All of this was known prior to Nov 5. Apparently, a shade under 50% of the voters were OK with it. By the way, the tRump-like president of South Korea just declared martial law in South Korea.
Short-term perspective: Yes, we must fight back as much as we possibly can against Trump and his initiatives.
Long-term perspective: No, middle class voters did not vote for Trump's initiatives, but rather against the economic and political status quo. The establishment (Democratic and Republican) have supported an economic system that has left the middle class behind. Ninety percent of Americans used to receive over 2/3 of America's income, today it is less than 1/2. Trends and projections are for this decline to continue. This is not fair and can't continue. We won't regain the support of the middle class until we fix this problem.
All of us, rich andpoor, are at threat. We just lost the cold war. BRIC and other entities are attacking our currency, trying to destroy our economy. These all seem to be on Trump team -- especially the Saudis, our "allies." Even the French!
Other countries have accused us of trying to inflate their currencies -- to bankrupt them, May have been true in Cuba in the 60s. Soviet Union.
They weren't ok or not ok with it, they were just not paying attention. A lot of them wanted to shake things up and didn't care about details. Well hang on, there will indeed be a shake-up but they may not like it.
I have been getting myself into darker and darker places in which finding a course forward is not seemingly possible. Everything said in this piece feels irrefutable. Getting active on social media is a guarantee of scrutiny by the regime that looms. Joining groups that can serve as "the resistance" feels like rearranging the chairs on the deck of the Titanic.
Everything I know and know anecdotally is irrelevant in the scenario that looms. You have to admit: This piece gives substance and proof to the alarming fears we shared before the election. A brilliantly conceived coup is on the verge of destroying America, of making America unlivable.
By the standards of what we still have, apparently, none of this is stoppable by law. What is clearly treasonous cannot be averted. We actually watched all of this coalesce, through the acts and actions of the Supreme Court, The Heritage Foundation and Trump/MAGA itself, seen it growing in strength and ominous threat, and have done NOTHING to stop it.
As I start my day as a retailer in the middle of the holiday season and trying to look forward, I find myself completely stopped in my tracks, frozen. I am painted into a corner, and I don't know what to do. Protestation is futile and pathetic. I have been distraught and bleak, knowing that an oncoming freight train is likely coming. Now I see the headlights.
SO many people have read the things I write on Facebook and either mocked me or felt the intensity of my aggravation, panic, anger, disgust and despair and urged me to lighten up. None my angst has made any difference, of course. Now I wonder if they haven't been right all along. I may recover. I hope I recover. But right now, I feel pretty bad.
One last thought: Why NOT declare martial law, right now, while there is still some sanity? What's to lose? Has there ever been a more dire threat to the United States of America? Am I REALLY in the place in which I fervently hope for a military intervention?!?!?
I can't see the economy continuing to function. Perhaps as many as 200 million of us are going to either actively boycott the economy as much as we can, or just not be in any mood to spend money and do things, because we are so upset. This may trigger a giant recession.
I prefer that over an economy that endorses the horrors by remaining healthy.
Okay, then. if that much acquiescence is in the cards, I am ready for that too... I will immerse in nature, while I still have freedom of movement, and will still work locally to encourage my fellow progressives to start bonding in old face to face ways, because electronic media are about to become useless and dangerous.
And if I know I am targeted for openly opposing the cult- now-government, I will take my own life peacefully, rather than allow them the pleasure of secretly imprisoning me where nobody will know I have been sent. I will also, while still alive, wait for Radio Free US to start broadcasting from Canada. It will be a scary world of no access to truth from soon, until then. I will need what I just described -local face to face friendship, and nature, during that interval.
The outlook is indeed depressing but we can't give up. There are also other forces at work that may help to bring the trump system down. All of their agendas will definitely hasten climate change and destroy the economy. This might be the best outcome.
but, an intervention to do what exactly? Democrats are inherently law abiding. I give credit to Biden for pardoning his son; I doubt that he'd go any further than that.
For the life of me Thom, I find myself nonplussed at the attitude of liberals,especially those in leadership positions, in politics and media, as they normalize or try to normalize Agenda 47, Project 2025 and Trump as just a rogue administration, and acting like we will get a chance to rectify an error in 2028.
They really don't take him and those agenda's seriously. We are staring at a future of the 4th Reich of the Rich, right in our face, it is not secret, it is not a conspiracy but our leaders,and of course the corporate media either ignores or normalizes it.
I can understand why the corporate media, aka MSM, is selling out, because they are corporate and have the same motive and agenda as all corporations, to not only produce a profit, but to survive.
That which really disheartens me are the Donna Brazelles, Paul Begala's, Robert Bigg's, James Carville's, Jaime Harrison's and even Robert Reich's, whose hair is not on fire, but are normalizing the theocratic fascism that is coming at us like a speeding freight train., by kvetching over each and every one of Trump's , preadtory and criminal cabinet and advisor choices.
They are all criminals, and they will all be confirmed. Chuck Schumer has already caved.
I assume that traditional senate vetting would include FBI background checks, which none of his cabinent picks have had, as he has paid for private vetting.
The problem is that they don't need FBI sugar coating the checks, and given that the FBI is staffed with conservatives and Trump humpers, Why even rely on,or trust them, there is more than adequate public knowledge available.
One way or another Trump will get his appointees. Gaetz did not pull out because he was a "dsitraction", every single one of his picks is a distraction. Gaetz pull out because it was part of a game plan, cooked up on AF one. He will be back on Jan 3rd, when congress is sworn in and then again as he is up and elected Speaker by the so called Freedom Caucus.
Because, the media is not 'liberal' The MSM is owned by the conservatives. Even CNN is republican owned. Until we buy our own broadcast TV station, we won't reach the 'masses' with our message. People are voting as if for a sports team; their thinking doesn't go any deeper than that.
I have done a who owns who many times on RR's substack. There is no such thing as an MSM, it is corporate media. All corporations are created for one purpose and that is to provide a postive rate of return for the investors.
Choose the corporation and then do a google search for instance who owns MSNBC, and you will get Comcast, then who owns Comcast inthis case you will get individual and institutional investors. So google who are the individual investors of Comcast, and you will Brian L. Roberts. do two things now, Google chairman an CEO of Comcast and you will get Brian L. Roberts, google Brian L Roberts and get his wikipedia page and learn all about him. Then google institutional investors in Comcast and you will get Vanguard, Blackrock, State street at the top of the list.
Now when you google institutional investors on other media,after you boil down the who owns who, you will find that Vanguard, Blackrock, State Street Group, are the major institutional investors in practically all media, as wellas in PhRMA, AHIP, Agriculture, defense industries, financial institutions.
As regards major individual investors in media, here we go, go to en.wikipedia.org
As Commanding Officer of The Communists, Marxists and the Radical Left Thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country Brigade, I vow our continued and unrelenting commitment to dream and scheme of a more normal type of world.
Racism is the spike protein that Donald used to regain entry into the gov't.
Imagine the gov't depts are cells.
Like the COVID-19 virus, Donald & Co. will turn each department into a virus factory, which generates Donald clones, to infect the government further.
And just as COVID does, once Donald's replicants have exhausted the depts, said depts, like organs will die.
And, then we'll be Russia. Drunk and broke.
In fact, when the people rise, as they will, rather than turn American troops loose on family and friends, Donald will, likely, have Vlad export some Russian troops into the USSA. Same as he (Vlad) did in Syria. Then some brigades of Orban's Hungarian stormtroopers. Maybe even some of Erik Prince's Congo-seasoned Blackwater scum. All would be imported to "take care" of the vermin/rabble.
"The Sorrow and the Pity" of it all, if you know what I mean.
And it started with Race hate — What a price to pay.
Sir, Okie Doke, we can beat them to it with the support of other freedom loving countries i.e Europe (NATO), Norway, Sweden, New Zealand, Iceland, Finland, Switzerland, Netherlands, Taiwan. we need to engage their support and other freedom loving countries that want to preserve their freedoms. NOW!
Well, Thom, you've put the fear of death in my brain. When will Biden ask Europe and other democratic countries to get involved in the tRump takeover, as tRump has asked Russia and China to? This does not just affect the United states. It will change the lives of people all over the world. Surely, anyone reading the tea leaves knows this. When will the public rise up and have millions of people march? We need an army on our side that is interested in defending democracy against the military and national guard. Will the U.S allow what happened in Russia, Hungry, North Viet Nam, China to just let democracy vanish? Once tRump is in office, he can use his power to mow down these marchers. Organizing, mobilizing and energizing the world should have happened yesterday!
I thought what needs to happen are once weekly million person demonstrations on the National Mall, with hundreds of millions of Americans encouraged to commit to attending these over the next four years. But then I realized the DC government would not be able to deal with the security and expenses of perhaps 200 mass demonstrations in a row over four years. Instead, it is going to need to be permanent presences in every city and town downtown, like Occupy was, in places where it worked well, such as Dayton, Ohio where I was involved. The local progressives will rent a storefront, and make it a center for organizing, teach ins, and low key demonstrations without large signs consisting of persons walking through downtown from the storefront maybe twice per week, with matching tee shirts. There will also be lectures, poetry slams, music, comedy, and other fun things held at the storefront. This will go on for the entire four years. That will be sustainable, because it will not just be resistance, but also fun and joyful.
Good question. I started bringing progressives together for picnics at my house every Saturday in DeLand, Florida since November 9th. At the next picnic I want to see if the storefront resistance headquarters idea excites everybody. If so, we will probably start making it happen. As for other cities, probably anybody who was part of a vigorous Occupy in 2011 will want to organize it, because we remember that energy.
As a college educator I can imagine his gang controlling any schools they say have "Marxist agendas" (and isn't that a quaint phrase?) by withdrawing their student loan approvals. Or at least they can threaten to unless the "radical" teachers and courses there were dropped. I suppose that would include climate change too, and of course forget about DEI. This certainly would be easier than having loyalty oaths.
But one thing not mentioned here is the hallmark of virtually every modern dictatorship, a secret police. America might be too big and varied for a formal Gestapo, Stasi or Kempeitai to work under cover, but I bet Patel's FBI could recruit millions to watch for and report on anyone who showed "disloyalty". And if necessary some of those so identified could easily be called "terrorists" with all that implies for their treatment. It certainly is a term what the last few administrations have used for any home grown foreign opposition. (In the early 1900s those who opposed the U.S. in places like the Philippines and Nicaragua were called "bandits".) Throw in the high tech capacities that the police and their institutional allies at all levels now have and we would have an organization that Himmler could only have dreamed of.
Inevitably, most of this country is NOT going to give in to the extremism and chaos that only 22 percent of the 336 million persons in America actually endorsed by voting for it. It is too rapid a shift, in too large a country, with too long a history of being democratic. Just look at their model for how to turn our media into one giant unchallenged Fox News: Not only does Hungary have very little history with democracy, but also their democracy collapsed when they were in the EU, so citizens can just move to other EU countries, which are close, because Hungary is surrounded by them, and it is only about as big as Indiana. And, one can still live in Hungary and easily receive broadcasts from the rest of the EU, which they are just an island in the middle of.
Similarly, the population... Hungary has only 9.6 million people,a number that has been dropping rapidly for decades. For comparison, our small state of New Jersey has about 9.2 million, and the US has a still increasing population of about 336 million!
Once again you have given me nightmares, and I haven’t slept well since Trump arrived on the scene. My first thought is to buy a gun while I still can. I weep for my country. Our founders are turning in their graves.
War... civil war may be one bad solution and it won't work if you have to fight the military and police. It will just eliminate millions of good americans. A dream for putin and trump!
The MAGA nuts have been talking about a civil war for quite a while now. After reading all this (again) civil war is beginning to sound like a good idea. There may not be any other choice at this point. Ben says all this was known before the election. "We" all knew about it and maybe some of the extremists on the far right were aware. But the word never reached millions of others. The media is to blame. But how did we get the media we have and why are they not our media or why aren't they willing to provide better and more truthful information? Are they responding to their audience? You know; the people who do not want to hear real facts and truth and who do not spend much time thinking or questioning authority?
It seems to me like now is a good time to stop using Facebook, so as to be less “public”. Your thoughts?
I’ve also noticed that in recent weeks, there seem to be more FB posts that have an intriguing page but you then have to open it and click on the link to see the rest of the story. That feels kind of fishy to me and I wonder if in doing that, information is being gathered somehow. ??
It MUST happen! Everybody needs to stop making excuses for remaining on Facebook and X. Tell your friends you are shifting to old fashioned ways of communicating, for your safety and mental health. If they don't want to interact with you in those older ways, then maybe they are not really friends.
I was on a call tonight with a group, Indivisible.org. They are helping people around the country organize groups in their communities to work together to fight back against Trump. MoveOn is doing similar work. We all need to get involved.
We should all get down our knees and give thanks to God (also Newt Gingrich, Ronald Reagan et al) for for bringing us this wonderful President to free us from the chains of civilization. Now we are free to live in a chaotic country rich in poverty, disease, violence and suffering. Or as Thomas Hobbes would put it "continual fear, danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
If authoritarian governance is what is desired by the people, let it be known that the Galactic Federation Council has announced that the Earth is already automatically a member. Problem is the billionaires and more none have been approached to be a member of the Earth council. Only decent individuals can be a member on the Earth council so world government is going to be imposed on those governing entities that fail the standards of decency. Failed nations will be replaced by those that do not desire democracy and self governance. It has only been 54 centuries since kings of men and not gods came into being starting in 3398 BCE. At that time cities were nations so mayors were kings. Nations are a modern construction and can easily be replaced. Kings of the world spiritual elites existed before this period and can be easily done again. Let the idiot false kings who call themselves Chosen take note.
All of this was known prior to Nov 5. Apparently, a shade under 50% of the voters were OK with it. By the way, the tRump-like president of South Korea just declared martial law in South Korea.
Fight back!!!
National emergeency? Russian psy ops attacked our sovereignity.
Short-term perspective: Yes, we must fight back as much as we possibly can against Trump and his initiatives.
Long-term perspective: No, middle class voters did not vote for Trump's initiatives, but rather against the economic and political status quo. The establishment (Democratic and Republican) have supported an economic system that has left the middle class behind. Ninety percent of Americans used to receive over 2/3 of America's income, today it is less than 1/2. Trends and projections are for this decline to continue. This is not fair and can't continue. We won't regain the support of the middle class until we fix this problem.
All of us, rich andpoor, are at threat. We just lost the cold war. BRIC and other entities are attacking our currency, trying to destroy our economy. These all seem to be on Trump team -- especially the Saudis, our "allies." Even the French!
Other countries have accused us of trying to inflate their currencies -- to bankrupt them, May have been true in Cuba in the 60s. Soviet Union.
They weren't ok or not ok with it, they were just not paying attention. A lot of them wanted to shake things up and didn't care about details. Well hang on, there will indeed be a shake-up but they may not like it.
I have been getting myself into darker and darker places in which finding a course forward is not seemingly possible. Everything said in this piece feels irrefutable. Getting active on social media is a guarantee of scrutiny by the regime that looms. Joining groups that can serve as "the resistance" feels like rearranging the chairs on the deck of the Titanic.
Everything I know and know anecdotally is irrelevant in the scenario that looms. You have to admit: This piece gives substance and proof to the alarming fears we shared before the election. A brilliantly conceived coup is on the verge of destroying America, of making America unlivable.
By the standards of what we still have, apparently, none of this is stoppable by law. What is clearly treasonous cannot be averted. We actually watched all of this coalesce, through the acts and actions of the Supreme Court, The Heritage Foundation and Trump/MAGA itself, seen it growing in strength and ominous threat, and have done NOTHING to stop it.
As I start my day as a retailer in the middle of the holiday season and trying to look forward, I find myself completely stopped in my tracks, frozen. I am painted into a corner, and I don't know what to do. Protestation is futile and pathetic. I have been distraught and bleak, knowing that an oncoming freight train is likely coming. Now I see the headlights.
SO many people have read the things I write on Facebook and either mocked me or felt the intensity of my aggravation, panic, anger, disgust and despair and urged me to lighten up. None my angst has made any difference, of course. Now I wonder if they haven't been right all along. I may recover. I hope I recover. But right now, I feel pretty bad.
One last thought: Why NOT declare martial law, right now, while there is still some sanity? What's to lose? Has there ever been a more dire threat to the United States of America? Am I REALLY in the place in which I fervently hope for a military intervention?!?!?
I can't see the economy continuing to function. Perhaps as many as 200 million of us are going to either actively boycott the economy as much as we can, or just not be in any mood to spend money and do things, because we are so upset. This may trigger a giant recession.
I prefer that over an economy that endorses the horrors by remaining healthy.
Nice idea but I doubt that it will happen. Look at the record black friday sales and Thanksgiving travel. People don't want to give this up.
Okay, then. if that much acquiescence is in the cards, I am ready for that too... I will immerse in nature, while I still have freedom of movement, and will still work locally to encourage my fellow progressives to start bonding in old face to face ways, because electronic media are about to become useless and dangerous.
And if I know I am targeted for openly opposing the cult- now-government, I will take my own life peacefully, rather than allow them the pleasure of secretly imprisoning me where nobody will know I have been sent. I will also, while still alive, wait for Radio Free US to start broadcasting from Canada. It will be a scary world of no access to truth from soon, until then. I will need what I just described -local face to face friendship, and nature, during that interval.
The outlook is indeed depressing but we can't give up. There are also other forces at work that may help to bring the trump system down. All of their agendas will definitely hasten climate change and destroy the economy. This might be the best outcome.
You nailed it! Our leaders are not fighting back! They fear for their lives!
but, an intervention to do what exactly? Democrats are inherently law abiding. I give credit to Biden for pardoning his son; I doubt that he'd go any further than that.
For the life of me Thom, I find myself nonplussed at the attitude of liberals,especially those in leadership positions, in politics and media, as they normalize or try to normalize Agenda 47, Project 2025 and Trump as just a rogue administration, and acting like we will get a chance to rectify an error in 2028.
They really don't take him and those agenda's seriously. We are staring at a future of the 4th Reich of the Rich, right in our face, it is not secret, it is not a conspiracy but our leaders,and of course the corporate media either ignores or normalizes it.
I can understand why the corporate media, aka MSM, is selling out, because they are corporate and have the same motive and agenda as all corporations, to not only produce a profit, but to survive.
That which really disheartens me are the Donna Brazelles, Paul Begala's, Robert Bigg's, James Carville's, Jaime Harrison's and even Robert Reich's, whose hair is not on fire, but are normalizing the theocratic fascism that is coming at us like a speeding freight train., by kvetching over each and every one of Trump's , preadtory and criminal cabinet and advisor choices.
They are all criminals, and they will all be confirmed. Chuck Schumer has already caved.
In a letter, the Democratic leader said members of his party would work with Republicans to consider the president-elect’s nominees — but asserted they should undergo traditional Senate vetting https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/02/us/schumer-senate-fbi-checks-trump-nominees.html
I assume that traditional senate vetting would include FBI background checks, which none of his cabinent picks have had, as he has paid for private vetting.
The problem is that they don't need FBI sugar coating the checks, and given that the FBI is staffed with conservatives and Trump humpers, Why even rely on,or trust them, there is more than adequate public knowledge available.
One way or another Trump will get his appointees. Gaetz did not pull out because he was a "dsitraction", every single one of his picks is a distraction. Gaetz pull out because it was part of a game plan, cooked up on AF one. He will be back on Jan 3rd, when congress is sworn in and then again as he is up and elected Speaker by the so called Freedom Caucus.
Because, the media is not 'liberal' The MSM is owned by the conservatives. Even CNN is republican owned. Until we buy our own broadcast TV station, we won't reach the 'masses' with our message. People are voting as if for a sports team; their thinking doesn't go any deeper than that.
I have done a who owns who many times on RR's substack. There is no such thing as an MSM, it is corporate media. All corporations are created for one purpose and that is to provide a postive rate of return for the investors.
Choose the corporation and then do a google search for instance who owns MSNBC, and you will get Comcast, then who owns Comcast inthis case you will get individual and institutional investors. So google who are the individual investors of Comcast, and you will Brian L. Roberts. do two things now, Google chairman an CEO of Comcast and you will get Brian L. Roberts, google Brian L Roberts and get his wikipedia page and learn all about him. Then google institutional investors in Comcast and you will get Vanguard, Blackrock, State street at the top of the list.
Now when you google institutional investors on other media,after you boil down the who owns who, you will find that Vanguard, Blackrock, State Street Group, are the major institutional investors in practically all media, as wellas in PhRMA, AHIP, Agriculture, defense industries, financial institutions.
As regards major individual investors in media, here we go, go to en.wikipedia.org
and search the following names
Brian L Roberts
Robert Iger
Newhouse Family
Sumner Redstone and his sister Shari Redston
Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr
Rupert Murdoch
Jeff Bezos
As Commanding Officer of The Communists, Marxists and the Radical Left Thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country Brigade, I vow our continued and unrelenting commitment to dream and scheme of a more normal type of world.
Racism is the spike protein that Donald used to regain entry into the gov't.
Imagine the gov't depts are cells.
Like the COVID-19 virus, Donald & Co. will turn each department into a virus factory, which generates Donald clones, to infect the government further.
And just as COVID does, once Donald's replicants have exhausted the depts, said depts, like organs will die.
And, then we'll be Russia. Drunk and broke.
In fact, when the people rise, as they will, rather than turn American troops loose on family and friends, Donald will, likely, have Vlad export some Russian troops into the USSA. Same as he (Vlad) did in Syria. Then some brigades of Orban's Hungarian stormtroopers. Maybe even some of Erik Prince's Congo-seasoned Blackwater scum. All would be imported to "take care" of the vermin/rabble.
"The Sorrow and the Pity" of it all, if you know what I mean.
And it started with Race hate — What a price to pay.
Sir, Okie Doke, we can beat them to it with the support of other freedom loving countries i.e Europe (NATO), Norway, Sweden, New Zealand, Iceland, Finland, Switzerland, Netherlands, Taiwan. we need to engage their support and other freedom loving countries that want to preserve their freedoms. NOW!
We need them to announce they are ready to offer asylum to our journalists and commentators who will be targeted for harassment and fake prosecution.
Mike, this will take an enormous organiztion and the only people I see that can do this are the democrats in congress.
Well, Thom, you've put the fear of death in my brain. When will Biden ask Europe and other democratic countries to get involved in the tRump takeover, as tRump has asked Russia and China to? This does not just affect the United states. It will change the lives of people all over the world. Surely, anyone reading the tea leaves knows this. When will the public rise up and have millions of people march? We need an army on our side that is interested in defending democracy against the military and national guard. Will the U.S allow what happened in Russia, Hungry, North Viet Nam, China to just let democracy vanish? Once tRump is in office, he can use his power to mow down these marchers. Organizing, mobilizing and energizing the world should have happened yesterday!
I thought what needs to happen are once weekly million person demonstrations on the National Mall, with hundreds of millions of Americans encouraged to commit to attending these over the next four years. But then I realized the DC government would not be able to deal with the security and expenses of perhaps 200 mass demonstrations in a row over four years. Instead, it is going to need to be permanent presences in every city and town downtown, like Occupy was, in places where it worked well, such as Dayton, Ohio where I was involved. The local progressives will rent a storefront, and make it a center for organizing, teach ins, and low key demonstrations without large signs consisting of persons walking through downtown from the storefront maybe twice per week, with matching tee shirts. There will also be lectures, poetry slams, music, comedy, and other fun things held at the storefront. This will go on for the entire four years. That will be sustainable, because it will not just be resistance, but also fun and joyful.
Mike, who will organize this and get it started?
Good question. I started bringing progressives together for picnics at my house every Saturday in DeLand, Florida since November 9th. At the next picnic I want to see if the storefront resistance headquarters idea excites everybody. If so, we will probably start making it happen. As for other cities, probably anybody who was part of a vigorous Occupy in 2011 will want to organize it, because we remember that energy.
Mike, there should be a Mike Monett in every city and state in America.
I think there probably are. And some people actually get MORE energized the worse things get. They baffle me, but I love them.
Mike, you've made an old lady very happy.
As a college educator I can imagine his gang controlling any schools they say have "Marxist agendas" (and isn't that a quaint phrase?) by withdrawing their student loan approvals. Or at least they can threaten to unless the "radical" teachers and courses there were dropped. I suppose that would include climate change too, and of course forget about DEI. This certainly would be easier than having loyalty oaths.
But one thing not mentioned here is the hallmark of virtually every modern dictatorship, a secret police. America might be too big and varied for a formal Gestapo, Stasi or Kempeitai to work under cover, but I bet Patel's FBI could recruit millions to watch for and report on anyone who showed "disloyalty". And if necessary some of those so identified could easily be called "terrorists" with all that implies for their treatment. It certainly is a term what the last few administrations have used for any home grown foreign opposition. (In the early 1900s those who opposed the U.S. in places like the Philippines and Nicaragua were called "bandits".) Throw in the high tech capacities that the police and their institutional allies at all levels now have and we would have an organization that Himmler could only have dreamed of.
Inevitably, most of this country is NOT going to give in to the extremism and chaos that only 22 percent of the 336 million persons in America actually endorsed by voting for it. It is too rapid a shift, in too large a country, with too long a history of being democratic. Just look at their model for how to turn our media into one giant unchallenged Fox News: Not only does Hungary have very little history with democracy, but also their democracy collapsed when they were in the EU, so citizens can just move to other EU countries, which are close, because Hungary is surrounded by them, and it is only about as big as Indiana. And, one can still live in Hungary and easily receive broadcasts from the rest of the EU, which they are just an island in the middle of.
Similarly, the population... Hungary has only 9.6 million people,a number that has been dropping rapidly for decades. For comparison, our small state of New Jersey has about 9.2 million, and the US has a still increasing population of about 336 million!
Mike, thanks for pointing out the other side of the looming threat.
Once again you have given me nightmares, and I haven’t slept well since Trump arrived on the scene. My first thought is to buy a gun while I still can. I weep for my country. Our founders are turning in their graves.
War... civil war may be one bad solution and it won't work if you have to fight the military and police. It will just eliminate millions of good americans. A dream for putin and trump!
The MAGA nuts have been talking about a civil war for quite a while now. After reading all this (again) civil war is beginning to sound like a good idea. There may not be any other choice at this point. Ben says all this was known before the election. "We" all knew about it and maybe some of the extremists on the far right were aware. But the word never reached millions of others. The media is to blame. But how did we get the media we have and why are they not our media or why aren't they willing to provide better and more truthful information? Are they responding to their audience? You know; the people who do not want to hear real facts and truth and who do not spend much time thinking or questioning authority?
It seems to me like now is a good time to stop using Facebook, so as to be less “public”. Your thoughts?
I’ve also noticed that in recent weeks, there seem to be more FB posts that have an intriguing page but you then have to open it and click on the link to see the rest of the story. That feels kind of fishy to me and I wonder if in doing that, information is being gathered somehow. ??
It MUST happen! Everybody needs to stop making excuses for remaining on Facebook and X. Tell your friends you are shifting to old fashioned ways of communicating, for your safety and mental health. If they don't want to interact with you in those older ways, then maybe they are not really friends.
Yikes! This is almost as bad as Joe pardoning Hunter.
What pray tell was bad about that? You must be a MAGAt
Adjust your sarcasm detector.
Sorry. There are so many idiots complaining about it that it is hard to tell. My apologies
I was on a call tonight with a group, Indivisible.org. They are helping people around the country organize groups in their communities to work together to fight back against Trump. MoveOn is doing similar work. We all need to get involved.
We should all get down our knees and give thanks to God (also Newt Gingrich, Ronald Reagan et al) for for bringing us this wonderful President to free us from the chains of civilization. Now we are free to live in a chaotic country rich in poverty, disease, violence and suffering. Or as Thomas Hobbes would put it "continual fear, danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
If authoritarian governance is what is desired by the people, let it be known that the Galactic Federation Council has announced that the Earth is already automatically a member. Problem is the billionaires and more none have been approached to be a member of the Earth council. Only decent individuals can be a member on the Earth council so world government is going to be imposed on those governing entities that fail the standards of decency. Failed nations will be replaced by those that do not desire democracy and self governance. It has only been 54 centuries since kings of men and not gods came into being starting in 3398 BCE. At that time cities were nations so mayors were kings. Nations are a modern construction and can easily be replaced. Kings of the world spiritual elites existed before this period and can be easily done again. Let the idiot false kings who call themselves Chosen take note.