent is elected, the very institutions and traditions that guarantee our right to freely disagree would be under threat. Anyone who has lived in the Soviet Union or in Putin’s Russia will tell you what it’s like to fear publicly condemning the government. In Trump, I hear echoes of Soviet leaders past and Russian leaders present. Kamala Harris’ election is the only way to preserve democracy, at home and abroad. She may not be the best choice. But on November 5, she is the only one.

[treasure-mimic]

I'm sure that saying at this point "I don't know what's going to happen" comes with the connotations of "I don't know what that fucking guy is gonna do" but like, genuinely and from multiple directions, I don't know what's going to happen. I'm sure it's a very cold comfort to hear these things for the people going through it worst right now. There's no but there, it's going to be bad. I don't have good news, I just have other factors that I think are worth considering right now.

Biden does still have time to do, you know, something. Project 2025 is a public document that's very open about its intentions, the Biden administration is provably aware of and opposed to it, Biden could use his last months in office, now that he's not concerned about the optics of him or his party, to force closed the loopholes that the incoming Trump administration is very openly planning to use. In a best case scenario, he might try and force through some kind of Supreme Court reform or restrictions on a felon's access to the presidency. I don't have a lot of faith in the current administration, but even if they do something, even if they do something that's undone during the Trump administration, it'll waste his time and occupy his attention and that's worth something.

There is a looming financial collapse on the horizon. A lot of financial institutions have been holding on for dear life until the election, either to keep bad publicity from hitting Biden or in the hopes of a Trump presidency. Now, obviously that sounds bad, and it is, but it's very very likely that we're already in a recession and those at the economic bottom have already been hit. The ones who are going to be taking the brunt going forward are large corporations (and their workers, unfortunately) and financial institutions. Now, the main difference in the outcome was going to be the difference between a Harris administration and a Trump administration, Trump is extremely cozy with billionaires and make no mistake, they are gonna get bailed the fuck out. But that is going to be a massively unpopular decision on both sides, in the midst of an open recession, and as we know the sitting president always takes the blame for whatever happens under him, even when it's not actually his fault. Trump is already set to lose a lot of ground by midterms before he's actually done anything. And all of his ideas are bad and not going to make things better.

Say what you will about him (he's a piece of shit) but JD Vance is not Mike Pence. Pence had a spine and a metric ton of violent bigotry, Vance has neither. Vance is a sycophant and an asskisser, but if you look into what his actual beliefs are, he seems to care more about common sense anti-big business financial legislation more than he cares about culture war social legislation. I don't think he'd be anything close to a "good" president, as nebulous and impossible a concept as that already is, but I also don't think he's going to put his weight behind the outright discriminatory shit that Trump has incentive to.

Finally, just remember, it's only four more years of this shit. After ten years of Donald Motherfucking Trump, he's done his two, and the republican party seems incredibly directionless once worshiping the ground he walks on has lost its political meaning. He's going to sit on his ass and shitpost and scam and whine and spew bile til the day of his last cloying god-forsaken breath, but after this he's gone. It will not be good times. But it will be over.

Take care of yourselves. Take care of each other. Order in a pizza or something. Listen to something soft, sorrowful, and soothing today. Call it a night early if the mood strikes you. Go out and do something fun this weekend. The world will still be here when you get back. Don't follow me for this, it's the last I'm gonna be posting about it.

Here's some nerd shit for the SEO.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

S.V. Dáte at HuffPost:

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump’s coup attempt that ended with the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol may be on the cusp of making new headlines, just weeks ahead of the November election. Or not. That decision is now in the hands of U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who will determine when and how much to make public of a detailed accounting of special counsel Jack Smith’s evidence backing up the four felony charges against Trump. That could include material never before seen, such as grand jury testimony from then-Vice President Mike Pence and Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows. Whether and how much any of those details will matter to voters in the campaign’s final weeks, though, is an open question. “Very, very unlikely,” said Republican pollster Neil Newhouse. “Jan. 6 is already baked into this election cake.” Fellow Republican David Kochel, a consultant and veteran of numerous campaigns, said he also doubts that any new information or details about testimony will change many minds. “If you care about Jan. 6, you’re already for Harris,” he said about Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee. “I guess anything helps. And when Trump is covered wall to wall, it’s usually unhelpful to him.”

The fact that Donald Trump’s coup attempt on January 6th, 2021 could be back in the news right before election day is a bad omen for Trump’s chances.

[tomorrowusa]

Right now is the time to get involved in the defeat of America's most dangerous enemy since the Cold War.

The traditional election season, starting on Labor Day, is a thing of the distant political past. And considering the magnitude of the threat to democracy, even waiting for the end of the primary season may be too late.

The worst president in our history is, arguably, stronger within the leadership ranks of the Republican Party than he has ever been. He is now the most dangerous presidential candidate in U.S. history. As a consequence, the great question before the rest of us is whether enough of us are ready to do whatever is necessary to defeat this threat as we have all those that have come before. Sadly, there is reason to believe that this time we may not meet the challenge. Right now, Donald Trump is one of two people who could be our next president. The race, at the moment, between him and President Joe Biden, is too close to call.

The people with their heads up their ass over Biden's age are either hypocrites or dissemblers. On Inauguration Day 2025, Donald Trump will be 95.66% of Joe Biden's age. And Trump will also be older in January of 2025 than Biden was upon assuming office in 2021. Biden may have a lifelong stutter but he is still grounded in reality in a way the narcissistic nepo baby Donald Trump never was.

Joe Biden by any objective metric has been one of the most successful presidents in modern U.S. history. He has led the creation of more major legislative initiatives benefiting the American people than any president in 60 years. He oversaw the creation of more than 14 million jobs during his first three years in office. He has brought down inflation and reduced the prices of vital medicines to affordable levels. He has restored American leadership worldwide, expanded our vital alliances like NATO, and stood up to our enemies. All presidents face challenges and make missteps. But it is hard to deny that in the wake of the U.S. economic recovery, the passage of the American Rescue Plan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, the CHIPs and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act, the expansion of NATO, and the creation of new Indo-Pacific alliances, Biden’s record is formidable. That a president with this record is in a horse race with a candidate who is a menace to the country, who led an insurrection, who is a pathological liar whom courts have found to be a fraud and a rapist, and who has no real ideas, no credible policy proposals, no record of actually ever achieving anything for the American people is chilling.

In normal times, over 40% of US voters would NOT pick a notorious sex offender for president. But these are not normal times.

You would have thought that the sight of mobs carrying Trump flags and weapons and chanting for the death of Vice President Mike Pence on January 6, 2021, would have been alarm enough. You would have thought the same of Trump’s Access Hollywood tape, in which he confessed his impulse to abuse women. You would have thought the two dozen women who accused him of abuse would have had that effect. Even if none of those things were quite warning enough, you would have thought the findings in the E. Jean Carroll case would have been enough. After all, respected federal judge Lew Kaplan wrote, “The fact that Mr. Trump sexually abused—indeed, raped—Ms. Carroll has been conclusively established and is binding in this case.” It should have been enough. But so far, it has not been.

And who would have thought that the party of Ronald Reagan is now led by a stooge of the Evil Empire?

You would have thought that Trump reaching out on national television to our Russian adversaries for aid during the 2016 campaign would have been enough. You would have thought the conclusive findings of every major U.S. intelligence agency that Russia sought to aid Trump’s campaign would have been enough. You would have thought that Robert Mueller’s finding 10 instances of possible obstruction of justice by Trump would have been enough. You would have thought Trump kowtowing to Vladimir Putin and taking his word over that of our intelligence and law enforcement communities would have been enough. You would have thought his illegally withholding aid to Ukraine to seek dirt on Joe Biden would have been enough. You would have thought his impeachment for that would have been enough.

Are you willing to spend more time and money than in previous election cycles to end a major threat to Western democracy and to undermine homegrown fascism for at least the rest of this decade?

So, ask yourself, is that enough to make you do more than you have done? Is that enough to commit for the next 10 months to do more than you have ever done during an election year? To give more? To canvas more? To spread the word more? To help get voters to the polls? To ensure every member of your family, your friends, your co-workers do the same? The stakes are too high to do less than everything you can.

I rarely quote Margaret Thatcher and would probably disagree with at least 90% of her views. But she did know something about winning elections and combating the USSR. If she was good for just one thing, it's for this observation in a speech made in her retirement.

[N]o battles are ever finally won; you have to go on winning them by example and by being prepared to defend your way of life against those who would attack it.

If we learn just one thing from the Trump threat, it's that we can never rest on our past laurels. A slacker democracy is one which will not outlast a determined demagogue.

Civic involvement by pro-democracy citizens is absolutely necessary to maintain freedom.

[deadpresidents]

Hypothetically what do you think would have happened if the january 6 rioters had gotten to pence or pelosi before they got safe?

At this point, I almost dread answering questions like this anymore because I know the kind of hate mail it will unleash for the next few days, but it's important to keep talking about what happened on January 6, 2021 since so many people are trying to normalize it. That includes many people whose lives were in danger that day, as well as the former President who tried to hold on to power by encouraging his supporters to launch a violent insurrection and is now referring to those who have been brought to justice for attempting a coup as "patriots" and "hostages".

I genuinely believe that there were people in that crowd who would have killed Vice President Pence, Speaker Pelosi, and certain Congressional leaders if they had reached them on January 6th. I think there are people in that crowd who were ready to hold lawmakers hostage. Why else did they have handcuffs and zip ties? To help the Capitol Police maintain order? (Oh yeah...that's right, thanks for reminding me: they violently attacked the police -- some even beat police officers with the "Blue Lives Matter" flags that they brought with them.) Now, I do not think that everybody who was at the Capitol on January 6th -- or even the majority of those who took part in the insurrection -- were willing to go that far. I think a lot of them got swept up in what was happening and went with the flow. That doesn't excuse what they did. The flow that they got swept up in was still a fucking insurrection, and anyone who took part in that deserves to be held accountable. But I think there were certain elements embedded throughout that crowd that were much more organized and prepared to fully execute their plans for a coup after disrupting the certification of the Electoral College votes.

I actually think Vice President Pence was probably in more danger than even Speaker Pelosi or some of the Democratic leaders because Trump was so actively calling him out in the days and hours before the insurrection. I think that's why Pence is so adamant now about not supporting Trump. I mean, think about how disgustingly loyal and subservient Pence was to Trump throughout those four years until basically the first few days of January 2021. But even as other Republican leaders are crumbling and offering their allegiance to Trump again in 2024, Pence is standing by his decision not to endorse or support Trump, and I think that's because he realizes that Trump absolutely almost got him (and his family, who were with him in the Capitol on that day) killed on January 6th. Shit, even Mitch McConnell has folded and endorsed Trump again despite the fact that Trump has spent the last three years not only insulting him but also making racist attacks and questioning McConnell's wife's loyalty to the United States all because Elaine Chao had the audacity to resign from Trump's Cabinet in the wake of the insurrection. Yet Mike Pence -- who spent the better part of four years following Trump around like Paul Heyman follows Roman Reigns...

...THAT same Mike Pence is steadfastly refusing to endorse Trump because he has personal experience about how real of an existential threat Trump is. Some of those people at the Capitol were very serious about following through on their chants to "Hang Mike Pence", and not only does Pence realize that, but he also knows now that Trump -- who refused to take actions that would have helped clear the Capitol more quickly -- said "he deserves it" when hearing about those chants.

That's what is so scary about the insurrection, its aftermath, and the Trump Republican Party's redefinition of what happened that day. It almost worked. They stormed the United States Capitol and invaded both chambers of Congress. They carried Confederate flags into the United States Capitol -- even the fucking Confederate States of America didn't successfully invade Washington, D.C. and plant their flag in the Capitol. They were willing to hurt and probably kill some of America's elected leaders. And the people who helped plan and instigate the events of January 6th have spent the three-plus years since then learning from their mistakes and figuring out how to be successful next time. And guess what? "Next time" is only a few months away.

[qqueenofhades]

can you assuage my creeping fear about the debate between harris and trump? my brain is like. the media will be salivating over any chance to get the story HARRIS FLUBS THE DEBATE MORE AT 6 unless she's 100% perfect for it. i keep telling myself that she's an incredibly seasoned prosecutor who knows exactly what to do to unravel these sorts of people, she has plenty of time to prepare, he's completely gone over the edge into incoherence most of the time, but i also keep thinking of how, after weeks of her absolutely pile-driving the republican party, the media will be circling for any mistake, mis-step, or imperfection to blow out of proportion to make it seem like she's failing. i guess what i'm afraid of is the other shoe dropping? or the bubble bursting? i'm afraid of this hope?

i was barely aware of obama in 2008, too young to vote and not paying attention, so i don't know how this kind of momentum turned into the juggernaut that got him elected. i know you believe that the same can happen here, how did he take on the predatory press?

Well, first, we need to recognize that the media treatment of the debate WILL be wildly unfair, full stop. If Trump shows up and puts on pants, he will be applauded by the media, because they have the lowest imaginable bar where he is concerned and everything that would have been multiply-disqualifying for any other candidate makes them just shrug and find a way to make excuses for him. So yes, he will literally be congratulated if he shows up on September 10, because that is how the media works. See: three relentless weeks of bullying Biden out of the race after the bad debate, barely mentioning Trump's equally insane diatribes at the same debate, and now, when he's gone full-on demented and is raving about AI-generated crowds at Kamala's events? Nary a peep. Lol.

However, the main narrative that's emerging from the Harris takeover is that voters and the media are miles apart on where they actually see this race going, and without the media's favorite chew toy of Biden's shortcomings, it has become increasingly difficult to avoid focusing on Trump's flaws, even tangentially. See the mainstream media reporters whining constantly that Harris hasn't given them a press conference and congratulating Trump for lying to them nonstop for an hour; they simply have no frame of reference that's remotely useful, because they are so beholden to making Trump look like a normal candidate and focusing on Harris's "flaws" as if they are remotely comparable to his. But at the same time, there has been a far heightened level of pushback on this BS manipulation, and everybody can see through it, precisely because the media and/or the right-wing smear machine has tried this so many times before and their tactics are now completely transparent. Ordinary voters don't give a shit whether Harris WiLl tAkE qUesTioNs fRoM tHe mEdiA; they're too busy flooding her campaign with donations, attending her rallies, signing up for volunteer shifts, and so forth. In fact, the reason the media is trying SO HARD to kill her momentum is because they, like Trump, rely on doing so. The more they try and don't succeed, the more panicked they'll get. We have to prepare for that, and we have to have her back.

That said, we should recall that Harris easily crushed Pence in their debate in 2020, and Pence was actually halfway presentable at it compared to Trump (which is a low bar, but still). The way Trump "wins" is that he just repeats a lot of lies forcefully and over and over, which Biden was ill-prepared to counter because he has a far more deliberate and decisive speaking style (related to stutter/speech difficulties, temperament as a politician, etc). Everything that I have seen from the Harris campaign in terms of communication so far, however, has been the exact kind of clapback that makes Trump look stupid and which shows that they are very attuned to the kind of strategies that work against that nonsensical bullying Gish gallop. Therefore, I have to trust that they have INTENSIVELY studied what went wrong with Biden/Trump in June, and also empowered Kamala to do what she does in her fashion and which has been extremely successful thus far at knocking down Trump's BS. Also, she's just a better and more fluent communicator than Biden, she looks and sounds more energetic, and those stupid aesthetic Vibes are half of the battle when it comes to convincing the public.

Also, we should recognize that Trump looked deeply creepy on stage at the debates with HRC in 2016, and that was when he was downright sane compared to now. He stalked her, he stood behind her, he rolled his eyes, he bullied her, and people noticed that (he subsequently won the election, yes, but if nothing else, 2024 feels nothing like 2016). If he has to stand on stage with a black woman kicking his ass, after his appearance at the NABJ event in Chicago quickly became a touchstone for how badly he fucked it up, he is going to just look BAD, and when that's the case, people will immediately fit it into the existing narrative (that he's scared of Harris and deeply racist and unglued). You can also play your part in making sure it does. At least half of the Bidengate furor came from Democrats melting down and yelling about it afterward, and that led into the knives-out media coverage that spiraled for 3.5 weeks until Biden withdrew. We can, yknow, NOT DO THAT this time!

So: yeah. We have to be aware that yes, the media coverage of the debate will find absolutely every excuse to praise Trump and bash Harris, because that's just baked in. However, we can also understand that there's a wide-and-getting-wider CHASM between how ordinary voters see things right now and how the media is desperate to play it, and the more transparent they get, the more easily we are able to call it out. (See Lawrence O'Donnell's rant the other night.) We are going to have to keep doing that and not let up, but it's not going to go well for Trump either way and it's still an open question as to whether he even shows up after trying SO hard to dodge. It's not out of the question that he'll announce on September 4 that by Harris not showing up to the Fox debate she never agreed to and which exists only in his deluded mind, he doesn't have to do the same on September 10. He is a scared fucking orange chickenshit who KNOWS he's badly outmatched against Harris and whose entire campaign strategy at this point relies on lying low and trying not to make voters remember again how much they hate him, which is already backfiring. And with your help, we can make him MORE scared all the way to prison. Let's do it.

[eugenedebs1920]

In their last term, The Supreme Court of the United States of America (SCOTUS), mainly the men, but occasionally Barrett showed the American people how little we are worth to them. They made it blatantly obvious that we are nothing more than serfs, subjugated, whose purpose is to pay taxes and STFU.

This was also made apparent with the reversal of Roe. The 2023-24 term had its share of long term dire consequences yet to be felt. The overturning of the Chevron doctrine was a devastating blow to the middle class/working poor. Its reversal will, at one time or another, affect the lives of 98% of Americans (the middle class, upper middle and working poor).

The right wing apparatus will tell you that regulations, protections, and limitations prohibit productivity which leads to less profits and in turn, a cooling of economic prosperity. What they aren’t divulging is the massive amounts of wealth they have amassed over the past 4 decades.

As far back as the Nixon administration, one could go back as far as the New Deal but, it’s a post, not a novel, certain restrictions, limitations, protective measures, and practices have been imposed on major corporations and industries. These regulations range from environmental protection, labor practices, safety standards, hazardous substances, banking practices, equal pay, the list goes on.

These regulatory agencies specialize in the field in which suits their skill set. Some call it the bureaucratic state. These non partisan civil servants work throughout changing administrations in their various fields without being inhibited by the views held by the party in power.

What the overturning of Chevron did is lessen the power that these agencies have. Putting the rules and regulations they enforced in peril. Now regulations created to protect the health and safety of Americans and the environment we live in, as well as the financial institutions and practices in which they can engage in, are put in peril.

The effects of this won’t be immediately noticeable. We are the frog in a warm pot of water, slowly being boiled to death. What does this have to do with Helene and future natural disasters one may ask?

Some of those regulatory agencies impacted by this reversal are, the EPA, FEMA, NOAA, the Department of Labor, OSHA, The FCC, the SEC, and so many more. Pretty much any agency that limits the exploitation these massive conglomerates and giant corporations can impose on Americans and the world they reside in.

We live in a time where the Supreme Court is rogue. With an extreme right wing MAGA majority, dead set on revoking rights as opposed to instilling them. A Supreme Court who, when scandals arose of lavish gifts coming from billionaire benefactors, rather than enforce a code of ethics they simply legalized bribery (Snyder vs the United States). A Supreme Court, so lawless and void of standards, that justices refuse to recuse themselves from constitutional crises cases, where they flew flags in support of the defendant, where the wife of another was in direct contact with the cheif of staff of a man who, while watching from the dining room of the White House, while a mob, led by his incendiary rhetoric ramshacked our capital. All the while chants of “hang Mike Pence, Hang Mike Pence” rang through the the halls of that hallowed ground. When told the mob wanted to hurt the Vice President, the defendant said, “So what”.

I’ve had tacos more supreme than this court! This November 5th, it is not a choice between a vile demented old man and a lifetime protector and prosecutor for the people, it is the direction, the safety, the environment, the lending practices, the food we eat, the wages we make, the lives our children will have that is the choice because. If Trump is elected, Alito as well as Thomas WILL retire, giving the mandarin Mussolini FIVE SCOTUS appointments. This will dictate the next 30 plus years of our lives. So please! Get out and vote! Vote the Harris Walz ticket and blue down ballot. The freedoms of women, LGBTQ rights, labor rights, environmental protections, food and drug safety, fair banking/lending practices, our federal lands, clean water, green energy for the future, so much hangs in the balance and the effects will be felt for a majority of the rest of our lives. We are one nation, indivisible, we stand for liberty and justice for all! ☮️🇺🇸

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

David Rowe

* * * *

Good morning. This is what fascism looks like.

Lucian K. Truscott IV

Oct 26, 2024

It crept in overnight, while we were sleeping.  Fascism showed its face not with jackboots and concentration camps…not yet, anyway…but rather as just another day in Capitalist America.  Two major media companies, the Washington Post and the LA Times, made decisions to capitulate to the man they fear will be elected president before a single vote has been counted.  They decided not to run editorials endorsing their preferred candidate for president, Kamala Harris, because the owners of the companies, Jeff Bezos and Patrick Soon-Shiong, are afraid if they anger Donald Trump, he will hit them where it hurts:  In their pocketbooks.

Bezos sees himself as particularly vulnerable to the wrath of Donald Trump.  Before he left office in 2021, Trump appointed a puppet to run the United States Postal Service (USPS):  Louis DeJoy, a long-time Republican fund-raiser and major Trump contributor who was appointed as one of three deputy finance chairmen of the Republican National Committee shortly after Trump took office in 2017.  The USPS prioritizes package delivery for Amazon and sets the price it pays for the service.  Trump has threatened Bezos with jacking up his Amazon delivery prices before, in 2018.  The Postmaster General was then Megan Brennan, appointed during the Obama administration, who resisted Trump’s demand to raise delivery prices, but such resistance is unlikely to happen if Trump is elected and DeJoy is there to carry out his wishes.

This is the way it happens.  An autocrat like Donald Trump, with his history of impulsive decisions and threats against perceived enemies, has two billionaires cowering in fear, and he didn’t even have to pick up the phone.

Fascism is not an all-at-once transformation.  We’ve already had our Brownshirt day, on Jan. 6, 2021, when Trump’s MAGA army stormed the Capitol waving Confederate and Nazi flags and assaulting police officers and attempting to hunt down and kill Nancy Pelosi and Mike Pence, all of it, we now know, with Trump cheering them on from the White House.  Fascism uses symbols – MAGA this time, Swastika last time – to rally followers, and then it feeds them fear and lies and the demonization of minorities and others perceived as not like us.

I don’t even know that you can name the period of fascism we’re in right now.  Giving it a name doesn’t matter.  What matters is that it is happening right in front of our eyes, and little if nothing is being done about it, other than fascism finally being called out by political leaders such as Kamala Harris and other Democrats, and some news organizations have at last crossed the Rubicon of using the “F” word of fascism and the “H” word of Hitler in the same sentences with Donald Trump.

What can we do?  We can all vote for Kamala Harris and whatever Democrat is running for whatever office in your district and state. 

Journalists everywhere, but particularly at the Washington Post and LA Times, have a crucial role to play right now.  It is journalism about Donald Trump’s crimes and political extremism that has revealed him as not just a totalitarian politician, but as a man consumed with a fascist lust for absolute power.  It has been people like Timothy Snyder and Heather Cox Richardson who have put Trump’s rise in historical perspective and compared what is happening right now in this country to what happened nearly a century ago in Germany with the rise of Hitler, when German corporate titans of the day bowed down to him in fear. 

Now the reporters and editors at the Post and the LA Times can help show the world what contemporary fascism looks like by refusing to countenance the craven subservience of their owners.  There are leaders at the Washington Post, in particular Bob Woodward and Eugene Robinson and David Ignatius and Ruth Marcus and Karen Tumulty, who can show the way for their colleagues by leading a newspaper-wide walk out.  With what we are seeing every day from Donald Trump, they can call it a “Strike Against Fascism,” or “A Call to Arms.”

You might accuse me as a freelancer of not taking seriously the possibility that people at both papers might lose their jobs for leading or participating in a walk-out.  But people have already resigned in protest at both papers.  This isn’t a time to show fear.  It’s a time to stand up to power. The writers and editors have a lot to lose, but they have already been treated as expendable, and they’ve been told they are in danger of losing their jobs anyway.

The guy Bezos put in as publisher of the Post, former Murdoch hitman Will Lewis, bluntly told Post staffers when he was appointed, “We are losing large amounts of money. Your audience has halved in recent years. People are not reading your stuff. I can’t sugarcoat it anymore.”   He could have been talking as well to the staffs of the New York Times and the three major television networks and cable news like CNN and MSNBC.  All of them are in an existential crisis at this crucial moment in our history.  Newspapers are closing across the country.  Television networks and cable news shows are hemorrhaging viewers. 

The arrival of Bezos and Soon-Shiong to “rescue” two major American newspapers has shown us how hollow were any hopes that billionaires will or even can make a difference in today’s economic and political climate. 

But workers can make a difference.  With ten days to go until the election, let’s see if a day with no newspaper in Washington D.C. and Los Angeles can make a difference.  Maybe a strike will teach reporters and editors and the rest of us that we are beyond the point of being able to affect our lives and the lives of others.  Or maybe rallying against the fascism that has been stealing our national politics will help to send more people to the polls to vote for Kamala Harris on November 5.

I do know this:  When you are bullied, you STAND UP or you lose your self-respect and your dignity and your right to life. The fascism of Donald Trump would take away all three.

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