#republicans are weak on defense | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

mostlysignssomeportents · 2 months ago

Text

Trumpism’s healthcare fracture-lines

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/20/clinical-trial-by-ordeal/#spoiled-his-brand-new-rattle

There was never any question as to whether Trump would implement Project 2025, the 900-page brick of terrifying and unhinged policy prescriptions edited by the Heritage Foundation. He would not implement it, because he could not implement it. No one could. It's impossible.

This isn't a statement about constitutional limits on executive authority or the realpolitik of getting bizarre and stupid policies past judges or through a hair-thin Congressional majority. This is a statement about the incoherence of Project 2025 itself. You probably haven't read it. Few have. Realistically, few people are going to read a 900-page group work of neofeudalist fanfic shit out by the most esoteric Fedsoc weirdos the world has ever seen.

But one person who did read Project 2025 was the leftist historian Rick Perlstein, who was the first person to really dig into what a fucking mess that thing is:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/14/fracture-lines/#disassembly-manual

Perlstein's excellent analysis doesn't claim that Project 2025's authors aren't sincere in their intentions to wreak great harm upon the nation and its people; rather, his point is that Project 2025 is filled with contradictory, mutually exclusive proposals written by people who fundamentally disagree with one another, and who each have enough power within the Trump coalition that all of thier proposals have to be included in a document like this:

https://prospect.org/politics/2024-07-10-project-2025-republican-presidencies-tradition/

Project 2025 isn't just a guide to the masturbatory fantasies of the worst people in American politics – far more importantly, it is a detailed map of the fracture lines in the GOP coalition, the places where it is liable to split and shatter. This is an important point if you want to do more about Trumpism than run around feeling miserable and scared. If you want to fight, Project 2025 is a guide to the weak spots where an attack will do the most damage.

Perlstein's insight continues to be borne out as the Trump regime makes ready to take power. In a new story for KFF News, Stephanie Armour and Julie Rovner describe the irreconcilable differences among Trump's picks for the country's top public health authorities:

https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/trump-rfk-kennedy-health-hhs-fda-cdc-vaccines-covid-weldon/

The brain-worm-infected-elephant in the room is, of course, RFK Jr, who has been announced as Trump's head of Health and Human Services. RFK Jr is a notorious antivaxer, chairman of Children’s Health Defense, a notorious anti-vaccine group. Kennedy's view is shared by Trump's chosen CDC boss, Dave Weldon, a physician who has repeated the dangerous lie that vaccinations cause autism. Mehmet "Dr Oz" Oz, the TV "physician" Trump wants to put in charge of Medicare/Medicaid, calls vaccines "oversold" and advocates for treating covid with hydroxychloroquine, another thoroughly debunked hoax:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2024/12/17/hydroxychloroquine-study-covid-19-retracted-trump/77051671007/

However, other top Trump public health picks emphatically support vaccines. Marty Makary is Trump's choice for FDA commissioner; he's a Johns Hopkins trained surgeon who says vaccines "save lives" (but he peddles the lethal, unscientific hoax that childhood vaccines should be "spread out"). Jay Bhattacharya, the economist/MD whom Trump wants to put in charge of the NIH, supports vaccines (he is also one of the country's leading proponents of the eugenicist idea of accepting the mass death of elderly, sick and disabled people rather than imposing quarantines during epidemics). Then there's Janette Nesheiwat, whom Trump has asked to serve as the nation's surgeon general; she calls vaccines "a gift from God."

Like "Bidenism," Trumpism is a fragile coalition of people who thoroughly and irreconcilably disagree with one another. During the Biden administration, this resulted in self-inflicted injuries like appointing the brilliant trustbuster Lina Khan to run the FTC, but also appointing the pro-monopoly corporate lawyer Jacqueline Scott Corley to a lifetime seat as a federal judge, from which perch she ruled against Khan's no-brainer suit to block the Microsoft-Activision merger:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/judge-rules-for-microsoft-mergers

The Trump coalition is even broader than the Biden coalition. That's how he won the 2024 election. But that also means that Trumpism is more fractious and off-balance, and hence will be easier to disrupt, because it is riven by people in senior positions who hate one another and are actively working for each others' political demise.

The Trump coalition is a coalition of *cranks*. I'm using "crank" here in a technical, non-pejorative sense. I am a crank, after all. A crank is someone who is overwhelmingly passionate about a single issue, whose uncrossable bright lines are not broadly shared. Cranks can be right or they can be wrong, but we're hard to be in coalition with, because we are uncompromisingly passionate about things that other people largely don't even notice, let alone care about. You can be a crank whose single issue is eliminating water fluoridation, even though this is very, very stupid and dangerous:

https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/the-fluoride-debate

Or you can be a crank about digital rights, a subject that, for decades, was viewed as by turns either unserious or as a sneaky way of shilling for Big Tech (thankfully, that's changing):

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/18/greetings-fellow-pirates/#arrrrrrrrrr

Cranks make hard coalition partners. Trump's cranks are cranked up about different things - vaccines, culture war trans panics, eugenics - and are total normies about other things. The eugenicist MD/economist who wants to "let 'er rip" rather than engage in nonpharmaceutical pandemic interventions is gonna be horrified by total abortion bans and antivax. These cranks are on a collision course with one another.

This is on prominent display in these public health appointments, and we're very likely about to get a test of the cohesiveness and capability of the second Trump administration, thanks to bird flu. Now that bird flu has infected humans in multiple US states, there is every chance that we will have to confront a public health emergency in the coming weeks. If that happens, the Trump public health divisions over masking, quarantine and (especially) vaccines (Kennedy called the covid vaccine the "deadliest" ever made, without any evidence) will become the most important issue in the country, under constant and pitiless scrutiny, and criticism.

Trump's public health shambles is by no means unique. The lesson of Project 2025 is that the entire Trump project is one factional squabble away from collapse at all times.

409 notes · View notes

ask-codeearasure · 2 months ago

Text

Oh... a part of me fuckin figured this kid was a Republican, or at least a Republican mouthpiece, but I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt at first. But now, get ready for that kid to use Cross being Trans Coded to be one of their reasons for accusing Jakei of being a pedophile next, since that is where red party mouthbreathers always seem to go next with anything transgender related. I'm calling it right now.

If you haven't read my essay of why Trans Coded characters are important, go do so, it comes into play here and why Republicans are constantly attacking them and why characters that aren't Cishet, Male, and White are always called "Political". If not directly, then indirectly under the guise it's going to "groom children" and "confuse them", amongst other false talking points used to demonize the LGBTQIA+ community.

I've always said this, but I'll say it here and now, Republicans LOVE to minimize their accusations and attacks as being "a different opinion" when deep down, they know it's anything BUT.

If you look at the way Republicans are complaining about their families going no-contact with them and uninviting them from holidays, family gatherings, or even just complete exclusion, they always say "It's just a different opinion! They are cutting me off for a different opinion!!!" When they know that's not exactly the case, but they are not going to say what the actual reason is. They use the First Amendment as a weak defense for what they say as "I have the Freedom of Speech!" but don't acknowledge that one's Freedom of Speech DOES NOT MEAN there's no such thing as "Freedom from Consequences".

Let's say it how it is. These people know it's about morals, giving a shit about the people around them (which extends into the state of society as a whole), and ethics.

Republicans refuse to admit they completely lack morals and that lack of morality makes them dangerous. You could stretch it and say they don't have a conscience either, but really, it's clear the problem these people have is outright stupidity, not a complete lack of a little voice in their head telling them the shit they subscribe to perhaps isn't a good idea.

This kid tried to say "Oh, Jakei didn't understand what I meant!" Then proceeded to not clarify what they supposedly meant and then turned around and accused everyone of having Main Character Syndrome.

What else could they have possibly meant when they outright said they believed that Cross being confirmed to be Trans Coded was to get attention from the Trans Community?

If that isn't what you meant...? Then what the fuck else could you have meant?

How else are we supposed to take it???

But that's just it, isn't it?

That WAS what they meant. That WAS how it was supposed to be taken, they just don't like that it makes them look like a complete and total piece of shit. It's almost like actions speak louder than words here.

Republicans hate being seen as a bad person, so they will gaslight you and refuse to ever admit they want to hurt others and get kicks out of it.

And look at what the kid does. They didn't like the fact that everyone fucking tore them a new one, proceeded to try to gaslight everyone by saying that Jakei didn't understand what they meant to try to make her look like the "confused" bad guy, and then accused everyone else of having Main Character Syndrome. This is also a form of projection, putting themself on a pedestal of "everyone got mad, so they must be wrong. Therefore I refuse to change my opinion to keep making the "bad guys" mad!" They are not looking at the reactions of everyone around them as a lens of "perhaps I was wrong, I should change my opinion and improve as a person". They're not actually questioning what's wrong. They just see everyone upset and assume they've got all the power here, because in order to avoid genuinely considering what they've done wrong, everyone else must be wrong. This is a very common mental gymnastic used to avoid change.

This pattern of behavior and responses is what we call DARVO, and it is prevalent in the political and psychological fields. It stands for Deny, Attack, Reverse, Victim, and Offender.

Republicans LOVE using DARVO in their debates, it's their go-to when it comes to attacking left-wing content creators, anyone on the left, or populations of people they just don't like (and always out of intentional ignorance).

They will always use it to ensure that they gain control of the conversation and make themselves look good, mainly to themselves. It's why they make nonsensical whataboutisms and accuse others of extreme crimes despite not having any evidence to back it up.

It's a way to get the actual victims to shut the fuck up so they can continue running their mouth comfortably. With no competition to their views, they can avoid questioning their beliefs and quality of character based off those beliefs.

And what do we have here?

A person who uses Republican Talking Points to demonize transgenderism.

And then now used Cross being Trans Coded as a way to attack Jakei again under the guise her advocating for transgender people has a harmful and/or self-serving ulterior motive.

And then is using DARVO to try to gaslight everyone they can to make themself look like the actual victim, because the poor baby can't handle the justified backlash to their behavior.

By these terms of beliefs and behavior, they are a Republican (perhaps not legitimately but by current definition) who is predictable and will always be predictable because once you know how to recognize and analyze Republican Propaganda, you can expect their every move and what they are always aiming for.

Sorry to make another post on this. This was meant to be a fandom blog, not a politics blog.

-- Ouija

#utmv #undertale #underverse cross #crosssans #cross sans #jakei95 #jakeisupport #jakei #Xtale #xtale cross #xtale sans #xtale #cross is trans #trans coded cross #transgender #fuck republicans #fuck republikkkans #message from ouijas board

116 notes · View notes

dreaminginthedeepsouth · 5 days ago

Text

M. Wuerker

* * * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

February 5, 2025

Heather Cox Richardson

Feb 06, 2025

Five years ago, on February 5, 2020, Republican senators acquitted then-president Donald Trump in his first impeachment trial. Trump immediately vowed retaliation against those who tried to hold him accountable before the law for his actions. “It’s payback time,” one Republican said. “He has an enemies list that is growing by the day.”

Now Trump is back in office and purging the government of those he perceives to be his enemies. His administration is purging the Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the civil service of anyone deemed insufficiently supportive of the president.

But it is not clear that the 78-year-old Trump is the one calling the shots. Although Trump maintained during his campaign that he had no idea what the right-wing Project 2025 was, multiple media outlets have established that most of his flurry of executive orders appear to have been lifted from the 922-page document. That document is the product of a group of far-right organizations led by the Heritage Foundation, which has ties to Viktor Orbán’s Danube Institute.

This week’s threatened tariff war blew up in Trump’s face. After his vow to put tariffs of 25% on most products from Mexico and Canada sent the stock market plunging, he was left declaring victory over Mexico and Canada after they essentially assured him they would do things they are already doing. In the meantime, as Carl Quintanilla noted today, Trump’s tariffs on products from China are increasing prices in the U.S.

Last night, Trump horrified even his own advisors by saying that the United States would take over Gaza and turn it into a resort area. Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman of the New York Times reported today that Trump’s team “had not done even the most basic planning to examine the feasibility of the idea” when Trump blurted it out. “[T]here had been no meetings with the State Department or Pentagon, as would normally occur for any serious foreign policy proposal,” Swan and Haberman wrote, “let alone one of such magnitude. There had been no working groups. The Defense Department had produced no estimates of the troop numbers required, or cost estimates, or even an outline of how it might work. There was little beyond an idea inside the president’s head,” an idea his own officials considered “fantastical even for Mr. Trump.”

Trump’s comments were so badly received in the Middle East that Matthew Gertz of Media Matters wondered if Secretary of State Marco Rubio had ordered additional security for the U.S. diplomatic facilities there.

Today, Trump praised Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) for coaching Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes in college, although Mahomes arrived at Texas Tech after Tuberville had already left.

In his important piece “The Logic of Destruction and How to Resist It,” published February 2 in his Thinking about…, scholar of authoritarianism Timothy Snyder reflected on the president’s multiple photo ops signing executive orders to, for example, blame former Democratic presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden for a plane crash that happened during Trump’s term. Snyder referred to the president as “a befuddled Trump signing ever larger pieces of paper for the cameras.”

Today journalist Gil Duran of The Nerd Reich noted that a thinker popular with the technological elite in 2022 laid out a plan to gut the U.S. government and replace it with a dictatorship. This would be a “reboot” of the country, Curtis Yarvin wrote, and it would require a “full power start,” a reference to restarting a stalled starship by jumping to full power, which risks destroying the ship.

Yarvin called for “giving absolute sovereignty to a single organization,” headed by the equivalent of the rogue chief executive officer of a corporation who would destroy the public institutions of the democratic government. Trump—whom Yarvin dismissed as weak—would give power to that CEO, who would “run the executive branch without any interference from the Congress or courts.” “Most existing important institutions, public and private, will be shut down and replaced with new and efficient systems.” Once loyalists have replaced civil servants in a new ideological “army,” the CEO “will throw it directly against the administrative state—not bothering with confirmed appointments, just using temporary appointments as needed. The job of this landing force is not to govern.” The new regime must take over the country and “perform the real functions of the old, and ideally perform them much better.” It must “seize all points of power, without respect for paper protections.”

Duran noted that Vice President J.D. Vance has echoed Yarvin’s prescriptions and that Trump sidekick billionaire Elon Musk appears to be putting Yarvin’s blueprint into action. “Musk is taking a systematic approach,” Duran wrote, “one that has been outlined in public forums for years.”

This morning, Anna Wilde Mathews and Liz Essley Whyte of the Wall Street Journal reported that Elon Musk’s team has accessed payment and contracting systems at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Mathews and Whyte note that CMS sits at the center of the country’s healthcare economy. In 2024, it disbursed about $1.5 trillion, or about 22% of the total amount of the federal total.

On X, Musk said “this is where the big money fraud is happening.” But, in fact, CMS is not operating without oversight. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, which operates out of the Department of Justice, investigates healthcare fraud. In June 2024 it announced criminal charges against 193 defendants across 32 federal districts who allegedly participated in healthcare fraud schemes that involved about $2.75 billion in intended losses and $1.6 billion in actual losses.

Indeed, as Eric Levitz of Vox pointed out, “DOGE has not presented evidence of ‘fraud’; they have highlighted millions of dollars worth of spending that Musk considers wasteful. By contrast, the [General Accountability Office] identified $233 billion of fraud in 2024. We don’t need to let a billionaire ignore federal law to do government oversight[.]”

“It is extraordinary how much access Elon Musk and his sort of creepy 22-year-old henchmen have to all of our data,” Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) told MSNBC today. “They have information that would allow them to shut down your tax refund, your Medicare payment…. Potentially, they know everything about you and your family, and the reality is that this could get dystopian very quickly…. If you were to start speaking ill of Elon Musk on social media, Elon Musk might be able to stop or delay your tax refund, or your mom's Social Security benefit, in part because we have no window into what's happening inside the Department of [the] Treasury right now."

While Murphy didn’t say it explicitly, control over such information also gives Musk power over business rivals and political leaders. When Musk’s team went into the Department of Labor today, Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) noted that “[h]e could manipulate quarterly job numbers and much more. We are talking about MARKET MOVING INFORMATION! Do employers want Musk to have access to any of their confidential data?”

Today, when asked about Musk’s conflicts of interest as he reviews federal spending while also receiving more than $15 billion in federal contracts, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Trump had already promised that “if Elon Musk comes across a conflict of interest with the contracts and the funding that DOGE is overseeing, that Elon will excuse himself from those contracts.” Donald Kettl, a scholar of public policy, told Dana Hull of Bloomberg: “I don’t know of any other case, anywhere, in which an individual could determine for himself whether he had a conflict of interest. In fact, self-determination of a conflict of interest is itself a conflict of interest.”

In a shocking attack on the intelligence personnel who collect information around the world to keep Americans safe, today the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) sent a list of all employees the agency hired in the past two years to the White House, sending the list by unclassified email. Hugo Lowell of The Guardian reported that a former CIA agent called the reporting of the names “a counterintelligence disaster.” Lowell also reported that Representative Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement that he understands that the White House “insisted” on the list coming through unclassified email.

Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, posted: “Exposing the identities of officials who do extremely sensitive work would put a direct target on their backs for China. A disastrous national security development.”

Today, protesters gathered across the country to protest the takeover of the U.S. government by Musk and his cronies, and Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) noted on Facebook that the U.S. Senate phone system has been overwhelmed with around 1,600 calls a minute, in contrast to the 40 calls a minute it usually receives. Representative Mark Pocan (D-WI) announced he would introduce the ELON MUSK Act—the Eliminate Looting of Our Nation by Mitigating Unethical State Kleptocracy Act—which would ban federal contracts for Special Government Employees, similar to the bans for members of Congress and other federal employees.

Opposition might well continue to grow, as the bite of the cuts the Trump administration and Musk are making to the federal government is only beginning to be felt at home (the collapse of USAID is already an international crisis). Those cuts are poised to hurt Trump’s own rural voters worse than they hurt Democratic areas. In Virginia, about 400,000 people in rural areas receive healthcare from federally qualified health centers; half of these centers have lost their federal grants and are stopping some services or closing. Trump is currently planning to eliminate the Department of Education; the top six states that receive grants under the department—Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Nevada—all voted for Trump in 2024.

Tonight, Democratic senators, led by Chuck Schumer (NY), Jeff Merkley (OR), Patty Murray (WA), Gary Peters (MI), and Brian Schatz (HI), will hold the Senate floor all night in a filibuster to stop the confirmation of Russell Vought, a key right-wing author of Project 2025, to direct the Office of Management and Budget. “Vought’s proposals to slash federal funding will threaten Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security,” the senators said. “Vought will also continue to carry out President Donald Trump’s illegal federal funding cuts, stopping taxpayer dollars from supporting local schools, police departments, community health centers, food pantries, firefighters, and other vital programs.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Heather Cox Richardson #Letters From An American #OMB #Vought #US Treasury #Red States #history #American History #impeachment #Gaza #Canada #FBI

26 notes · View notes

vbartilucci · 7 months ago

Text

The republicans are already attacking Kamala Harris pre-emptively on the chance that she'll just step up to take the nom.

If they go with someone else, there will be people upset that they didn't choose to do so. I think there's people in the party leadership that are convinced that the reason (or at least one reason) Hilary didn't win is cause she was a woman, and as such, are gun-shy to try it again, especially at this late date.

ANY change they make will somehow be played as weakness by the Republicans.

To summarize, there's no perfect checkmate move here. I simply don't think there's any magical candidate that can rise from the crop and turn the election.

Vote the party and not the candidate. If Biden has any issues, he can step down after the election. We need democrats controlling the White House and the Congress. They they can make the changes to the Supreme Court to make it more centered.

82 notes · View notes

urialnathanonwright · 4 days ago

Text

Trump’s Orbán Playbook: America’s Democracy is on the Brink

A commentary on Zack Beauchamp’s Vox article, "How Viktor Orbán turned Hungary into a dictatorship"

By now, it’s impossible to deny: Donald Trump’s second term is unfolding as a textbook case of authoritarian consolidation, eerily mirroring the rapid power grab Viktor Orbán executed in Hungary back in 2010. Zack Beauchamp’s insightful analysis in Vox lays out the roadmap Orbán followed—one that Trump appears to be taking step-for-step, only this time, it’s happening in the United States. The question now is whether Americans will recognize the warning signs in time to stop it.

The Blitzkrieg on Democracy Has Already Begun

Beauchamp warns that Orbán’s rise was not an overnight coup, but a systematic dismantling of democratic institutions through relentless executive overreach. Trump, now back in office with a Republican-controlled Congress, is following a similar trajectory. His first weeks in power have already been marked by actions designed to strip oversight and consolidate authority.

Just as Orbán leveraged public discontent with Hungary’s previous government to push through sweeping authoritarian changes, Trump has used economic instability and voter frustration to justify aggressive executive actions. His mass pardons of January 6 insurrectionists—echoing Orbán’s early moves to neutralize opposition by taking control of the judiciary—are a clear indication of where this is headed. He’s systematically purging federal agencies of career officials who might challenge him, while rewarding loyalists who will greenlight his most extreme policies.

Legislative Weaknesses: America’s Saving Grace?

Beauchamp highlights a key difference between the U.S. and Hungary—Orbán’s Fidesz party had a supermajority that allowed him to rewrite Hungary’s constitution at will. Trump, by contrast, still faces institutional roadblocks. The Republican Party holds a narrow majority in the House and recently gained control of the Senate, but without a filibuster-proof margin, Trump lacks the unchecked legislative power Orbán enjoyed.

However, this is not a moment for complacency. Trump’s strategy has always been to ignore legal constraints, dare the system to stop him, and, when challenged, declare his opposition “the deep state.” Orbán did the same—using “anti-elite” rhetoric to justify his assault on democracy. The real test now will be whether Congress, the courts, and the American people can resist Trump’s erosion of democratic norms before it’s too late.

The Musk Factor: Private Power Meets Public Control

Another chilling parallel in Beauchamp’s article is the role of oligarchic influence in an autocratic takeover. In Hungary, Orbán’s longtime ally, Lajos Simicska, operated as a shadow figure, overseeing government spending and using public funds to consolidate wealth and media control under Fidesz. In Trump’s America, we see a strikingly similar dynamic with Elon Musk.

Musk, whose financial empire now extends deep into government contracts and digital communications infrastructure, has positioned himself as an unelected but powerful enforcer of Trump’s agenda. From reshaping how federal payments are processed to influencing social media narratives, Musk’s unchecked power mirrors Simicska’s role in Hungary’s democratic collapse. When one billionaire can dictate policy without holding public office, democracy is already on life support.

The Courts: The Final Battleground

If there’s one thing Hungary teaches us, it’s that the judiciary is the last line of defense against authoritarianism. Orbán knew this, which is why his first priority was neutralizing Hungary’s courts. Trump, despite facing legal challenges, has so far been unable to fully subjugate the judiciary. However, his relentless attacks on judicial independence—calling judges “corrupt,” ignoring court rulings, and stacking the federal bench with loyalists—are straight from Orbán’s playbook.

The Supreme Court, with its conservative majority, will play a pivotal role in determining how far Trump can go. The question is whether they will act as a true check on executive power or simply enable his steady march toward authoritarianism.

The Fight is Now

As Beauchamp warns, democracy does not die in a single moment; it erodes over time through a series of seemingly small but ultimately devastating power grabs. Right now, Trump is testing the limits of what he can get away with. Every norm that goes unchallenged, every attack on oversight that is ignored, brings us closer to the kind of permanent one-party rule that has taken hold in Hungary.

Hungarians now look back and realize their biggest mistake was inaction. Americans still have a choice—but not for long. If democracy is going to survive, the resistance must begin today.

#politics #news #democracy #donald trump #trump #fuck trump

23 notes · View notes

bambamramfan · 4 months ago

Text

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.

31 notes · View notes

collapsedsquid · 8 months ago

Text

I’ve been toying with a different theory of the president’s woes, one that makes better sense of his peculiar demographic weaknesses: Voters with low levels of trust in society and the political system are shifting rightward. Donald Trump redefined the GOP in the eyes of many, associating the party with a paranoid vision of American life and a populist contempt for the nation’s political system. In response, Democrats rallied to the defense of America’s greatness, norms, and institutions. As the parties polarized on the question of whether America was “already great,” voters with high levels of social trust and confidence in the political system became more Democratic, while those with low social trust and little faith in the government became more Republican. This miniature realignment was apparent in 2016 and 2020, according to some analysts. And there is some reason to think that it may have accelerated over the past four years. If it did, then Biden’s peculiar difficulties with young, nonwhite, and/or low-propensity voters would make more sense, as those demographic groups evince unusually little trust in their government or fellow Americans.

48 notes · View notes

darkmaga-returns · 2 months ago

Text

Longtime Democrat activist and ABC News host George Stephanopoulos gave Republicans two wins this weekend. The first was settling with Donald Trump for $15 million, plus $1 million in lawyer’s fees, for lying about the president elect. Stephanopoulos had falsely characterized the result of one part of the Democrat Party’s lawfare strategy to bankrupt and imprison Trump and otherwise prevent his election.

The second gift to Republicans was the inadvertent showcasing on Stephanopoulos’ Sunday show of how the GOP can effectively maneuver against the media complex and weak Republicans who carry water for the permanent D.C. bureaucracy.

Stephanopoulos asked a panel of D.C. insiders if Pete Hegseth, who attended the Army-Navy football game this weekend with Trump, had “turned the tide” in his pursuit of confirmation as the secretary of defense. Hegseth, a decorated veteran and former Fox News host, had been the target of a media campaign to force him out as the nominee.

Republican strategist Reince Priebus said Hegseth had turned the tide because “[y]ou’re seeing Trump double down” on his nomination by reiterating his desire to see him confirmed and publicly showing his expectation that he would be confirmed. He also highlighted how corporations were coming out of the woodwork to support the inauguration, something that was unthinkable eight years ago, as the battle over Hegseth was heating up.

“I think Trump is as tough as ever right now. I mean he’s on the world stage. People are coming to him. I just think this thing is on — it’s on a big-time cruise control, you know, 85 miles an hour down the middle of the interstate,” Priebus said.

16 notes · View notes

tomorrowusa · 1 year ago

Text

MAGA extremists often rant about the so-called "deep state" which apparently means national defense, security, public safety, and regulatory bodies. The wannabe dictators prefer not to have checks and balances which can prevent them from going full-blown fascist. It's easier to get away with shit when you don't have to worry about accountability.

It's useful to see how such an attitude has already played out in another country.

Israel has been weakened by its own rightwingers who have eroded its security agencies with politics. Prime Minister Binyamin "Bibi" Netanyahu is the Israeli version of the so-called "Smart Trump" who many Republicans dream about. His rightwing governments have been running Israel for most of this century.

Bibi himself is still technically on trial on corruption charges. This year he and his coalition partners have attempted to strip the Israeli Supreme Court of many of its powers. And those partners, even more extremist than he is, had been dismissing security warnings from defense and intelligence agencies; of course those warnings abruptly turned out to be credible.

What’s happening in Israel now is a disturbing example of what can happen when elected officials use partisan and personal motivations to warp national security. For years, Republicans in Congress have attempted to sabotage what they call the “Deep State.” This includes placing holds on political nominees and castigating diplomats, officers and analysts employed in the government as captives to “Big Woke.” They might see it as political theater, necessary to boosting profiles and fundraising. But as this week shows, there can be a price. Reporting suggests that the hardline elements of Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition were openly hostile to warnings from the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and security agency Shin Bet that settler violence would increase the security threat to Israel. One Likud member of parliament complained: “The ideology of the left has reached the top echelons of the Shin Bet. The deep state has infiltrated the leadership of the Shin Bet and the IDF.” Another Netanyahu coalition member stated, “We see there is confusion as to who is an enemy.”

Attacking Israel's armed forces (the IDF) and its version of the FBI (Shin Bet) for political reasons has not done a lot for public safety there. It's like being mean to your watch dog for barking a warning.

Hamas’ surprise attack has highlighted further national security dysfunction within the Netanyahu government. There are confirmed reports that Egyptian intelligence directly warned Netanyahu that “something fierce will happen from Gaza.” Allegedly, Netanyahu was indifferent to the warning, explaining that the IDF was “swamped” with terrorism threats in the West Bank. Israeli critics have stated that his coalition repeatedly ignored earlier warnings from Arab allies regarding rising levels of Palestinian frustration. Haaretz editorialized this week that, “a prime minister indicted in three corruption cases cannot look after state affairs, as national interests will necessarily be subordinate to extricating him from a possible conviction and jail time.”

Netanyahu's ignoring of the warnings about a potential Hamas attack reminds me of the infamous 06 August 2001 intelligence brief George W. Bush ignored with the title Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US.

Here’s my question: Is Israel a harbinger for the United States? Are we getting a sneak preview of what will happen if Republicans succeed in their effort to exercise more control over the national security bureaucracy?

I think we all know the answer to that. Americans should worry.

The problem comes when elected officials and political appointees decide that in order to achieve their desired ends, they need to reduce entire national security institutions to rubble. And let’s be very clear: In 2023, all of the U.S. partisans engaging in such behavior are Republicans. Former president and likely future presidential nominee Donald Trump has set the tone here. The number of instances that the former president sabotaged U.S. national security while in office and afterwards is too long to recount in detail. There’s the blabbing of secrets to Russian officials in the Oval Office, the tweeting of classified photos, the refusal to return national security secrets once he left office, and the fact that he shared extremely sensitive information about the capabilities of U.S. nuclear submarines to Mar-a-Lago members, who in turn blabbed it to everyone. His behavior was so egregious that multiple former cabinet members — most recently John Kelly, Trump’s former White House chief of staff — have gone on the record to discuss the danger he poses. Back in June his attorney general, William Barr, warned on Face the Nation, “He will always put his own interests, and gratifying his own ego, ahead of everything else, including the country’s interests.”

It's not just Trump but also his sycophants and the wannabe Trumps.

Trump is the loudest but hardly the only Republican willing to sabotage the U.S. national security architecture. Other GOP presidential contenders have expressed an equally strident desire. Vivek Ramaswamy promised to “use executive authority to shut down the deep state.” His plans included firing 75 percent of the federal workforce and dismantling the FBI and Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has been even more violent in his rhetoric, promising one New Hampshire crowd that “all these deep state people … we’re going to start slitting throats on day one.”

Elon Musk fired 75% (or more) of Twitter staff the way that Vivek Ramaswamy wants to fire 75% of the federal government. We know how that's going.

Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville is currently using arcane Senate rules to damage the US armed forces.

The most obvious manifestation of this is Sen. Tommy Tuberville holding more than three hundred military promotions hostage unless the Pentagon stops funding travel for service women to receive abortions. This includes two selections for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as Middle East theater commanders for naval and ground forces. [ ... ] Marco Rubio has placed holds on multiple Biden nominees, as has Ted Cruz. The result is that, at present, the United States does not have confirmed ambassadors in Israel, Egypt, Lebanon and Kuwait. There has been no confirmed USAID official for the Middle East for close to three years, nor has there been a confirmed State Department Coordinator for Counterterrorism for nearly two years.

Raise your hand if you think it's kinda important to have a State Department Coordinator for Counterterrorism. 🙋🏽

Republicans would like to do to US national security what the far right Netanyahu government has done to Israel's.

10 notes · View notes

eugenedebs1920 · 3 months ago

Text

The situation we find ourselves in is on account of 2 things! Democrats kind hearted, trusting nature, and Republicans lust for relevancy, power and their spinelessness.

Trump should be either, in prison/Guantanamo bay, or on trial heading towards one of those locations.

The corruption is infuriating! I’m no law scholar or a constitutional lawyer, just some dumb plumber, but the fourteenth amendment section 3 CLEARLY states:

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President or Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military under the United States or under any State, who having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature,or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemy thereof.

It’s not hard to comprehend what they were articulating. It’s not hard to understand their meaning in some textualism nonsense! Simple! If you, as an American holding federal office, rebelled against or staged a coup, albeit failed or otherwise, violated the oath you took, to protect and defend, the Constitution of the United States, you are disqualified from holding any federal position again! Simple!

To say this Supreme Court isn’t partisan. To say they aren’t corrupt, can only be attested to being deaf blind and dumb, or pure partisan hackery! Shame on them! Shame on Mitch McConnell, and frankly shame on garbage MAGA! It is clear the simple minded loyalty far outweighs the Constitution to them. It is easy to see the sycophancy holds more reverence to them than their nation. The lack of foresightedness to the consequences of their allegiance to one man, one party, one view of the United States has potential to result in its downfall. For when the structures of government are burdened to the ground, in their ashes lie the remnants of democracy, with our republic wafting away like smoke from the rubble.

What will be built upon the heap of a once free and prosperous nation, will be the unqualified craftsmanship of the terrorist responsible for its demise. Raised on the flimsy ground of oligarchs and plutocrats, a foundation reinforce with the same seditionists who oversaw the demolition. With its structure made, not for the people, but for those who seek its exploitation. A decor of fascism and oppression hanging on the walls of tyranny, portraits resembling an illusion of what once was. Above head the autocratic shingles drip the rewards to its inhabitants poured down from the servitude of the constituency. This flimsy construct of a building erected for the benefit of the few, by the many, will find its supports fail time and time again, only worsening the conditions upon those whose labor constructed it.

The whole purpose of the tripartite system, the whole reasoning behind checks and balances, the entire point of the three branches of government was to prevent consolidation of power, not to enhance it! With a minority rule this has been achieved.

In their gullibility Democrats, liberals stood by assuming the structures of our Constitution would hold. Actively watching this demolition take place. Hardly putting forth a struggle against it. Their morality prohibiting the defense of democracy in some self righteous weakness against tactics of corruption not on the same grounds of that in which this code of conduct would give good grace. When one comes to dismantle the very structure of your republic you do not stand as a nail but as an iron beam. Not all can be trusted, not all have a standard of ethical conduct upon which they stand. You cannot win a boxing match when your opponent shows up with a machete.

It is the trust from the left that allowed these attacks on our Constitution to occur as much as it was demonsterous betrayal of it from the right.

19 notes · View notes

fruitycutie · 5 months ago

Text

Debate thoughts and quickie analysis!

The main reason Democrat and Republican debates have been historically frustrating is because it's always: Step 1: Republican makes outlandish, false claim about democrats or immigrants or what have you! Step 2: The Democrat responds with, "well no, actually, um" and doesn't actually face or address how INSANE Republican statements are in the first place. Step 3: The Republican, having already won, sneers the whole time and controls the conversation. This has been the case for 90% of recent american history. I am glad to see that that is NOT the case anymore. Kamala is actually doing really good, AND the moderators were on point, too. Like, for example, actually asking critical questions to both, and providing fact checks when Trump says that immigrants are EATING YOUR PETS, Substantiating that they already talked to the mayor of Springfield, Ohio and that there is absolutely no evidence found of something that- lets face it- is just one person's brain worms. It spread from one person's probably ill mind, and became a MAJOR REPUBLICAN POINT! It's that easy. And now it's completely gone because of course it is, its a total fabrication and in 2024 those don't fly anymore because we don't live in ignorance of Trump's strategies anymore. This whole thing just shows how desperate, vile and awful they are, that this is ALL they have after all. Honestly though, just seeing the people making bullshit up on the defensive is great! So I enjoyed the debate a lot. That being said, I want to talk about the fact that I was also pleasantly surprised. I expected it to be more 50/50, truth be told. I do think Kamala, like any other Dem, has a little bit of liberal syndrome - which is pretty standard for Democrats, it's just their bread and butter weakness, but she's definitely the best in that regard - which is why she's actually doing well! What do I mean by that? Well, it's simple. Democrats make this mistake of thinking that they're as equally left as Republicans are right - which is only a little bit, in this theory - and we can unite as a people, if we just try. Meanwhile, the reality of the situation is that the Democrats live in the real world, where people matter and policies affect them, while to be completely honest, Republicans live in the AI power fantasy where the Shadow Qabbal Border Tzar Trans Alien Prison Immigrants from Mexico are killing every aspect of the american dream you love and schools are where your Children transition by Force, you can trademark half of those buzzwords if you want. And you damn well know that if it were convenient for them, they'd include Jews in that, too. The point is, that is fundamentally not something you can compromise with. Because to compromise with something, it has to like, already exist in REALITY, right? And their ideas just don't. To summarize I guess, the main mistake Dems make is that they believe they'll get more of the Republican voter base if they move right slightly. BUT THAT NEVER WORKS!!! Because, the people voting for trump are ALL cultists, who are stuck up their own ass about emotional messaging and DO NOT care for empiricism, DO NOT care for results or outcomes, all they care about is being right that trump is their american savior. After all, as soon as Trump lost in 2020- a verifiable fact with NO room for empirical debate without changing the meaning of the word "lose", a shitstorm of false accusations about the election being stolen happened, the Capitol riot happened, not to mention even that Trump keeps promising that if he gets elected, nobody will have to vote again. Like - come on, it's so transparently fascism, to the point where even the most irrationally opposed to the term have to see it. You cannot reason or compromise with people like that, it's just not possible. Kamala has been better about this than all democrats up to her, easily, but she's still not perfect. And I hope this is completely understood by democrats going forward, if the Republican enstablishment doesn't change it's ways.

#presidential debate #2024 debate

21 notes · View notes

justinspoliticalcorner · 3 months ago

Text

Dean Obeidallah at The Dean's Report:

Matt Gaetz and Pete Hegseth are the worst version of men. But then again so is adjudicated rapist Donald Trump—which explains why he picked these two despicable, unqualified white men to be his Attorney General and Secretary of Defense. The red flags about Gaetz and Hegseth ranging from sexual misconduct to bigotry would deem them unfit to serve in any presidential administration--any administration except Trump’s that is. The reason being all Trump cares about is abject loyalty and both clearly have sworn allegiance to Trump--much in the same way Hitler required the members of the military swear allegiance to him above Germany.

But the history of these two men and the agencies they are nominated to head could not be more of a dangerous fit for our nation. Let’s start with Matt Gaetz. One of the most jarring descriptions of him I heard was from Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wisc)--who has worked with Gaetz for years in Congress. I interviewed Pocan on Thursday who stated point blank that Gaetz is a “sociopath.” Pocan wasn’t joking. As the Wisconsin Democrat stated, “I never have met, and I probably shouldn't say this because he'll be attorney general someday, and I'm going to wind up in jail. But you know, a bigger sociopath I've never served with in office.” When I asked Pocan if Gaetz was “dangerous,” he replied, “Oh, very much.” He added, “I hope that part of the investigation is putting holes in his backyard to see if there's any bodies, because it's only that kind of level of sociopathic that I sense out of him.” (You can watch my full interview with Rep Pocan below.)

[...]

Then there is Trump’s pick for Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth—who has also been accused of sexual misconduct. And as we just learned Saturday The from Washington Post, Hegseth paid “hush money” to the woman to silence her. It’s alleged that in Oct. 2017, Hegseth—whose second wife a month earlier had filed for divorce after she learned he had an affair and fathered a child with a Fox News producer—attended the California Federation of Republican Women conference.

The accuser per the Washington Post was assigned by the organization to ensure Hegseth made it back to his room and get to the airport on time for his flight. The women—who was married with children—alleges that when she escorted Hegseth back to his room, Hegseth raped her. Hegseth denies the allegation—claiming not only was the sex was consensual but that the mother of small children was actually the “aggressor in the encounter.” The next day the woman went to the emergency room, where “she received a rape-kit examination that was positive for semen.” The woman then “filed a complaint with the police alleging she was sexually assaulted days after the Oct. 7, 2017, encounter in Monterey, California,” but the local district attorney did not bring charges. How can Hegseth be Secretary of Defense given the sexual assault scandals that have plagued our military in the past?! And just last year, the Pentagon released data showing a significant increase in reports of sexual assault at America's military academies. Can any woman in the military have confidence they will be believed with a person like Hegseth heading the agency?! Yet this is who Trump wants to head the nearly three million strong military. Beyond the sexual assault allegations, Hegseth doesn’t believe women should serve in combat and views “diversity” in the military as a weakness.

What a bunch of shitstains these toxic men are.

From the 11.15.2024 edition of SiriusXM Progress's The Dean Obeidallah Show:

youtube

#Trump Administration II #Matt Gaetz #Pete Hegseth #Donald Trump #Sexism #Male Entitlement #Dean Obeidallah #The Dean's Report #Substack #Mark Pocan #The Dean Obeidallah Show #SiriusXM Progress

14 notes · View notes

mariacallous · 6 months ago

Text

Congress is moving closer to putting US election technology under a stricter cybersecurity microscope.

Embedded inside this year’s Intelligence Authorization Act, which funds intelligence agencies like the CIA, is the Strengthening Election Cybersecurity to Uphold Respect for Elections through Independent Testing (SECURE IT) Act, which would require penetration testing of federally certified voting machines and ballot scanners, and create a pilot program exploring the feasibility of letting independent researchers probe all manner of election systems for flaws.

The SECURE IT Act—originally introduced by US senators Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, and Susan Collins, a Maine Republican—could significantly improve the security of key election technology in an era when foreign adversaries remain intent on undermining US democracy.

“This legislation will empower our researchers to think the way our adversaries do, and expose hidden vulnerabilities by attempting to penetrate our systems with the same tools and methods used by bad actors,” says Warner, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee.

The new push for these programs highlights the fact that even as election security concerns have shifted to more visceral dangers such as death threats against county clerks, polling-place violence, and AI-fueled disinformation, lawmakers remain worried about the possibility of hackers infiltrating voting systems, which are considered critical infrastructure but are lightly regulated compared to other vital industries.

Russia’s interference in the 2016 election shined a spotlight on threats to voting machines, and despite major improvements, even modern machines can be flawed. Experts have consistently pushed for tighter federal standards and more independent security audits. The new bill attempts to address those concerns in two ways.

The first provision would codify the US Election Assistance Commission’s recent addition of penetration testing to its certification process. (The EAC recently overhauled its certification standards, which cover voting machines and ballot scanners and which many states require their vendors to meet.)

While previous testing simply verified whether machines contained particular defensive measures—such as antivirus software and data encryption—penetration testing will simulate real-world attacks meant to find and exploit the machines’ weaknesses, potentially yielding new information about serious software flaws.

“People have been calling for mandatory [penetration] testing for years for election equipment,” says Edgardo Cortés, a former Virginia elections commissioner and an adviser to the election security team at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice.

The bill’s second provision would require the EAC to experiment with a vulnerability disclosure program for election technology—including systems that are not subject to federal testing, such as voter registration databases and election results websites.

Vulnerability disclosure programs are essentially treasure hunts for civic-minded cyber experts. Vetted participants, operating under clear rules about which of the organizer’s computer systems are fair game, attempt to hack those systems by finding flaws in how they are designed or configured. They then report any flaws they discover to the organizer, sometimes for a reward.

By allowing a diverse group of experts to hunt for bugs in a wide range of election systems, the Warner–Collins bill could dramatically expand scrutiny of the machinery of US democracy.

The pilot program would be a high-profile test of the relationship between election vendors and researchers, who have spent decades clashing over how to examine and disclose flaws in voting systems. The bill attempts to assuage vendors’ concerns by requiring the EAC to vet prospective testers and by prohibiting testers from publicly disclosing any vulnerabilities they find for 180 days. (They would also have to immediately report vulnerabilities to the EAC and the Department of Homeland Security.)

Still, one provision could spark concern. The bill would require manufacturers to patch or otherwise mitigate serious reported vulnerabilities within 180 days of confirming them. The EAC—which must review all changes to certified voting software—would have 90 days to approve fixes; any fix not approved within that timetable would be “deemed to be certified,” though the commission could review it later.

A vendor might not be able to fix a problem, get that fix approved, and get all of its customers to deploy that fix before the nondisclosure period expires.

“Updates to equipment in the field can take many weeks, and modifying equipment close to an election date is a risky operation,” says Ben Adida, the executive director of the vendor VotingWorks.

Some vendors might also chafe at the bill’s legal protections for researchers. The legislation includes a “safe harbor” clause that exempts testing activities from the prohibitions of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and bars vendors from suing researchers under those laws for accidental violations of the program’s terms.

There is also a funding question. The SECURE IT Act doesn’t authorize any new money for the EAC to run these programs.

“I hope Congress accounts for the necessary funding needed to support the increased responsibilities the EAC will take on,” says EAC chair Ben Hovland. “Investments in programs like this are critical to maintaining and strengthening the security of our elections.”

Meanwhile, the bill’s prospects are unclear. Even if it passes the Senate, there is no sign of similar momentum in the House.

23 notes · View notes