#wannabe dictatorship

[jonostroveart]

Ugly Sweater

[inthemaelstrom]

Where Have We Heard This Before?

Concentration camps for immigrants

People as "vermin"

"Crushing the existence" of people who disagree

Executing people you deem traitors

"Instituionalizing" prosecutors carrying out the rule of law against you

Using the justice system to punish your enemies

Make no mistake: this has all been said before. By Hitler. By Mussolini. We've learned from inside witnesses that Trump had "no intention of leaving" office after Biden beat him.

Pay attention. This is fascism.

I'm just going to say it, so there's no doubt which side I'm on, ever: Trump is a disgusting fucking fascist, a wannabe dictator who will dismantale and burn the Constitution and your freedoms and rights along with it. He is a clear and present danger to American democracy, immigrants, women, people who believe in the rule of law. He's already broken numerous laws and wouldn't stop there if given power. His inner circle is just as bad. If he's not voted back in, he may still try another coup. He'll be better at it this time. Get out there and organize voters. Vote yourself. Make it clear he can shove his fascism up his ass. And so can his sycophantic, bigoted, fascist followers.

While you're at it, go read Maus, if you haven't already. And if you think we haven't seen this before in this country specifically, read Rachel Maddow's new book Prequel. We won then; we can win again.

[rudo-lfium]

Read this behemoth twice and have begun to systemise my notes for future reference.

In today’s day and age this should be on everybody’s desk at home.

[hale-nathan]

Trump Weird News - Dictator Wannabe

Strongmen: Powerful political figures who rule "by the exercise of force or violence."

Dictators: Rulers who are "unconstrained by law."

[hotvintagepoll]

Propaganda

Irene Papas (Tribute to a Bad Man, Electra, Zorba the Greek)—"From the opening shot of Michael Cacoyannis's Electra, as the proud, implacable face emerges from encroaching shadows, it becomes impossible to imagine anyone else as Euripides's heroine. Erect, immutably dignified, dark eyes burning fiercely beneath heavy black brows, Irene Papas visibly embodies the sublimity of classical Greece, tragic yet serene." -Philip Kemp (film critic) Also she's a a badass.

Vivien Leigh (Gone with the Wind, A Streetcar Named Desire)—Leigh is exceptionally beautiful. To quote Garson Kanin, Leigh was "a stunner whose ravishing beauty often tended to obscure her staggering achievements as an actress. Great beauties are infrequently great actresses—simply because they don't need to be. Vivien was different; ambitious, persevering, serious, often inspired." She was an actor's actor, one of those big old-school theatre dames, full of drama and temper.

This is round 3 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]

Irene Papas:

An amazing actress and singer, some may say a literal Greek goddess. Fought against military dictatorship in her home country and had an affair with Marlon Brando.

She literally played Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world in Greek mythology, what more could you want

Vivien Leigh propaganda:

"I submit this gifset--help she is so beautiful and tragic"

"Extremely versatile, absolutely beautiful features and a wonderful resting bitch face if needed."

"She has such a range of character types that she could fit any favorite type of woman. And have you seen her in the Red Dress? with her cocked eyebrow???"

[Linked GwtW gifset]

"She played one of the most famously unlikable characters in cinema history and knocked it out of the park."

"Vivien Leigh vs every established and wannabe actress on Earth- grand slam winner for Scarlett O'Hara and won the oscar. Ultimate power couple with hottie finalist Laurence Olivier. I am just on my knees for that arched eyebrow and smouldering look."

"She’s just mmm the PASSION behind her performances is palpable, she’s so beautiful and elegant and amazing and yeah"

"look at her. im a gay man and im in love with her"

[depressed--and--bisexual]

To my non-argentine mutuals:

Long story short we had elections.

Javier Miler, a wannabe trump-bolsonaro hybrid, won.

A negationist of the atrocities commited during the 1976 dictatorship.

A self-proclaimed anarcho-capitalist who wants to make us slaves to the US dolar (not that we already kind of are, but he won't try to fix the problem, just replace it and sweep it under the rug).

Someone who wants to deny the right to free healthcare, education and abortion.

Someone who wants to legilaze guns and organ trade (although that one is not a priority, but still).

My heart aches for my country, and even though I am lucky to live outside of it right now, I can't help but think of my family and friends whose life might deteriorate because of it.

The other candidate was shit too, but it was less worse than Milei.

I guess the only thing we can do is wait 4 years and hope that the country won't be further ran into the ground.

[ponyguru]

Yesterday was a sad day. I didn’t feel like I could post something blithely happy about my ponies without saying something about the election, so I’ve been musing on what to say.

Before 2016, I ran more of a ‘general fandom’ type blog on Tumblr, which skewed more heavily towards politics and activism as the orange demon began to come into the limelight. Surely, we thought, nobody would be stupid enough to vote for a reality TV star with zero credentials and so many crimes surrounding him. The election seemed like a slam dunk, since everyone had working brains.

While I had to watch people I thought I could trust celebrating the downfall of our country’s (and my) future, I realized I couldn’t carry on any kind of activism blog and keep myself alive. I leaned into 100% pony toy blogging, just to try and keep my sanity. Pony blogging became an escape, a safe place that was focused wholly on cute, comforting nostalgia. Worrying about finding the latest pony release was easier than worrying about Prop 8 removing gay marriage rights, or the overturn of Roe v Wade. Even if politics always managed to edge into my life, girls toys at least were a space where women and LGBTQIA (usually) weren’t on the fringes and marginalized.

Which leads me back to today, staring down another brutal four years in a wannabe orange dictatorship. I don’t want to simplify it with “don’t worry, we’ll all make it through again!” because a lot of us didn’t make it. I’m glad that I am in a blue state that’s working to preserve my rights, but so many others don’t have that luxury, and I’m deeply afraid for them, too. I’m scared, and a lot of us are scared, with good reason to be.

Ponies aren’t a cure all, and escapism isn’t a fix. We need to keep fighting, but you can’t fight 24/7. Many of us are already fighting just to exist in a country that doesn’t feel welcoming right now. So I’m going to keep posting about my ponies, who are comforting to me, and do my best to create a space that feels safe for me to return to, when the rest of the world isn’t. If you want to come hide in Ponyland for a little while with me every day, you’re welcome to.

I hope you all stay safe, and find a place or activity that helps you to stay alive, too. Staying alive is doing enough, in a world that wants you dead. Anything else you can do is just gravy.

I will share useful resources when I find them, usually via Insta stories, and I will keep posting ponies. Ponies bring me comfort, and I hope you can find something that comforts you, too. Stay safe, and remember that there is a better future coming. We just have to make it there. 💖

OH and I forgot to mention, I tried to comfort myself by washing some ponies from the recent doll show, hence the photo! They all cleaned up very nicely, even if Yum Yum still has a frizzball tail, LOL!

[deaddee-anime-brownfanlady]

I will never understand certain people who deemed themselves as " Leftists " or "Progressives " or so-called "allies " for minorities and marginalized groups and pretend to act like they give a Fuck about said groups of people. But have no issues throwing many of said minorities and marginalized groups under the bus as "acceptable collateral damage " with Trump if he gets back in Office again.

Because they idiotically believe that Trump would bring out their glorious "Revolution."

These people aren't serious at all about politics and have deeply lost touch with reality with this stupid belief of theirs that is nothing more then just pure fantasy.

I so badly want these people to stop acting like they actually care about black and brown people or immigrants and LGBTQ people and women, also religious minorities and such.

When in actuality, they have no problems with putting a highly unhinged, unstable, reckless convicted dangerous criminal bigoted piece of shit wannabe dictator back in power again.

Truly Fuck these phony fake-ass people who claimed to care about these groups, but actually have no problems with Fucking over said groups and have them suffer solely because they want to punish democrats for not being " Super leftist enough " or try to "punish" Biden because they want to live their Hunger Games Revolutionary dreams.

That they seem to think America losing complete democracy and turning into a far-right authoritarian theocratic country no better than North Korea or Russia or any other dictatorship nation isn't a problem because they believe that a dictatorship "Isn't that BaD " or living under a theocratic regime " Won't be a Big DeaL ".

I swear these people aren't real Leftists and should just admit to themselves that they don't actually give a flying shit about the groups of people they pretend to care about and that they are fine with authoritarianism rule.

Really Fuck these people, my family and loved ones and everyone else I care about aren't you're "acceptable collateral damage" for your imagery Revolution.

[crypt2niite]

i think this recent chapter of one piece really made it click in alot of peoples minds that coby is a marine. a true, dedicated marine who believes wholeheartedly in the marine cause.

mild spoilers for one piece 1122.

this chapter and specifically yhis panel

really solidifies that coby is a marine. coby is wholeheartedly a marine who wholeheartedly believes being a marine is the right thing, and that makes him one of three things.

1.) a cruel facist wannabe who idiolizes what the marines are right now and everything they represent

2.) a complacent idiot who, in blind and naive stupidity has allowed himself to be used by facists to enforce their regime unknowingly

3.) a even more naive idiot who genuinely believes one person has the ability to tear down a hundreds of years old dictatorship and the instutional police planet that has been built apoj those foundations from the inside without piggybacking off of the work, blood, death and tears of the rioters, revolutionaries and inssurectionists who are ripping down and fighting against the marines and world goverment in a immediately impactful way

coby is a true marine and what that means is blind faith in the marines no matter what that means for you, blind faith in your version of the marines, in the pipe dream that ‘you’re helping!’ that ‘its not perfect but i can make it better! i can change it from the inside im a true hero!!! i can do this thr right way. no awful unrulyness or law breaking. because the system itself is good, its just the bad people in charge 🥺’

coby is a true marine in the way garp is a true marine because they both are so close to being good people but will never be one and never had the potential to be ones, because of them being marines to their very core. no matter what.

coby is garps apprentice and it shows. garp is willing to throw away any attatchments he has, to watch young boys he promised to care for die because they contridict his belief in the marines, just as coby is willing to discard the one person who gave him a chance to be *anything* because that person contradicts his belief in the marines

the ‘good marines’. coby, garp, smoker, fujitora, ectect are some of my absolute favorite flavour of characters in one piece, they all have some way of burying their head in the sand, either via naivete, willful ignorance or what may be. theyre all absolutely awful, so easy to love and so hard to hate but so easy to dislike, its so easy to want them to just. fix it. become a pirate or fix the marines or do something to make them compatable with luffy, with freedom but they wont be. they never will be unless they can cast aside some of the very fundamentals of their psyche becase in the end, they are using their abilities to defend and aid the goals and wishes of a dictatorship, to defend the proprieters of slavery and cruelty.

also please dont take this as me hating coby or garp or saying u cant love them! i really like coby and think garp is funny atleast, and fujitora, one of the aformentioned so called ‘good’ marines is one of my favourite characters, period! he is so facinating in how he balances believing himself to be a good person while also actively supporting atrocities i love him sooo much

[mugiwara-lucy]

Guys......in the last almost 24 hours I've seen people saying "Trump has won the election!", "The election is won!", "Everything is over!" and more bullshit like that and I HAVE to say:

This is NOT an innocent old man who was shot in the line of civic duty for his nation.

This is DONALD FUCKING TRUMP; the man who wants to be a DICTATOR and enthrall the US in a Christian Theocrocrical Dictatorship:

For people thinking Trump will get "Sympathy Votes", I will admit he may get some BUT the VAST MAJORITY of people either don't care, are glad and are making fun of him at his expense. Case in point?

"HELL NO" was trending on Twitter not even an hour ago because someone made an article saying "We're All Maga"

And Project 2025 is trending on Twitter again which makes me HAPPY:

Remember our mission. Since the Media wants to coddle and treat Trump with Kid Gloves CONTINUE TO MAKE SURE THE PUBLIC KNOWS ABOUT PROJECT 2025!!!!

Well....that's a sub mission. The REAL MISSION is to get out there and VOTE, VOTE, VOTE.

I have NO DOUBT after yesterday, the MAGA folk who were probably too lazy to vote before are gonna be out even MORE in droves to vote their wannabe dictator king.

PLEASE VOTE.

THANK YOU.

[tomorrowusa]

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD-08) is a living national treasure of democracy.

Rep. Raskin visited with Alicia Menendez, Michael Steele, and Symone Sanders-Townsend at MSNBC's The Weekend to talk about a number of issues.

He said Trump "came back to the scene of the crime" with his first visit to Capitol Hill since 06 January 2021. Trump met with GOP members of both chambers who ignored the fact that he put their lives at risk with his coup attempt.

Of course Trump offered no apology for his endangerment of their lives or for his damage to American institutions of democracy. It says a lot about the mindset of most Republicans these days that they will suffer no humiliation too great to show their grovelling loyalty to wannabe dictator Trump.

Rep. Raskin also talked about the GOP Supreme Court's NRA-friendly approval of the use of "bump stocks" – devices that permit assault rifles to be converted into machine guns.

Republicans willingly gave up their claim to being the party of law and order so they could incessantly pander to Trump's lust for dictatorship and to empower the NRA's goal of putting machine guns in the hands of every nutjob in the country.

This election requires more personal effort than previous ones. Be willing to do more grassroots work and make our case to low-information voters you may know.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Imagine this: It’s exactly one year from today, Memorial Day weekend, 2025. It’s 94 degrees in the shade, but the fact that the world keeps shattering monthly temperature records isn’t even making the news — and that’s not what has Philadelphians so hot and bothered. It’s been about two months since Donald Trump, the 47th president of the United States, announced Operation Purify America in an Oval Office address, and about a week since a stunned Philadelphia watched an endless convoy of militarized vehicles and federalized troops from the Texas and South Dakota National Guards roll up I-95. After a week of setting up a base camp at the Air National Guard base in Horsham, the actual operation began at midnight the day before, as a parade of Humvees and armored personal carriers cornered off a wide area in Philadelphia’s Hunting Park section and supported federal immigration agents who went door-to-door in the predawn chaos, bursting into homes and asking Latino residents for their papers. Journalists who’d been kept blocks away by the troops now search for anyone who could confirm the rumors of screaming, scuffling, and dozens of arrests. As the hot sun rises, Mayor Cherelle L. Parker, Gov. Josh Shapiro, and several hundred angry protesters gather outside the Horsham gate to denounce the raids. A phalanx of helmeted troops pushes the throng back, firing tear gas to clear the road for the first busload of detained migrants. They are bound for the hastily erected Camp Liberty, an already overcrowded and decrepit holding center on the Texas-Mexico border that Amnesty International calls “a concentration camp.” This might sound like a page from the script of Alex Garland’s next near-future dystopian movie, but it’s actually a realistic preview of the America Trump himself, his cartoonishly sinister immigration guru Stephen Miller, and the right-wing functionaries crafting the 900-page blueprint for a Trump 47 presidency called Project 2025 are fervently wishing for. As polls show Trump in a dead heat nationally with President Joe Biden, and poised to win at least some of the battleground states where Biden was victorious in 2020, the presumptive GOP nominee is making no secret of his scheme for what he calls “the Largest Domestic Deportation Operation in History.” The audacious goal of tracking down and deporting all 11 million or so undocumented immigrants living and working within the United States is, experts agree, all but impossible. But even the forced removal of hundreds of thousands, or one million, would require a massive internal military operation on a scale not seen since the Civil War and Reconstruction. [...] What’s changed in 2024? Everything. Despite the Hannibal Lecter-ized outward chaos of Trump’s rallies, behind the scenes, Team Trump is focused and determined not only to name the most rabid Trump loyalists to key political posts but also todramatically strip civil service protections andremove recalcitrant midlevel government employees. And this time around, Republicans in Congress are going to be on board with whatever Trump wants. [...] It was somewhat amazing to watch the furious debate online and on cable news this week over the weird incident in which small text about a “unified Reich” found its way into a Trump promo video the ex-and-wannabe president posted on Truth Social. The perplexing part, for me, is that this was discussed as some kind of Sherlock-Holmes-magnifying-glass a-ha moment, revealing Trump’s secret plan for Nazi-style rule. Folks, he is screaming his plan out loud at his rallies! The Trump deportation scheme is really Trump’s blueprint for dictatorship.

Will Bunch at The Philadelphia Inquirer on how Donald Trump's proposed deportation plan is a pretext for a fascist MAGA dictatorship (05.23.2024).

Will Bunch nails it in this Philly Inquirer column on how Donald Trump's fascistic plan for mass deportations is a speed-run for a MAGA dictatorship.

[rhysnolastname]

Because of another post a mutual made, I am like reminded that a lot of people take their right to vote for granted and as someone who has experienced and fled a dictatorship where I distinctly remember as a child being forced to “guard” the ballot box and thank people for voting for the only candidate and witnessed my parents and neighbors be forced at gunpoint to vote, again, for the only candidate, I will never understand the not voting thing. And even further I will never understanding not voting in the face of the threat of a wannabe dictator running for office who is in constant contact with other dictators and has already attempted to steal elections and has been very vocal about his intent to be a dictator by saying if he gets elected you won’t have to vote again. That is a terrifying future and one I have already escaped and god forbid it needs to be escaped twice in one lifetime.

[mielwriting]

Here is a video that more easily breaks down all the legal jargon and namecalling of Project 2025. Please watch it.

Project 2025 is so much deeper than just what the Republicans have been doing for the past few decades. They continue their demonization of immigrants, of LGBTQ+ people, but they make it worse.

They're going to fire anyone who isn't loyal to Trump, even if it's just a scientist at the National Weather Service who's trying to tell people where a tornado is headed. Their plan is to take full control of the government, and kick out any dissidents. It will get worse, and I worry about those who don't know enough about dictatorships to not see it.

Once a wannabe-dictator has enough support and political power, all he really needs is the power to change the rules in his favor. Look at 1920s Germany, or how Xi Jinping increased his power, or Narendra Modi, or Viktor Orban.

There are countless more examples. Please. Please. Voting for a 3rd party will only split the vote. Learn some more history. And vote for Biden, even with all the awful things he's done. He will be better than Trump.

[langernameohnebedeutung]

honestly, trying to imagine the developments on izombie from the perspective of like...a random person from Seattle who has nothing to do with the protagonists is so funny

Seasons 1-2: a lot of scandals surrounding the local energy drink company and its Elon Musk wannabe CEO? As in...there's a legitimate death toll? Crazy but whatever.

season 3: there's a flu pandemic! That's scary! and some conspiracy nuts are talking about zombies, I guess.

seasons 4-5: we're basically living under a military dictatorship and Seattle is cut off from the rest of the world. The American government is threatening to drop a nuclear bomb on us. The conspiracy theorists apparently had a point about the "zombies" but honestly even if that virus makes people crave brains, this name was decided when there were like 3 of them and it's not doing us any favours in the "not getting bombed" department. There is a public guillotine and everyone is cool with cannibal restaurants now.

... also I still have to go to work.

[frasier-crane-style]

Okay, that's True Grit. That's entirely True Grit. Exact same plot, exact same tone, exact same Coen-wannabe dialogue (and Tom King is no Coen Brother)... all King did was transpose a bit of a by-now-generic high fantasy/space opera setting onto True fucking Grit. It's not even that obscure a work to rip off. There was a remake in 2010. Hailee Steinfeld debuted in that movie and she's still playing a 'Young' Avenger.

Oh, but hey, there's Supergirl in the Rooster Cogburn role. That's different, right? Because Supergirl is Supergirl and not a drunken, cynical badass type?

And if you've seen True Grit, either version, you pretty much know how it goes (aside from a shock value ending that is, surprise, deeply cynical and mean-spirited). King mercilessly mischaracterizes Kara into this very 90s bad grrl caricature--she calls Superman a little bitch at one point, because he's not as tuff as herrrr--and the bad guys all go "oh, you can't beat me, you're just a girl!" Aren't we past this?

I found the premise pretty unbelievable... I know comic writers have to know up with far-fetched scenarios, since the real top-tier superheroes are unbeatable otherwise... but Supergirl has turned 21 and wants to get drunk. She doesn't want to do this with any of her friends, apparently, so she takes a barely controllable starship to a sector of space with only red suns... she can't just borrow a red sun room in the Fortress of Solitude or wherever... and she lands on this world that's a hellish dictatorship where people are killed for laughing at jokes about the king... she brings Krypto along, who is also depowered... and she doesn't bring any kind of communication device so she can call a Green Lantern or someone for help... and she's gone for months, but no one thinks to look for her.

And the villain... this is another one of the very few changes from True Grit, where the killer is just a random thug, the kind of guy you'd expect to impulsively kill someone. Here, he's a criminal mastermind that can summon up magic that nearly kills Supergirl and he almost randomly hooks up with this gang of superpowered mass murderers (who indulge in ethnic cleansing so frequently that you'd think a Green Lantern or someone would go after them--seriously, they are depopulating planets on a weekly basis) so it takes more than five seconds for Kara to rout him.

There's also a super heavy-handed segregation/racism metaphor. I mean, it is TOS, "all his people are black on the left side and white on the right side!" blatant. Like, embarrassingly hamfisted.

And this comic is WORDY. Not only is OC donut steal Hailee Steinfeld doing her Coen act every time she speaks, but she also narrates, choking every panel with multiple paragraphs of PROSEPROSEPROSE. Everything is a speech, everything is a monologue. Mike Flanagan would read this and say "hey, buddy, don't you think you're overdoing it a tad?" And there's some good art here--that's the one real positive of the comic--but it is just drowned out by King not trusting his artist one iota to tell a story.

Supergirl is given this really stock "it sucks to be Superman" angst, which we're all tired of with Clark, right? Is it really fresh to just transpose him being broody and violent onto Kara? All the cursing and casual violence would be a little more appropriate for Power Girl, but I guess that wouldn't subvert expectations like making the main character an embittered Supergirl. Clearly, we're supposed to find all this shocking and edgy, but it just comes off risible. You're really going to have Krypto the Super-Dog and dead babies in the same exact story?

And since when does Supergirl hang out with Krypto? I thought her pet was Streaky. King goes all pre-Crisis with Comet the Super-Horse showing up and really being a man with a magic spell cast on him, but he doesn't know that Supergirl's pet is Streaky the Supercat? Boooooo.