#trump vowed to end democracy

[scottguy]

Trump is a master of innuendo. "Have it fixed." = "We will install election officials who will cheat and lie and say Republicans won no matter the actual vote count."

Trump is admitting he WILL end democracy.

Remember, once a country loses democracy to a tyrant, they can't just vote the tyrant out of office. Worse, the tyrant can do ANYTHING they want, shoot at protestors, lock up liberals who complain, put anyone in jail for anything, and start any war they want.

Democracy = freedom.

It will be easy to PREVENT tyranny simply by bothering to vote for Kamala Harris.

But, if just voting is too much trouble, and Republicans win, then it will take nothing less than a full scale civil war or world War in which Republicans have full might of the biggest military in the entire world.

Hundreds of millions will die and major cities will be destroyed and those fighting for our rights back still might lose.

Please consider this if you start thinking your vote doesn't matter. When a few million people EACH think that... it really matters.

Imagine if Democrats and Republicans are in equal amounts on the left side of the cartoon below.

Do you see all the potential power from nonvoters to force politicians to help average Americans there?

If politicians don't pass laws that help us, we can vote them out!

You vote "doesn't matter" ONLY when you don't use it.

If voting didn't matter, the right wouldn't have been working SO hard to make it difficult for people to vote. They literally fear the power of liberal voters because they know that there are MORE of us.

[geezerwench]

The Harris campaign is characterizing Trump's comment that if Christians vote this one time they won't have to do it anymore as a "vow to end democracy."

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

January 16, 2025

Heather Cox Richardson

Jan 17, 2025

In his final address to the nation last night, President Joe Biden issued a warning that “an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power, and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms, and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead.”

It is not exactly news that there is dramatic economic inequality in the United States. Economists call the period from 1933 to 1981 the “Great Compression,” for it marked a time when business regulation, progressive taxation, strong unions, and a basic social safety net compressed both wealth and income levels in the United States. Every income group in the U.S. improved its economic standing.

That period ended in 1981, when the U.S. entered a period economists have dubbed the “Great Divergence.” Between 1981 and 2021, deregulation, tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, the offshoring of manufacturing, and the weakening of unions moved $50 trillion from the bottom 90% of Americans to the top 1%.

Biden tried to address this growing inequality by bringing back manufacturing, fostering competition, increasing oversight of business, and shoring up the safety net by getting Congress to pass a law—the Inflation Reduction Act—that enabled Medicare to negotiate drug prices for seniors with the pharmaceutical industry, capping insulin at $35 for seniors, for example. His policies worked, primarily by creating full employment which enabled those at the bottom of the economy to move to higher-paying jobs. During Biden’s term, the gap between the 90th income percentile and the 10th income percentile fell by 25%.

But Donald Trump convinced voters hurt by the inflation that stalked the country after the coronavirus pandemic shutdown that he would bring prices down and protect ordinary Americans from the Democratic “elite” that he said didn’t care about them. Then, as soon as he was elected, he turned for advice and support to one of the richest men in the world, Elon Musk, who had invested more than $250 million in Trump’s campaign.

Musk’s investment has paid off: Faiz Siddiqui and Trisha Thadani of the Washington Post reported that he made more than $170 billion in the weeks between the election and December 15.

Musk promptly became the face of the incoming administration, appearing everywhere with Trump, who put him and pharmaceutical entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy in charge of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, where Musk vowed to cut $2 trillion out of the U.S. budget even if it inflicted “hardship” on the American people.

News broke earlier this week that Musk, who holds government contracts worth billions of dollars, is expected to have an office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building adjacent to the White House. And the world’s two other richest men will be with Musk on the dais at Trump’s inauguration. Musk, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and Meta chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg, who together are worth almost a trillion dollars, will be joined by other tech moguls, including the CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman; the CEO of the social media platform TikTok, Shou Zi Chew; and the CEO of Google, Sundar Pichai.

At his confirmation hearing before the Senate Committee on Finance today, Trump’s nominee for Treasury Secretary, billionaire Scott Bessent, said that extending the 2017 Trump tax cuts was "the single most important economic issue of the day." But he said he did not support raising the federal minimum wage, which has been $7.25 since 2009 although 30 states and dozens of cities have raised the minimum wage in their jurisdictions.

There have been signs lately that the American people are unhappy about the increasing inequality in the U.S. On December 4, 2024, a young man shot the chief executive officer of the health insurance company UnitedHealthcare, which has been sued for turning its claims department over to an artificial intelligence program with an error rate of 90% and which a Federal Trade Commission report earlier this week found overcharged cancer patients by more than 1,000% for life-saving drugs. Americans championed the alleged killer.

It is a truism in American history that those interested in garnering wealth and power use culture wars to obscure class struggles. But in key moments, Americans recognized that the rise of a small group of people—usually men—who were commandeering the United States government was a perversion of democracy.

In the 1850s, the expansion of the past two decades into the new lands of the Southeast had permitted the rise of a group of spectacularly wealthy men. Abraham Lincoln helped to organize westerners against a government takeover by elite southern enslavers who argued that society advanced most efficiently when the capital produced by workers flowed to the top of society, where a few men would use it to develop the country for everyone. Lincoln warned that “crowned-kings, money-kings, and land-kings” would crush independent men, and he created a government that worked for ordinary men, a government “of the people, by the people, for the people.”

A generation later, when industrialization disrupted the country as westward expansion had before, the so-called robber barons bent the government to their own purposes. Men like steel baron Andrew Carnegie explained that “[t]he best interests of the race are promoted” by an industrial system, “which inevitably gives wealth to the few.” But President Grover Cleveland warned: “The gulf between employers and the employed is constantly widening, and classes are rapidly forming, one comprising the very rich and powerful, while in another are found the toiling poor…. Corporations, which should be the carefully restrained creatures of the law and the servants of the people, are fast becoming the people's masters.”

Republican president Theodore Roosevelt tried to soften the hard edges of industrialization by urging robber barons to moderate their behavior. When they ignored him, he turned finally to calling out the “malefactors of great wealth,” noting that “there is no individual and no corporation so powerful that he or it stands above the possibility of punishment under the law. Our aim is to try to do something effective; our purpose is to stamp out the evil; we shall seek to find the most effective device for this purpose; and we shall then use it, whether the device can be found in existing law or must be supplied by legislation. Moreover, when we thus take action against the wealth which works iniquity, we are acting in the interest of every man of property who acts decently and fairly by his fellows.”

Theodore Roosevelt helped to launch the Progressive Era.

But that moment passed, and in the 1930s, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, too, contended with wealthy men determined to retain control over the federal government. Running for reelection in 1936, he told a crowd at Madison Square Garden: “For nearly four years you have had an Administration which instead of twirling its thumbs has rolled up its sleeves…. We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace—business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering. They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.”

“Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today,” he said. “They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred.”

Last night, after President Biden’s warning, Google searches for the meaning of the word “oligarchy” spiked.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Dean Obeidallah at The Dean's Report:

“Do not obey in advance. Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. Individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want and then offer themselves without being asked.” Those words written by Yale Professor Timothy Snyder in his book, “On Tyranny” came to mind twice recently. The first was last week when MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski headed to Mar-a-Lago to capitulate to Donald Trump. And then again on Monday, when we learned that Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice was surrendering to Trump by voluntarily dismissing criminal charges against Trump in both the attempted coup and Espionage cases. These two incidents actually share a great deal in common. Both involve visible people with power who are fully aware of the danger Trump poses to our Republic and who Trump has vowed retribution against. And both surrendered soon after Trump won, thus, emboldening the aspiring autocrat. In defense of Jack Smith, he did move swiftly after being appointed Special Counsel in November 2022. The failure has always been and continues to be Merrick Garland, a person I have been vocally criticizing since late 2021 for his failure to timely prosecute Trump--even causing Democratic legal pundits to attack me in 2022 for not understanding how the DOJ works.

True, while I am a lawyer, I never worked in DOJ. But I’m a student of history and understood where this could go if Garland did not move swiftly. That is why in Jan 2022--on the first anniversary of Jan. 6--I wrote an op-ed for MSNBC pressing Garland to charge Trump that concluded with the line that if Garland didn’t move swiftly to hold Trump accountable: “I believe historians will count it among the key mistakes that ultimately led to the end of the United States as a democratic republic.” To be clear, Special Counsel Smith’s dismissal was demanded by Garland’s DOJ as he noted in his six-page filing on Monday.  Smith wrote that, “It has long been the position of the Department of Justice that the United States Constitution forbids the federal indictment and subsequent criminal prosecution of a sitting President.” The basis for that DOJ view is NOT a specific line in the US Constitution nor a US Supreme Court decision. Rather it was two memos drafted by the DOJ’s Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC)—one in 1973 when there were questions about charging then President Richard Nixon in connection with Watergate and the second in 2000 when President Bill Clinton was embroiled in the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

But as Smith notes in his filing, neither addressed the facts before us of: 1. A former president charged as a private citizen for committing crimes--as in Trump’s Espionage and obstruction case; and, 2. A former President charged after leaving office for crimes committed in office--as we have with Trump’s Jan. 6 attempted coup case. Smith—who has independence as a Special Counsel—is still required by way of DOJ regulations to “comply with the rules, regulations, procedures, practices and policies of the Department of Justice.” Thus, Smith ask Garland’s DOJ for guidance. And as you would imagine, Garland’s DOJ-- that has failed to charge even one GOP official for their role in helping Trump overturn the 2020 election--told Smith to stand down.   Smith wrote that Garland’s OLC “concluded that its 2000 Opinion’s ‘categorical’ prohibition on the federal indictment of a sitting President—even if the case were held in abeyance—applies to this situation, where a federal indictment was returned before the defendant takes office.”  In sum, as Smith noted, “Accordingly, the Department’s position is that the Constitution requires that this case be dismissed before the defendant is inaugurated.”

Smith has done all he can to warn us of the threat Trump poses. When the Jan. 6 indictment versus Trump was first unsealed in Aug. 2023, Smith publicly declared, “The attack on our nation’s capital on January 6, 2021, was an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy. As described in the indictment, it was fueled by lies.”  The Special Counsel then took direct aim at Trump, “Lies by the defendant [Trump] targeted at obstructing a bedrock function of the U.S. government, the nation’s process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election.” And earlier this year in connection with the U.S. Supreme Court case where Trump argued he should be immune from prosecution for any crimes he committed in office, Smith again rang alarm bells about what Trump was seeking. The Special Counsel wrote in a passage prescient for where we are today: “The defendant’s claim that he cannot be held to answer for the charges that he engaged in an unprecedented effort to retain power through criminal means…threatens the democratic and constitutional foundation of our Republic.”

[...] Again, Garland and Scarborough have chosen to surrender to Trump—just as we can expect others will going forward. We must not. As Prof. Snyder tells us: “Do not obey in advance.”  Instead, we must take the fight to Trump. That is the way we protect our freedoms, our self-determination and our Republic.

Picking Merrick Garland to lead the DOJ was the biggest mistake President Biden ever made, and he helped Donald Trump escape his legal issues.

[perkwunos]

Throughout the campaign, Trump has proven himself obsessed with two ideas: exerting personal control over the federal government, and exacting “retribution” against Democrats who challenged him and the prosecutors who indicted him. His team has, obligingly, provided detailed plans for doing both of these things.

This process begins with something called Schedule F, an executive order Trump issued at the end of his first term but never got to implement. Schedule F reclassifies a large chunk of the professional civil service — likely upward of 50,000 people — as political appointees. Trump could fire these nonpartisan officials and replace them with cronies: people who would follow his orders, no matter how dubious. Trump has vowed to revive Schedule F “immediately” upon returning to office, and there is no reason to doubt him.

Between a newly compliant bureaucracy and leadership ranks purged of first-term dissenting voices like former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, Trump will face little resistance as he attempts to implement policies that threaten core democratic freedoms.

And Trump and his team have already proposed many of them. Notable examples include investigating leading Democrats on questionable charges, prosecuting local election administrators, using regulatory authority for retribution against corporations that cross him, and either shuttering public broadcasters or turning them into propaganda mouthpieces. Trump and his allies have claimed unilateral executive authority to take all of these actions. (It remains unclear which party will control the House, but Republicans will be in charge of the Senate for at least the next two years.)

Ultimately, all this executive activity is aimed at turning the United States into a larger version of Hungary — a country whose leadership and policies are regularly praised by Trump, Vice President-elect JD Vance, and Project 2025 leader Kevin Roberts.

...

While the form of subtle authoritarianism pioneered in Hungary was novel in 2010, it’s well understood today. Orbán managed to come across as a “normal” democratic leader until it was too late to undo what he had done; Trump is taking office with roughly half the voting public primed to see him as a threat to democracy and resist as such. He can expect major opposition to his most authoritarian plans not only from the elected opposition, but from the federal bureaucracy, lower levels of government, civil society, and the people themselves.

This is the case against despair.

As grim as things seem now, little in politics is a given — especially not the outcome of a struggle as titanic as the one about to unfold in the United States. While Trump has four years to attack democracy, using a playbook he and his team have been developing since the moment he left office, defenders of democracy have also had time to prepare and develop countermeasures. Now is the time to begin deploying them.

Trump has won the presidency, which gives him a tremendous amount of power to make his antidemocratic dreams into power. But it is not unlimited power, and there are robust means of resistance. The fate of the American republic will depend on how willing Americans are to take up the fight.

[mariacallous]

Democrats are charging out of their national convention with enthusiasm and determination ― and in far better shape than seemed possible just a few weeks ago, when then-presumptive nominee President Joe Biden was headed for likely defeat.

Vice President Kamala Harris has wiped out Biden’s deficit in the polls, and now holds small but discernible leads over Donald Trump in both national and swing state surveys. She’s also expanded the electoral map, putting in play states such as North Carolina that seemed lost to Democrats when Biden was leading the ticket. As of this writing, Nate Silver’s predictive model suggests Harris is a 52.8% favorite to win.

It will take a few days for pollsters to figure out whether Harris got the traditional convention bounce, pushing her support even higher, or whether she got a version of it beforehand via the burst of activity and favorable press coverage around her campaign launch.

Either way, it’s hard to look back on the week in Chicago and deem it anything but a smashing political success, from the (still reverberating) call to arms by former first lady Michelle Obama to the (still circulating) sight of Gus Walz, son of vice presidential nominee Minnesota Gov. Tim, tearfully telling the crowd “that’s my dad!”

Harris, for her part, gave what my colleague Jen Bendery’s story called the “speech of her life.” Plenty of other analysts rendered similar judgments.

With a passionate, near-flawless delivery, Harris introduced herself as the daughter of immigrants who valued virtue and hard work, promising to fight for the middle class and vowing to protect democracy. She wrapped herself metaphorically in the flag and what she thinks it represents to the nation’s non-MAGA majority. The laser focus on trying to win over swing voters was impossible to miss, in part because it was such an overriding theme all week ― whether through cultural symbolism (like having the aging veterans of Walz’s championship high school football team appear on stage) or more overt outreach (like having former House Republican Adam Kinzinger give a prime-time address).

But the appeal to the political middle had some telling substantive elements too.

Insofar as Harris and Democrats talked about policy, they focused on causes such as bringing down prescription drug prices, providing paid leave or helping families to pay for child care ― ambitions considerably more modest than the loftier, more progressive “Medicare for All” calls that dominated the last Democratic presidential campaign and to which Harris herself once pledged fealty. Harris also went out of her way to back a bipartisan immigration bill that would tighten security without creating a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants already here, which is a provision progressives have frequently called essential.

The platform evolved, with party leaders scrubbing a call to end the death penalty ― quietly, until my colleague Jessica Schulberg found out about it. They also refused requests to feature a Palestinian speaker on the conflict in Gaza. That part wasn’t so quiet, or unanticipated. In fact, the prospect of protests and disruptions over Biden’s support for Israel had fueled speculation that Chicago 2024 was going to end up as tumultuous as Chicago 1968. But as HuffPost’s Daniel Marans and Jonathan Nicholson observed, the fissures never blew up into 1968-style conflicts ― not over Gaza, or any other issues for that matter. On the contrary, the Democrats seemed improbably and almost impossibly unified, with would-be progressive dissidents like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) sounding downright giddy about the Harris-Walz ticket.

What explains this unified enthusiasm? Three likely reasons come to mind. One in particular has a lot to do with how the party has changed in recent years ― and what it might be able to do if Harris manages to win.

Democrats In Array

One of these likely reasons is the threat Trump poses to individual liberties, the rule of law and democracy — threats progressives feel every bit as keenly as the more moderates in the party. These threats almost certainly seem even more menacing now after so many months watching Biden struggle.

Staring into the political abyss this way has been known to focus the mind.

Another possible factor is Harris’ identity. Electing the first woman president, not to mention the first Black woman and the first Asian woman, would have obvious symbolic value. But it would also have more practical effects — namely, bringing a new perspective to the presidency and making it easier for other women, and other nonwhite politicians, to make their own way to the Oval Office.

Progressives almost by definition care about these things, enough that it can help counterbalance appeal for politicians who see the ticket as less progressive than they might like. Barack Obama in 2008 benefited from just such a dynamic, as The New York Times’ David Leonhardt pointed out on Friday: “He was more moderate than some other Democratic candidates that year, yet he still excited many progressives.”

Harris notably hasn’t talked about herself as groundbreaker, and the campaign hasn’t made that possibility a focus in the way that, say, Hillary Clinton’s did in 2016. But that’s of a piece with Harris’ broader strategy since appeals tied to race or class can alienate some of the swing voters she’s trying to win. The voters who feel otherwise, meanwhile, don’t need reminders.

This brings us to the third, and potentially most important, theory for progressive enthusiasm: Democrats have gotten an awful lot done since Biden took office. An awful lot of it consisted of initiatives or reforms progressives have long championed. And most importantly, it all happened with progressives having a big seat at the table.

The most significant and visible of these accomplishments was the clean green energy investments of the Inflation Reduction Act, which add up (arguably) to the most important climate change legislation in history, plus the law’s health care provisions, which for the first time gave the federal government leverage over the prices of some high-priced drugs in Medicare.

But the list goes beyond that, to the appointment of aggressively pro-consumer and pro-labor officials at key federal agencies, and the burst of spending during the pandemic that (whatever its real or theorized effects on inflation) drove both unemployment and child poverty down to near-record levels.

All of these feel well short of the kinds of transformations progressives would prefer with, say, enactment of “Medicare for All.” But they had, are having or will have tangible, measurable effects on people’s lives — and are examples of the kind of achievements that might be possible if Harris wins and Democrats have control of both congressional houses again.

It so happens that these are also the kinds of achievements that animate up-and-coming party leaders, even if they are not members of the progressive wing — figures like Govs. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, or Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia. Not coincidentally, all gave Harris rousing endorsements in prime- time speeches.

But that too is part of the story about unity: The party’s “moderate” wing today feels pretty strongly about using the federal government to make people’s lives better, just as it does about protecting the freedoms Trump threatens. They may emphasize it differently — focusing more exclusively on the Inflation Reduction Act’s clean energy manufacturing jobs, for example, and a bit less on its environmental impact. They still land in the same place on policy.

Whether these good feelings would carry through enough to enact a legislative agenda is obviously a separate question and one that is very secondary to the question of whether Democrats even get that opportunity.

The presidential race is still a toss-up, or maybe even a bit worse than that for Harris if the polling now is missing Trump votes the way it did in 2016 and again in 2020. Republicans remain by most accounts a slight favorite to hold at least one house of Congress.

But Harris is coming out of Chicago on a roll, with a party behind her as she reaches out to the swing voters she needs to win. That’s a pretty good place to be.

[wyrmfedgrave]

NBC News: Democratic governors vow to protect their states from Trump and his policies

Democratic governors are intent on bolstering the fundamental rights & values of their states - just as they did during tRump's 1st presidency.

Governor Newsome (California) is focusing on civil rights, reproductive freedoms, climate action & on immigrant families.

California's Justice Dept. will soon have additional resources to pursue litigation against unlawful acts by the tRump administration.

"We won't sit idle", Newsome stated, "We've faced this problem before & know how to respond."

Governor Pritzker (Illinois) says he'll fight against "anyone trying to take away our freedoms, dignity & opportunities."

"We are", he continued, "a refuge for human rights being denied elsewhere."

This includes political asylum, reproductive health care & safety from persecution of one's sexual orientation."

Pritzker's already codified abortion rights & has made gender-affirming care covered by local health insurers!

He's now looking into protecting outsiders needing reproductive care - by protecting their medical records...

Even environmental regulations are now being codified - just in case.

And, labor protections are being strictly maintained.

A united effort, with other Midwestern states is on the schedule. They've all survived the Rapist Con Man's last time & learned their lessons well.

Governor Hochul (NYS) has just announced the "Empire State Freedom Initiative", that addresses "policy & regulatory" threats from Republikkkans.

Things like federal attacks on legal, reproductive, immigration, civil, environmental & other issues.

Hochul states that she "wants to make NY a safer, stronger & more livable place."

Her administration has already developed legal, regulatory & appropriate responses to counter any federal actions.

Massachusetts Governor Healy will use "every tool in our 'toolbox' to protect residents, democracy & the rule of law."

As a State Attorney, she actually challenged Prez tRump's immigration laws during his 1st presidency.

She's firmly promises that her State Police won't help carry out tRump's mass deportation scheme.

Finally, NJ Governor Murphy vowed to "fight to the death" on issues pertaining to when immigration & reproductive rights are federally challenged...

Good to know that someone remembers that we're supposed to have inalienable rights.

End.

[misfitwashere]

September 9, 2024 

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

SEP 10

Last night, Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign launched a new section of its website detailing her policy positions. Titling her plans “A New Way Forward,” Harris vows to build the American middle class through an “opportunity economy.” Her vision for the future, she says, “protects our fundamental freedoms, strengthens our democracy, and ensures every person has the opportunity to not just get by, but to get ahead.” 

Harris’s economic plan builds on that of the Biden-Harris administration. This makes sense, since their focus on investing in the middle class has created the strongest economy in the world. Harris is emphasizing the need to bring down household costs of food, medicine, housing, healthcare, and childcare, all issues important to Americans.  

The website provides concrete economic actions she plans to take with a willing Congress. They include expanding the Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit, investing in more housing, and supporting the PRO Act, which protects the rights of workers to unionize, while continuing the crackdown on business consolidation that kills competition and rolling back the Trump tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations.

The biggest economic shift from the current administration is pegging a new capital gains tax for those earning more than a million dollars a year at 28%, significantly lower than the 39.6% President Joe Biden proposed in his 2025 budget. The plans also call for the first-ever national ban on corporate price gouging on food and groceries (37 states already have such laws). 

Aside from strictly economic plans, the policy pages say Harris backs passing the bipartisan immigration bill that Republicans killed on Trump’s orders, protecting reproductive healthcare and restoring Roe v. Wade, and protecting the right to vote and ending partisan gerrymandering through the John Lewis Voting Rights and the Freedom to Vote Acts.

Republicans have charged that Harris has not offered specifics for her policies, but much of what is now clearly laid out is already in the public record. By the standards of American history, it is a strikingly moderate agenda that reflects the belief that the best way for the government to protect opportunity and nurture the economy is to make sure that the system is fair and that ordinary people have access to opportunity.

The “New Way Forward” in Harris’s plan seems to be less a new set of policies than a rejection of the politics of the past several decades. She and her running mate Minnesota governor Tim Walz appear to be attempting to reshape the political landscape to bring Americans of all parties together to stand against Trump’s MAGA Republicans. The campaign has actively reached out to Republicans, several of whom spoke at the Democratic National Convention. On Saturday, Harris said she was “honored” to have the endorsement of former representative Liz Cheney (R-WY) and former vice president Dick Cheney, both staunch Republicans. “People are exhausted about the division and the attempt to divide us as Americans,” she said. “We love our country and we have more in common than what separates us.” 

Trump’s website offers slogans rather than policies, so Harris’s website compares her policies to the comparable sections of Project 2025, the playbook for a second Trump term laid out by a number of right-wing institutions led by the Heritage Foundation. Trump and his campaign have tried to distance themselves from Project 2025, but at his rallies, he has offered the policies in it—like firing nonpartisan civil servants and replacing them with loyalists, and abolishing the Department of Education—as his top priorities. 

While Harris focused on policy, as critics have demanded, MAGA Republicans today spread slurs about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, claiming they are eating other people’s pets and local wildlife. Right-wing media figure Benny Johnson, who was one of the six commenters whose paychecks at now-disbanded Tenet Media were paid by Russia, was one of those pushing the false stories. So was X owner Elon Musk. 

The story was debunked almost immediately by the Springfield police, but Republican politicians ran with it. The X account for Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee ran it; so did Texas senator Ted Cruz, who shared an image with two kittens saying: “PLEASE VOTE FOR TRUMP SO IMMIGRANTS DON’T EAT US.” And the Republican vice presidential nominee, Ohio senator J.D. Vance, posted: “Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn't be in this country.” (The Haitians in Springfield are in the U.S. legally.)

Perhaps most significantly, Republican Senate candidate Bernie Moreno, who is challenging Democratic Ohio senator Sherrod Brown, pushed the story. That Senate seat is crucial to the Republican attempt to take control of the Senate, and Moreno has just launched a $25 million ad campaign against Brown, accusing him of giving undocumented immigrants taxpayer-funded benefits. Today’s disinformation was well timed for that ad campaign. 

The Justice Department today announced  charges against two leaders of the white supremacist Terrorgram Collective, an international terrorist group that operates on the platform Telegram. Dallas Humber of California and Matthew Allison of Idaho have been charged with “soliciting hate crimes, soliciting the murder of federal officials, and conspiring to provide material support to terrorists.” They “solicited murders and hate crimes based on the race, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, and gender identity of others,” U.S. Attorney Phillip Talbert said. They had a hit list of federal, state, and local officials, as well as corporate leaders, and they encouraged attacks on government infrastructure, including energy facilities. Their plan was to create a race war. 

“Hate crimes fueled by bigotry and white supremacy, and amplified by the weaponization of digital messaging platforms, are on the rise and have no place in our society,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said.

Congress is back in session today and must fund the government before October 1 or face a government shutdown. Although Congress negotiated spending levels for 2024 and 2025 back in June 2023, the House has been unable to pass appropriations bills because MAGA extremists either refuse to accept those levels or insist on inserting culture war poison pills into the bills. 

Now, Trump has demanded that a continuing resolution to fund the government must include a measure requiring proof of citizenship to vote. Since it is already illegal for noncitizens to vote in elections for president or members of Congress and there is no evidence it is anything but vanishingly rare, the measure actually seems designed to suppress voting. House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) went along and put the measure in the bill. He also designed for the measure to last until next March, making the budget so late a new president could write it, but also blowing through a January 1 deadline set in the June 2023 bill to require automatic cuts to spending.

House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) wrote to his colleagues: “House Democrats have made it clear that we will find bipartisan common ground on any issue with our Republican colleagues wherever possible, while pushing back against MAGA extremism.” Jeffries called the Republican bill “unserious and unacceptable.”

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told House and Senate leaders that the cuts required by law if Congress pushes the budget into March would drastically affect the military. “The repercussions of Congress failing to pass regular appropriations legislation for the first half of [fiscal] 2025 would be devastating to our readiness and ability to execute the National Defense Strategy,” Austin wrote.

Meanwhile, Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) is back to his old trick of blocking a military promotion, this time of Lieutenant General Ronald Clark, one of Austin’s top aides. Tuberville says he placed the hold because he has concerns that Clark did not alert Biden when Austin had surgery. Biden has nominated Clark to become the Commanding General of the U.S. Army Pacific, a position currently held by General Charles A. Flynn, younger brother of Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, Trump’s first National Security Advisor who resigned after news broke that he had hidden conversations with Russian operatives. 

Today, ten retired senior military officials endorsed Harris, saying she “is the best—and only—presidential candidate in this race who is fit to serve as our commander-in-chief…. Frankly stated, Donald Trump is a danger to our national security and our democracy. His own former National Security Advisors, Defense Secretaries, and Chiefs of Staff have said so.”

—

[lesmotsquinousmanqueny]

Quick stuff to do if you're worried about what lies ahead

Make yourself a protonmail.com address

It's an email service whose whole chick is keeping the privacy of its users intact, and whose servers are located in Switzerland. Alt-right activists use it in my country to stay under the police radar as well as far-left activists. Create one from a public library or cyber café. It can always be useful to have an email address not linked to your phone number or identity immediatly, in the future, especially as a lot of websites demand an email address nowadays.

Download Signal

It is a independent non-profit, end-to-end encryption text app, which has vowed to protect its users privacy. Unlike others apps, it isn't owned by some millionnaire. It can always be useful in the future.

Download and keep on a USB stick books in danger of being banned.

I've already seen people do this and did it myself. You could also put them in a publicly shared Google File in the future for others to access. In any case it's good to have back-ups of those.

If you can, make sure your passport is up to date. Renew it if not.

I'm so serious when I say people died during WW2 from a lack of visas or denied visas. It starts with trying to kick people out and it devolves in trying to keep them in to detain them. If you're someone who is likely to be targeted by Trump in the future, read minorities, legal immigrants, lgbtq+, disabled, if you can, if it is safe, renew your passport. I don't think it is safe to send a X-marker passport to be renewed right now, and it may never be, so don't, if that's your case, unless an actually well-informed and trusted activist tells you it's safe to do.

Those are the "quick" actions (except for the passport one) that comes to mind, of course there are others, more time expensive actions, such as educating yourself on how democracy dies, by reading books such as "How Facism works" or "This is how you lose democracy", but that is another post.

[darkmaga-returns]

"The Elites Want To ROB Us of Our SOVEREIGNTY!" | Robert F Kennedy & Calley Means - if subtitles do not automatically fire up click on the CC to turn subtitles on so you can understand RFK Jr. better - while there seems to be a strong shift to the bad ingredients in our food there seems to be less conversation about the dangers of vaccines that we pump into our children. I have been a bit concerned about that. Bad stuff in our food is very important but it can be controlled by making better choices in what we eat and some changes in what goes into our food but the biggest nut and the hardest to crack is the dangers of the injections we allow the medical complex to put into our children’s body. Yes, parents can choose not to vaccinate their children but that takes a really educated population and parents with a strong will to do anything in order to not vaccinate. 1 hr. VIDEO

Here we go, this just escalated WW III: Biden regime gives green light for Ukraine to use U.S. long-range missiles to attack deep inside Russia by Leo Hohmann - well we all know what this is all about. Trump vowed to end the war in Ukraine/Russia so the traitors had to satisfy the war whore bankers - ARTICLE/VIDEO (3 min.)

HHS is Using H5N1 to Create a Pandemic and Food Shortage for RFK Jr. to Inherit by Karen Kingston - ARTICLE

Super globalist lawyer Lawrence O. Gostin is a name all should know. Yesterday he was on Democracy Now! to tell lies about RFK. by Dr. Meryl Nass - ARTICLE

Almost 15 years ago Bill Gates suggested a “death panel” system be implemented in the USA because palliative care wasn’t cost-effective - pay attention to Gates body language when he says “but that’s called the death panel and you’re not supposed to have that conversation” - Bill Gates like so many other of his sociopath associates are not about health they are about death (depopulation). ARTICLE/VIDEO (3 min.)

Scrutiny of World Bank intensifies over $24 billion in unaccounted climate funds - ARTICLE

[yourreddancer]

from The Atlantic - Tom Nichols

from The Atlantic

An aspiring fascist is the president-elect, again, of the United States. This is our political reality: Donald Trump is going to bring a claque of opportunists and kooks (led by the vice president–elect, a person who once compared Trump to Hitler) into government this winter, and even if senescence overtakes the president-elect, Trump’s minions will continue his assault on democracy, the rule of law, and the Constitution.

The urge to cast blame will be overwhelming, because there is so much of it to go around. When the history of this dark moment is written, those responsible will include not only Trump voters but also easily gulled Americans who didn’t vote or who voted for independent or third-party candidates because of their own selfish peeves.

Trump’s opponents will also blame Russia and other malign powers. Without a doubt, America’s enemies—some of whom dearly hoped for a Trump win—made efforts to flood the public square with propaganda. According to federal and state government reports, several bomb threatsthat appeared to originate from Russian email domains were aimed at areas with minority voters. But as always, the power to stop Trump rested with American voters at the ballot box, and blaming others is a pointless exercise.

So now what?

The first order of business is to redouble every effort to preserve American democracy. If I may invoke Winston Churchill, this is not the end or the beginning of the end; it is the end of the beginning.

For a decade, Trump has been trying to destroy America’s constitutional order. His election in 2016 was something like a prank gone very wrong, and he likely never expected to win. But once in office, he and his administration became a rocket sled of corruption, chaos, and sedition. Trump’s lawlessness finally caught up with him after he was forced from office by the electorate. He knew that his only hope was to return to the presidency and destroy the last instruments of accountability

Paradoxically, however, Trump’s reckless venality is a reason for hope. Trump has the soul of a fascist but the mind of a disordered child. He will likely be surrounded by terrible but incompetent people. All of them can be beaten: in court, in Congress, in statehouses around the nation, and in the public arena. America is a federal republic, and the states—at least those in the union that will still care about democracy—have ways to protect their citizens from a rogue president. Nothing is inevitable, and democracy will not fall overnight.

Do not misunderstand me. I am not counseling complacency: Trump’s reelection is a national emergency. If we have learned anything from the past several years, it’s that feel-good, performative politics can’t win elections, but if there was ever a time to exercise the American right of free assembly, it is now—not least because Trump is determined to end such rights and silence his opponents. Americans must stay engaged and make their voices heard at every turn. They should find and support organizations and institutions committed to American democracy, and especially those determined to fight Trump in the courts. They must encourage candidates in the coming 2026 elections who will oppose Trump’s plans and challenge his legislative enablers.

After Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, then–Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell vowed to make Obama a one-term president, and obstructed him at every turn. McConnell, of course, cared only about seizing power for his party, and later, he could not muster that same bravado when faced with Trump’s assaults on the government. Patriotic Americans and their representatives might now make a similar commitment, but for better aims: Although they cannot remove Trump from office, they can declare their determination to prevent Trump from implementing the ghastly policies he committed himself to while campaigning.

The kinds of actions that will stop Trump from destroying America in 2025 are the same ones that stopped many of his plans the first time around. They are not flashy, and they will require sustained attention, because the next battles for democracy will be fought by lawyers and legislators, in Washington and in every state capitol. They will be fought by citizens banding together in associations and movements to rouse others from the sleepwalk that has led America into this moment.

Trump’s victory is a grim day for the United States and for democracies around the world. You have every right to be appalled, saddened, shocked, and frightened. Soon, however, you should dust yourself off, square your shoulders, and take a deep breath. Americans who care about democracy have work to do.

[tomorrowusa]

Put Trump back in the White House and we'll see an all out war on the planet led by Republicans and the fossil fuel industry.

In the same interview with Sean Hannity when Trump said he'd be a dictator, he also promised that he would "drill, drill, drill".

His lust for fossil fuels only continues to grow.

Former President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement, staffed his environmental agencies with fossil fuel lobbyists and claimed — against all scientific evidence — that the Earth’s rising temperatures will “ start getting cooler.” Expect a second Trump presidency to show less restraint. Trump’s campaign utterances, and the policy proposals being drafted by hundreds of his supporters, point to the likelihood that his return to the White House would bring an all-out war on climate science and policies — eclipsing even his first-term efforts that brought U.S. climate action to a virtual standstill. Those could include steps that aides shrank back from taking last time, such as meddling in the findings of federal climate reports. [ ... ] But as the GOP front-runner, he’s gone back to alleging that human-caused global warming is fake, is baselessly blaming whale deaths on wind turbines and said last month that if elected he would be a “ dictator for one day” — in part so he could “drill, drill, drill.” Meanwhile, many of his former staffers are building out a comprehensive plan to decimate both climate policy and regulations on fossil fuels. And Trump allies expect that the former president would fill his next administration with officials who are even more hostile to efforts to address global warming.

The people on the fringe who claim that both parties are alike seem like even bigger idiots with each passing day. Putzing around with third parties is like playing Russian roulette with a fully loaded revolver.

The only way to avert a disaster for democracy and a planetary catastrophe is to vote and Vote Democratic.

It's always easier to prevent a dictatorship than it is to end it once it's in power.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

November 6, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Nov 06, 2024

Yesterday, November 5, 2024, Americans reelected former president Donald Trump, a Republican, to the presidency over Democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harris. As of Wednesday night, Trump is projected to get at least 295 electoral votes to Harris’s 226, with two Republican-leaning states still not called. The popular vote count is still underway.

Republicans also retook control of the Senate, where Democrats were defending far more seats than Republicans. Control of the House is not yet clear. 

These results were a surprise to everyone. Trump is a 78-year-old convicted felon who has been found liable for sexual assault and is currently under indictment in a number of jurisdictions. He refused to leave office peacefully when voters elected President Joe Biden in 2020, instead launching an unprecedented attack on the U.S. Capitol to stop the counting of electoral votes, and said during his campaign that he would be a “dictator” on his first day in office.  

Pollsters thought the race would be very close but showed increasing momentum for Harris, and Harris’s team expressed confidence during the day. By posting on social media—with no evidence—that the voting in Pennsylvania was rigged, Trump himself suggested he expected he would lose the popular vote, at least, as he did in 2016 and 2020. 

But in 2024, it appears a majority of American voters chose to put Trump back into office. 

Harris and her running mate, Minnesota governor Tim Walz, offered a message of unity, the expansion of the economic policies that have made the U.S. economy the strongest in the world in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, and the creation of an “opportunity economy” that echoed many of the policies Republicans used to embrace. Trump vowed to take revenge on his enemies and to return the country to the neoliberal policies President Joe Biden had rejected in favor of investing in the middle class.

When he took office, Biden acknowledged that democracy was in danger around the globe, as authoritarians like Russian president Vladimir Putin and China’s president Xi Jinping  maintained that democracy was obsolete and must be replaced by autocracies. Russia set out to undermine the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) that enforced the rules-based international order that stood against Russian expansion. 

Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, who overturned democracy in his own country, explained that the historical liberal democracy of the United States weakens a nation because the equality it champions means treating immigrants, LGBTQ+ individuals, and women as equal to men, thus ending traditionally patriarchal society.

In place of democracy, Orbán champions “illiberal democracy,” or “Christian democracy.” This form of government holds nominal elections, although their outcome is preordained because the government controls all the media and has silenced opposition. Orbán’s model of minority rule promises a return to a white-dominated, religiously based society, and he has pushed his vision by eliminating the independent press, cracking down on political opposition, getting rid of the rule of law, and dominating the economy with a group of crony oligarchs. 

In order to strengthen democracy at home and abroad, Biden worked to show that it delivered for ordinary Americans. He and the Democrats passed groundbreaking legislation to invest in rebuilding roads and bridges and build new factories to usher in green energy. They defended unions and used the Federal Trade Commission to break up monopolies and return more economic power to consumers. 

Their system worked. It created record low unemployment rates, lifted wages for the bottom 80% of Americans, and built the strongest economy in the world in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, setting multiple stock market records.  But that success turned out not to be enough to protect democracy. 

In contrast, Trump promised he would return to the ideology of the era before 2021, when leaders believed in relying on markets to order the economy with the idea that wealthy individuals would invest more efficiently than if the government regulated business or skewed markets with targeted investment (in green energy, for example). Trump vowed to cut taxes for the wealthy and corporations and to make up lost revenue through tariffs, which he incorrectly insists are paid by foreign countries; tariffs are paid by U.S. consumers. 

For policies, Trump’s campaign embraced the Project 2025 agenda led by the right-wing Heritage Foundation, which has close ties to Orbán. That plan calls for getting rid of the nonpartisan civil service the U.S. has had since 1883 and for making both the Department of Justice and the military partisan instruments of a strong president, much as Orbán did in Hungary. It also calls for instituting religious rule, including an end to abortion rights, across the U.S. Part of the idea of “purifying” the country is the deportation of undocumented immigrants: Trump promised to deport 20 million people at an estimated cost of $88 billion to $315 billion a year. 

That is what voters chose.

Pundits today have spent time dissecting the election results, many trying to find the one tweak that would have changed the outcome, and suggesting sweeping solutions to the Democrats’ obvious inability to attract voters. There is no doubt that a key factor in voters’ swing to Trump is that they associated the inflation of the post-pandemic months with Biden and turned the incumbents out, a phenomenon seen all over the world.

There is also no doubt that both racism and sexism played an important role in Harris’s defeat. 

But my own conclusion is that both of those things were amplified by the flood of disinformation that has plagued the U.S. for years now. Russian political theorists called the construction of a virtual political reality through modern media “political technology.” They developed several techniques in this approach to politics, but the key was creating a false narrative in order to control public debate. These techniques perverted democracy, turning it from the concept of voters choosing their leaders into the concept of voters rubber-stamping the leaders they had been manipulated into backing. 

In the U.S., pervasive right-wing media, from the Fox News Channel through right-wing podcasts and YouTube channels run by influencers, have permitted Trump and right-wing influencers to portray the booming economy as “failing” and to run away from the hugely unpopular Project 2025. They allowed MAGA Republicans to portray a dramatically falling crime rate as a crime wave and immigration as an invasion. They also shielded its audience from the many statements of Trump’s former staff that he is unfit for office, and even that his chief of staff General John Kelly considers him a fascist and noted that he admires German Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.

As actor Walter Masterson posted: “I tried to educate people about tariffs, I tried to explain that undocumented immigrants pay billions in taxes and are the foundation of this country. I explained Project 2025, I interviewed to show that they supported it. I can not compete against the propaganda machines of Twitter, Fox News, [Joe Rogan Experience], and NY Post. These spaces will continue to create reality unless we create a more effective way of reaching people.” 

X users noted a dramatic drop in their followers today, likely as bots, no longer necessary, disengaged. 

Many voters who were using their vote to make an economic statement are likely going to be surprised to discover what they have actually voted for. In his victory speech, Trump said the American people had given him an “unprecedented and powerful mandate.” 

White nationalist Nick Fuentes posted, “Your body, my choice. Forever,” and gloated that men will now legally control women’s bodies. His post got at least 22,000 “likes.” Right-wing influencer Benny Johnson, previously funded by Russia, posted: “It is my honor to inform you that Project 2025 was real the whole time.” 

Today, Trump campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump would launch the “largest mass deportation operation” of undocumented immigrants, and the stock in private prison companies GEO Group and CoreCivic  jumped 41% and 29%, respectively. Those jumps were part of a bigger overall jump: the Dow Jones Industrial Average moved up 1,508 points in what Washington Post economic columnist Heather Long said was the largest post-election jump in more than 100 years. 

As for the lower prices Trump voters wanted, Kate Gibson of CBS today noted that on Monday, the National Retail Federation said that Trump’s proposed tariffs will cost American consumers between $46 billion and $78 billion a year as clothing, toys, furniture, appliances, and footwear all become more expensive. A $50 pair of running shoes, Gibson said, would retail for $59 to $64 under the new tariffs.

U.S. retailers are already preparing to raise prices of items from foreign suppliers, passing to consumers the cost of any future tariffs. 

Trump’s election will also mean he will no longer have to answer to the law for his federal indictments: special counsel Jack Smith is winding them down ahead of Trump’s inauguration. So he will not be tried for retaining classified documents or attempting to overthrow the U.S. government when he lost in 2020. 

This evening, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán posted on social media that he had just spoken with Trump, and said: “We have big plans for the future!” 

This afternoon, Vice President Kamala Harris spoke at her alma mater, Howard University, to concede the election to Trump. 

She thanked her supporters, her family, the Bidens, the Walz family, and her campaign staff and volunteers. She reiterated that she believes Americans have far more in common than separating us.

In what appeared to be a message to Trump, she noted: “A fundamental principle of American democracy is that when we lose an election, we accept the results. That principle as much as any other distinguishes democracy from monarchy or tyranny, and anyone who seeks the public trust must honor it. At the same time in our nation, we owe loyalty not to a president or a party, but to the Constitution of the United States, and loyalty to our conscience and to our God. 

“My allegiance to all three is why I am here to say, while I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fuels this campaign, the fight for freedom, for opportunity, for fairness and the dignity of all people, a fight for the ideals at the heart of our nation, the ideals that reflect America at our best. That is a fight I will never give up.”

Harris urged people “to organize, to mobilize and to stay engaged for the sake of freedom and justice and the future that we all know we can build together.” She told those feeling as if the world is dark indeed these days, to “fill the sky with the light of a billion brilliant stars, the light of optimism, of faith, of truth and service,” and to let “that work guide us, even in the face of setbacks, toward the extraordinary promise of the United States of America.” 

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Errin Haines at The 19th:

In 2016, America couldn’t vote for that woman. In 2020, the country couldn’t vote for those women.  In 2024, the same answer: Not her, either.  I have said this election would be about who we are as much as it was about both of the candidates running for president. So who are we? The democracy that still has not put a woman in the White House.  Will we ever be ready? What will it take? The first woman to run for president seeking a major party nomination, Shirley Chisholm, died in 2005. She did not live to see Hillary Clinton make history as the Democratic Party’s first woman nominee, who won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College. Four years later, Kamala Harris became the first woman vice president, giving the country a chance to normalize the leadership of a woman of color at the highest levels. 

Harris was a worthy, capable and qualified adversary who put together a remarkable campaign in only 107 days. Much will be written about her shortcomings and the mistakes of the Democratic Party. But this is less an outcome about what Harris did wrong and more about Donald Trump’s strength and enduring power within the Republican Party, which I don’t know that any candidate could’ve overcome.  This raises questions about electability and the barriers that remain for women seeking our nation’s highest office. 

Who will try again after the country has twice rejected the woman at the top of the ticket? Adding insult to injury, voters both times chose instead the same man, one with a history of racism and misogyny, who has been credibly accused of sexual assault, who admitted to groping women without their permission and who kept his vow to end federal protections for abortion.  To win, he relentlessly and repeatedly insulted his women opponents — a strategy that resonated with far too many of his supporters. In some cases, they encouraged him; in others, they looked away.  For the second time in eight years, his behavior has been reaffirmed by half of the American electorate, and we are faced with a reality: that much of the country still wants to be who we have always been, incapable of putting a woman in power.  

The last two times a Democratic candidate lost to a Republican, they ran a woman (Clinton in 2016 and Harris in 2024). Will a woman finally become President in our lifetimes? Maybe in the next 20 years.

[solarbird]

He is the most dangerous person ever. I had suspicions when I talked to you about his mental decline and so forth, but now I realize he’s a total fascist. He is now the most dangerous person to this country… a fascist to the core. — General Mark Milley (retired), Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President Trump, speaking about former President and convicted felon Donald J. Trump

Trump vows to be a dictator. Only “for one day,” but I remind you that the “one day” part is meaningless, since on the “one day” you grant yourself all power so can pretend you’re not a dictator and are acting within the law the very next day.

He promises a mass ethnic purge of immigrants, including legal ones, and says he’ll expel 15 million people and that they will have to do “terrible things” to people. There are no cases in history where this doesn’t turn into a broader purge – which he’s said he wants.

Now he just says he’s ready to use the military against his greatest – his worst – enemy: domestic political opponents.

Against you and me. Against us.

“Donald Trump has proposed a fascist plan to deploy military forces against U.S. citizens who oppose him on election day.“

We know this.

We all know this.

What’s it take?

Historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat told NBC News that Trump’s threats to curb dissent are “out of the autocratic playbook.” “As autocrats consolidate their power once they’re in office, anything that threatens their power, or exposes their corruption, or releases information that’s harmful to them in any way becomes illegal,” Ben-Ghiat said. “He’s actually rehearsing, in a sense, what he would be doing as head of state, which is what Orban does, Modi is doing, Putin has long done,” she added, naming the dictatorial leaders of Hungary, India and Russia, all of whom Trump has lavishly praised. — Rolling Stone Magazine, “Trump Wants the Military to Target Americans Who Oppose Him,” 13 October 2024. By Peter Wade.

I don’t know anymore.

What does it take?

If you have any Trumpy friends or family, ask them: do they really want to end the Republic? Do they really want to live in a dictatorship? Do they want literally everything in their lives to be about political compliance to the leader, at the barrel of a gun?

Is that what they really want? To destroy the American experiment? To end the United States as a democracy?

Ask them. Make it clear. Make them use small words, make them explain it to you like you’re four, make them try to make you understand. And don’t let them deny, because there is no room for denial. It’s all there, in his words, from his mouth, and yes, it is Trump being Trump, because this is literally who he is, and who is always has been.

Do they hate America that much?

Ask them.

22 days remain.

[skellybonesandtrees]

As Donald Trump recovers from an assassination attempt and Republicans head to Milwaukee for his coronation this week, the GOP elite has rallied around a new messaging strategy: emotionally blackmailing Democratic politicians, journalists, Hollywood celebs, and numerous other Trump critics into shutting up about the former president’s openly authoritarian vows and his extreme policy agenda.

Since the deadly shooting at a Pennsylvania rally Saturday, prominent conservatives have been working to blame the incident on Trump’s enemies for labeling him a “fascist” and for fanning heated “rhetoric” that, in their telling, caused the would-be assassin to shoot at the former and perhaps future American president. “When the message goes out constantly that the election of Donald Trump would be a threat to democracy and that the Republic would end, it heats up the environment,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Sunday, adding: “It’s simply not true. Everyone needs to turn the rhetoric down.”

Two of the finalists on Trump’s vice presidential shortlist quickly blamed the assassination attempt on talk about his authoritarian plans. “The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs,” Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) wrote Saturday night. “That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.” Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) said the attack on Trump was “aided and abetted by the radical Left and corporate media incessantly calling Trump a threat to democracy, fascists, or worse.”

Top Trump ally Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Sunday he had been “worried about this for a very, very long time,” adding: “You know, if he wins, democracy is not going to end. He’s not a fascist. He represents a point of view that millions share. The rhetoric is way too hot.”

These messages are all part of a deliberate strategy. Within the first three hours following the failed assassination of the presumptive 2024 GOP presidential nominee, three sources close to Trump were already feverishly detailing to Rolling Stone how Republicans could use the shooting to their political advantage — whether for potentially mammoth fundraising, propaganda about Trump being “tough” and a “fighter,” or attacks on Democrats as belonging to the actually violent party every time they bring up things like the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riot that Trump instigated.

Such plans were hatched hours before it became public that the shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, was a registered Republican; his motive has continued to elude law enforcement and even his own neighbors. The lack of clarity has done little to deter MAGA and conservative leaders from scapegoating their preferred enemies list. 

The attempt on Trump’s life does nothing to change the reality that he is — in fact — running on an openly authoritarian platform. Trump and his closest allies are pledging to punish President Joe Biden and other top Democrats and jail his political opponents; unleash the National Guard and active-duty troops on Democratic-controlled cities whenever he wishes; end the Justice Department’s independence so he can use it to crush his foes, shut down his criminal cases, and erase any hope of accountability for his alleged crimes; retaliate against media outlets that cover him negatively; deport pro-Palestine protesters; oversee an unprecedented crackdown on immigrants, potentially erecting a vast network of camps on U.S. soil; further institutionalize his anti-democratic lies and conspiracy theories that led directly to the Jan. 6 attack; and even invade and bomb Mexico if he feels like it.

Trump has quite literally pledged to be a dictator on “day one.” He later reiterated that he intends “to be a dictator for one day” — arguing such power would be necessary to erect a border wall and “drill, drill, drill.” On the campaign trail, the former president has evoked the rhetoric of Adolf Hitler, accusing immigrants of “poisoning the blood of our country.”

Saturday’s assassination attempt also does not change the fact that Trump has repeatedly and very publicly endorsed political violence over the years. Trump is calling now for “peace” and “unity,” but he has a lengthy track record of downplaying or excusing the harm done to the victims of pro-Trump violence — to the point that late last year he was onstage mocking House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi’s husband after he was brutally attacked by a Trump-supporting conspiracy theorist wielding a hammer.

Trump has frequently promised to pardon the pro-Trump rioters who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6. He recently shared a meme demanding a televised military tribunal for former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), the vice chair of the House Jan. 6 committee.

And though Trump allies are chastising Democrats today for calling Trump a fascist or an authoritarian and claiming that such rhetoric causes violence, Trump has routinely called liberals and his enemies “fascists,” going as far as to trash them as “thugs” and “vermin within the confines of our country” at his 2024 campaign rallies.

Trump has campaigned as a populist strongman — that didn’t change overnight.

Link