I’m going to keep this short as I still have to do the Ukraine war update later and I’m very fried from work despite this being day 1 of my mini-staycation.
I want to make this very clear at the outset, this is not a victory lap. It is not an I told you so. I really don’t want to have to write this post at all. I am no happier than any of you.
Let’s start with where we are now.
Where we are now is a revolutionary movement that revolves around a revanchist, reactionary racist, antisemitic, Islamophobic, misogynist, homophobic, xenophobic, nativist, isolationist, and (white) Christian nationalist ideology fused with a cult of personality around the President-elect will soon have control of the executive branch, the Senate, most likely the House, the Supreme Court, a number of the federal appellate courts, and 25 state trifectas.
I think the model or heuristic for understanding what the President-elect’s second term will be like is a combination of two historical examples. The first is Yeltsin and Putin. Yeltsin was old, ill, and infirm from both his alcoholism and other health issues. Putin was an ambitious, angry, revanchist backed by (owned) by powerful and ultra-high net worth individuals. I think this is an apt description for the dynamic between Trump and Vance. History rhymes, it does not repeat, so this does not mean that Vance will eventually be president for life or anything.
The second is the fascist co-president that George Herbert Walker, Prescott Bush, and their co-conspirators wanted to force onto FDR in the first months of his first term of office in what is called the Business Plot. Vance is the vehicle for the current equivalents of Walker, Bush, and their co-conspirators – Thiel, Musk, the Uhliens, Zuckerberg, Bezos, etc – to quietly achieve their goals in the background while the President-elect does whatever he’s going to do in the foreground.
There is also going to be a LOT of chaos. Not everyone that is going to get a senior political appointment is on the same page. They all have their own agendas. There is going to be jockeying for position, the President-elect’s family members, including in-laws, are all going to want their pieces of the action or, at least ill gotten gains. And given how we’ve been watching the President-elect very visibly decline in real time over the past two months, there will be infighting over who is his actual, real successor. I fully expect the President-elect and his team to shiv RFK Jr as they don’t need him anymore.
The fight to be his successor will begin almost immediately. The President-elect’s movement is a cult of personality. But there’s no actual heir apparent to him. None of his children have what his followers see in him and want, which is a combination of anger, spite, bigotry, and entertainment. Same with other GOP officials and MAGA movement conservative elites and notables. Vance, DeStupid, Cotton, Scott, Cruz, etc all have the anger, spite, and bigotry, but they’re not entertaining. Youngkin is just boring. He presents as normal. With the exception of his youngest son, whom we only see so we have no idea if he can do entertaining, the President-elect’s other children don’t have the entertainment value and come off as whiny and spoiled, because they are whiny and spoiled. Stephen Miller has the anger, spite, and bigotry down to a science, but the President-elect’s movement isn’t going to move their allegiance to him because he’s Jewish. Musk is not entertaining at all. He’s just a black hole of entitled, coddled, failed his way upward neediness. Thiel hits the same repellent cords as Rick Scott. Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Green seem to hit all the characteristics like the President-elect, and as I’ve speculated here before I could see either of them making a play for his mantle, but I don’t know if either could or would pull it off.
After the jump I’m going to go through how we got here and why I thought it was likely we would get here.
Sunday night – 2 NOV – Cole texted and asked:
Are you feeling more or less confident about the election?
This was my answer with light copy editing (emphasis mine):
Mixed. Harris, Walz, and most of her team have done a great job. Anita Dunn and the other legacy 3rd way/triangulation asshats they got saddled with by Biden are making their usual milquetoast mess.
And Nate Cohn from 538 came out today and basically said that since the pollsters screwed up their models so badly in 2016 and 2020, no matter how good the results are for Harris or Dems in the raw returns, they’re reweighing everything to either go 50-50 or lean Trump.
What worries me is all the same things that haven’t changed. Extreme gerrymanders, voter suppression, voter purging, McConnell’s and Leo’s packed federal appellate and supreme courts, ultra-high net worth asshole’s money (Musk, Mellon,. Adelson, Thiel, Uhlien, etc), law enforcement being all on board not just with Trump, but with using violence on his behalf, and the subversion of municipal and state election boards and staff over the past four years through violence, the threats of violence, and the establishment of a competitive system of control.
I’m not sure that all of those structural worries can be overcome by an excellent campaign, excellent ground game, and excellent enthusiasm.
And I didn’t even get to the Russian, Israeli, PRC, DPRK, Sauid, Emirati, and Iranian interference on Trump’s behalf.
I’m cautiously optimistic, but very concerned.
The reason I was very concerned, the reason I had written here many times since 2022 that what has happened was going to happen, is that I was using a different model to try to understand what was and is going on. Specifically, Bernard Fall’s model of revolutionary warfare:
Revolutionary Warfare=Guerrilla Warfare+Political Action (RW=GW+PA)
Counter-Revolutionary Warfare=Counter-Guerrilla Warfare+Counter-Political Action+Civic Action (CRW=CGW+CPA+CA)
As I wrote last night, what you all did here was amazing! You should be proud as hell of what you did. But what you all did was civic action and civic action along cannot counter what we have been and are experiencing.
Almost none of the elected and appointed officials who were supposed to do the Counter-Guerrilla Warfare and the Counter-Political Action did. DOJ, DHS, FBI, etc are all still missing in action. The few who tried, like the Colorado Secretary of State in invoking the 14th Amendment, had their Counter-Political Action countered by the Supreme Court.
Nothing was actually done to stop the people who actually planned the insurrection and attack on the Capitol on 6 January 2021. We’ve got about 575 nobodies and about two dozen senior Oath Keepers and Proud Boys arrested, charged, tried, convicted, and mostly sentenced. The President-elect, his senior aides and trusted agents, the dozen or so Republican members of the House, and the 1/2 dozen Republican senators who we know actually planned the events of that day because we have them on news video going to and leaving the White House where it was being planned have never been and will never be held to account. These folks are an insider threat. They were not deterred because nothing was actually done to deter to them. And, as a result, the revolt that we all watched on 6 January 2021 never ended. It is still ongoing led by the same senior GOP elected and appointed officials involved in its planning. As a result, a revolutionary government will be sworn in and take control of the US in January 2025.
Counter-Revolutionary Warfare=Counter-Guerrilla Warfare+Counter-Political Action+Civic Action.
Open thread!
Jay
Thank you, Adam.
Adam L Silverman
@Jay: You’re welcome.
hrprogressive
So, what can we do about it?
Even if that’s not your specific area of expertise – are there good sources you can recommend?
You’ve repeatedly told me you’re only continuing to write here for Ukraine because you promised Cole you would, so even getting this post is a little outside of that norm. So, if that’s too far outside of your scope, I understand.
The thing is –
My first gut reaction is to prepare for the worst, and it means exactly what you think it does.
I truly don’t see how this country avoids that fate, but, strangely enough, because the Fascist Right isn’t going to have to try Coup 2 the same way, I think some of that is likely delayed a little bit, but I’m not an expert, I could be wrong.
I’m angry, but I’m not stupid.
And I’d quite honestly like to either be wrong, or to see what I’m worried about be delayed for as long as possible.
But, we’re going to need more than “Just vote!” or Resistance Twitter/Twitter Clone because those things clearly failed us.
And honestly, any resources on both Step 1 and what I imagine Step 2 ends up being…you know, that’d be great.
pika
Thank you, Adam
Erin
My empathy meter is on empty. I’ve spent my whole life caring about trying to make lives better for everyone. Lift all boats and all that. But the majority of Americans clearly don’t mind a little suffering, AS LONG AS SOMEONE ELSE IS SUFFERING WORSE. Well fuck all those people. I got mine, and I will use it to protect my people, my communities, my loved ones, and everyone else can go fuck themselves. Can’t get help from a miscarriage when you voted for Trump? GOOD. See your illegal immigrant parents get kicked out of the country when you voted for Trump? GOOD. Lose your jobs because tariffs went so high when you voted for Trump? GOOD, FUCKING GREAT. I’m done with those people.
I’m only going to care about those people who have demonstrated with their votes and their actions that they also care about me.
Sigh. I hate what this election has turned me into.
Elizabelle
Doesn’t it count for something that it is a revolutionary government with severely unappealing policies?
Because there are more people who voted against, or [fuckers who] didn’t vote at all, than those who support this “revolutionary government.”
Really depressing situation for us to be in. But Americans actually like their Medicare and Social Security (earned, by age and work, unlike Medicaid for those grifters and — oh yeah, nursing home residents).
I am sad that France was able to get their election right, and that the USA failed because we have so many idiots, apathetic people, and those who know stuff that just is not true, period.
Sad for Ukraine, sad for Americans’ financial security, and sad for losing another 4 years to prepare for and try to mitigate what we can of climate change.
SpaceUnit
I suspect we’re about to see a big uptick in the involvement of Russian organized crime as a secret enforcement arm in US governance. I think what we’re witnessing here is the installation of Putin’s puppet regime. God help us.
Bobby Thomson
In retrospect, defending Merrick Garland during the term was as shameful as defending Bob Barr before he took the office. And I will never, ever understand why Chris Wray wasn’t immediately fired on Day One.
HinTN
@Adam L Silverman: Where do you think the professional military fits into this?
Also too, thank you for your candor and your professional opinion, not to mention your daily Ukraine updates. (Another question on this later.)
frosty
Your first section about the chaos, the infighting for a successor, and the inadequacy of most of the potential ones mentioned, made me feel a little relief about the next four years.
The second section about the war we’re fighting, the failure of the political action, and calling this a revolutionary government, took the relief away.
Thanks for this summary. I know you’re knackered and busy but it was very helpful.
ETA: I’m also very angry for the lack of accountability for the Representatives and Senators who planned the coup. Especially Scott Perry who just won his fucking reelection by ~6,000 votes DESPITE my postcards and canvassing, dammit!
HinTN
@Bobby Thomson:
Because Joe is a traditionalist. (Not a dig at him, just an assessment.)
BeautifulPlumage
Thank you, Adam, for this and all the education about RU & propaganda & all the rest.
I’m still mulling this election but can see that the coming chaos means I shouldn’t worry about speculative problems.
SpaceUnit
I like to think of myself as a pretty steady and resilient guy but I’m a basket case right now. Completely dysfunctional.
Weftage
Will Trump wait until Jan 20 to send out the goon platoons? I fully believe he’s going to engage in a massive repression, and that everyone he deems an enemy will be imprisoned or executed. That will include all elected Democratic officials, both federal and state.
Please convince me that I’m being stupid and paranoid.
Gloria DryGarden
Teach us, help us learn. I’m listening. Not good at this sort of thing, but urgent times…
Mathguy
This assessment is really appreciated-it’s not something I’ve seen anywhere else and gets to the core of the problem. Thank you.
Zelma
This reminds me nothing so much as Chavez in Venezuela. He and his cohorts planned a coup and it failed. At least they were tried and imprisioned. But then in a moment of amazing stupidity, a government seeking popularity gave them amnesty. (I can’t remember the exact circumstances.). And the rest is history.
At least the Venezuelans who supported Chavez had an excuse: the government had failed to deal with serious problems. Americans have no such excuse.
BTW, I was struck by a comment in one of the threads below that many Venezuelan and Cuban refugees have no problem with the idea of a caudillo. Indeed, they probably think it’s a good idea. Democratic values have no roots in most of Latin America.
Elizabelle
@SpaceUnit: That is beyond chilling.
Elizabelle
@Weftage: Jesus Christ.
And: they will start with YOU!
Lyrebird
Hear hear, that anger sure sounds right on to me!
I fear we will never get any closer to a suitable house cleaning at Secret Service at this point, but who knows. Not something I have any leverage over.
Adam L Silverman
@hrprogressive: Do not pre-submit. Do not capitulate. Do little things for yourself and others that are small acts of resistance.
The reason I never answer the question you and others ask is that if those who are supposed to counter guerrilla warfare and political action – elected and appointed officials – don’t, then the citizenry only has four options:
I’m not advocating or suggesting option four and I don’t imagine anyone here would be interested in trying it either, but these are the choices. Self defense as a form of violent self help is not on the list because, should it actually become necessary for any individual, it has its own legal and moral justifications. As in if someone violently attacks you, retreat to safety is not an option, and you can defend yourself you have the legal right to do so.
Adam L Silverman
@pika: You’re welcome.
Weftage
@Elizabelle: I’d be way down the list, I expect. But I’m concerned for the incoming legislators, and for state governors, like mine in Oregon, who are Dems.
They will also have orgs like Planned Parenthood (a perennial RW whipping-post) in their sights.
frosty
@Zelma: Our online Spanish teacher is from Venezuela. His comment to us today was “I feel like I’ve already lived this future.”
Omnes Omnibus
People, DO NOT POST YOUR RESISTANCE PLANS ON THIS OR ANY ONLINE SITE.
frosty
@Weftage: First, TFG won’t be president before January 20th, so no, that’s not going to happen on your timeline. Second, you’re being paranoid. See Adam’s first few paragraphs on the probable competence and teamwork of our new government.
Elizabelle
@Omnes Omnibus: No kidding.
Terry
@Erin: How you feel is echoed by many. I’ll take it further:
Adam L Silverman
@Elizabelle:
That will depend on how quickly they try to and how effective they are in consolidating power, rooting out opposition, stifling dissent, and remaking election processes, structures, and systems. A lot of the work that Putin, Orban, Erdogan had to do after they came to power – the subversion of the judiciary and law enforcement for instance – has already been done in advance here. We don’t know how quickly they are going to move to remake the US into a managed, illiberal democracy. As BettyC wrote in the previous post, the governing models are going to be Florida, Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, Ohio, and the other GOP trifecta states.
Adam L Silverman
@Bobby Thomson: An over valuation on norms that had long ago been destroyed. And on demonstrating them in the belief that by doing so, the GOP would learn to return to a normally behaving center right party. Durbin’s stupid recognition of GOP blue slips for judiciary nominations is a prime example.
Geminid
@Weftage: I can tell the Trumpers are really after Alexander Vindman and his brother, Congressman-elect Eugene Vindman. The two Vindmans’ social media accounts are rife with people promising them they will be arrested for Treason once Trump is sworn in.
Adam L Silverman
@HinTN: The President-elect won the popular and electoral college vote. There is not even a suggestion of any irregularities. The military is under legitimate civilian control. It will follow the President-elect’s and his senior appointees’ orders.
Adam L Silverman
@frosty: You hit the nail on the head with Perry. There is no way one can stretch the Speech and Debate clause far enough to continue to use it to prevent going through his personal communications regarding the planning and execution of the insurrection and attempted autogolpe. That is not part of the official duties of a member of Congress, it wasn’t communication in the well of the House, in committee chambers, in his offices. But for almost four years the DOJ and FBI have barely done anything because they’ve tied themselves into knots trying to ensure that they don’t violate the Speech and Debate clause in investigating him.
This is the category error of category errors. He’s an insider threat and should be treated like one.
Adam L Silverman
@BeautifulPlumage: You’re welcome.
Weftage
@frosty:
Yes, those were heartening (for some values of “heartening,” in these circumstances). But even the Keystone Kops could do a lot of damage.
What I’m likely to do here is believe simultaneously that I’m paranoid, and that there’s a real possibility of what I described happening. Now I just need four more impossible things, and I’ll have breakfast.
Adam L Silverman
@SpaceUnit: Hang in there. You, and the rest of us, have a few months to work out what each of us is going to do come January. You have a little time. Pace yourself and take care of yourself.
Steve LaBonne
@Weftage: The Nazi regime had plenty of chaos and infighting, so I wouldn’t take too much comfort from that part.
RaflW
Right now, my suggestion (FWIW), is to do as much as you can now to strengthen your local community and networks. Bake a store-bought lasagne, make a box cake, and grab some wine and 3 or 4 friends and have dinner. Weekly (you can vary the menu). Point is, it’s not haute cuisine — but if that’s your thing, go for it. You can vary the guest list, too, and maybe go out to eat (though over time, being at home might be more secure for some conversations). Being in frequent social connection will be deeply valuable in staying as sane as possible in a crazed world.
Get active in a community based org (church/congregation, civic org, library volunteer, PTA, whatever). Authoritarianism thrives on atomized, alienated people. We need to not be those people.
Be on the lookout for experienced, local organizers, and be open to listening to them and trying to pick up a few of the tasks they have, or just flow them some funds. People who have already been doing the work, on the ground, to resist the casualties of cruel capitalism, granular racism, local homophobia or even library book banning will have already developed skill sets that will transfer to resisting Trumpist attacks. Align with some of them.
eta: I hope this is generic enough to not be resistance plans. If so, Adam, feel free to nuke my post from space.
Adam L Silverman
@Weftage: I don’t think you’re being either. I do think you’ll see an increase in both threats and actual violence over the next several months. These folks are sore losers and even more sore winners. But it won’t be coordinated yet. He and his trusted agents and surrogates won’t have control until January.
Adam L Silverman
@Gloria DryGarden: I generally get yelled at around here when I do that.
That said, not sure what I can teach you or anyone else on this.
p.a.
Oh noes Adam, you criticized Garland! Don’t you know he had to take his time and make the cases against the pipsqueaks and pawns airtight before he could work his way up the chain? We were told that every time someone brought up the “where is the DoJ?” issue. And actually going after elected officials? Why… that could really hurt reelection efforts.
Adam L Silverman
@Zelma: The first waves of Cubans that came to Florida were Bautista supporters. They weren’t fleeing his repression, they were fleeing because he was overthrown.
Jay
@Gloria DryGarden:
Even though Omnes says we shouldn’t,
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: Exactly!
p.a.
@RaflW: Remember “Drinking Liberally”? the get-togethers after W’s election?
Weftage
@Adam L Silverman: Thank you. I suppose I should add “and don’t panic in advance, either!” to Prof. Snyder’s advice.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jay: You know damn well that wasn’t what I was talking about.
Adam L Silverman
@p.a.: I’m aware.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
I feel guilty for even asking this, because I know there are people in much more mortal danger than I probably ever could be, but…
How much danger am I realistically in, even as a youngish white male, who is listed as Dem on voter registration (because of how I vote in primaries) and belong to a union? I’m also unmarried and not in any relationship.
ETA: I have a tendency to speak my mind and speak candidly if I think someone or something is morally wrong. Sometimes I worry I might say the wrong thing to the wrong person some day
raven
@Adam L Silverman:
@Omnes Omnibus:
Maintain a low profile.
sentient ai from the future
thanks for the post.
i’m trying to figure out actions i can look for to indicate what kind of posture i will need to take, as the parent of a transgender child in a deep blue urban area of a deep blue state.
legislation takes a while to get going, pass, and then ramp up enforcement.
so i’m sort of keying in on executive orders or withdrawl thereof, and pardons.
i expect that i will also probably be looking at the federal register pretty regularly, maybe there are other indicia of an imminent threat requiring damn-the-torpedoes flight that i should be aware of? other publications i should be looking at? (not news coverage, i mean public bulletin type things)
A Librarian
One thing a colleague asked me today is what possible role unions — especially given the stated plans regarding collective bargaining and the like — could play in the coming years.
It’s complicated, of course, especially as even within my own union, there are those that fully support the return of Trump, but then you also have the work that UAW and others have been doing in terms of organizing and building up numbers.
Adam, any insights as to what could realistically be expected when it comes to organized labor’s potential role in all of this?
raven
fuck it
Adam L Silverman
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): You should’ve moved to Lichtenstein six years ago.//
More seriously, you are most likely going to be fine. Or as fine as anyone will be given the President-elect’s economic policy proposals are stupid and will cause a lot of damage to the US and global economy if enacted.
Jay
@Omnes Omnibus:
I doubt that anyone here will choose Adam’s #4.
Adam L Silverman
@raven: Little late for that for me. Several of my former bosses are members of National Security Leaders for American (formerly National Security Leaders for Biden) and I’ve been posting here for over a decade. Also, while I’m a 50 something upper middle class straight cis gender white male who works for the military, I’m also Jewish and my specialty is low intensity warfare.
strange visitor (from another planet)
adam, when you say “no irregularities”, what about the multiple bomb threats in democratic districts across the battleground states
eta- oh, i’m an ass. thank you for your continued work.
Adam L Silverman
@A Librarian: I don’t know. Unions in the US had a long history of militancy and violent self help. But that was a long time ago and I don’t expect that’ll see a come back. Except from the law enforcement and police unions, where it is still an ongoing reality.
Eolirin
@sentient ai from the future: What you really need to look out for, in addition to things regarding legislative moves to attack trans people, is for the crack down on media, on political opposition, and on insufficiently loyal Republicans.
If we start seeing them taking actions to suppress, silence, or disappear those people, we know they’re going to start getting rolling on coming for the rest of us.
raven
@Adam L Silverman: Well, I guess you could have MS like I do! It’s taken me five years to figure out what’s wrong with me and now I know.
raven
@Adam L Silverman: And then there were the “hard hat riots”.
p.a.
@Adam L Silverman: And that’s doubling the guilt! 65 y.o. straight white male here, and I’m sick that I can’t just worry about their actual targets, but because tRump is an economic idiot I have to spend time trying to protect my income sources beyond even just worrying about Social Sec & Medicare. The gold standard!?!? JFC
Adam L Silverman
@strange visitor (from another planet): No official, Democrat or Republican, is claiming that those acts of (Russia’s world) war against the US had any actual effect on the outcome. What I meant by irregularities was vote tampering, vote manipulation, that sort of thing.
Jeffro
yup
or as Jamelle Bouie puts it, “none of them have the juice”
or as I put it, they’re all so clearly fake, damaged, or lacking in 4+ decades worth of showmanship and grifting that trumpov had that everyone can see right through them…which doesn’t create nearly the same false feeling of “winning” that trumpov creates in his supporters.
sentient ai from the future
@Adam L Silverman:
and on that note, i am really apprehensive about liquidating my investments until it’s actually apparent that the wall street love affair with this shithead is going to devolve. i can and will and expect to need living expenses if it gets that bad.
but withdrawl from NATO will also destabilize the euro, and i dont know what other currencies to hedge into or how to make straightforward fixed-income foreign investments.
i will take some losses just to be able to have something usable if i need to cross borders with a kid, and its hard for me to see what that might be. it absolutely is not gold or crypto, i know that much.
Splitting Image
@hrprogressive:
One thing that I’ve been doing is directing people to Mr. Silverman’s posts on this here blog.
And thank you, Adam, for all of your work here over the years. I’m a bit smarter for reading your posts, if not always happier.
Adam L Silverman
@raven: Yep. Molly Maguires. Lot’s of violent union actions often matched by violent responses.
Butter Emails!
What about Flynn as the heir apparent? He’s in deep with the cult and it wouldn’t surprise me to see him put in charge of our nation’s intelligence apparatus.
raven
@Adam L Silverman: And sometimes directed at the left.
Adam L Silverman
@p.a.: It’s like living through a cross between Idiocracy and the Fall of Rome, but with the Internet and streaming services.
SC54HI
Thank you, Adam. A helpful post. Got through the grief & shock pretty quickly this time and am moving through the cold rage phase towards accepting the grim reality.
Protecting those I love & care about is my top priority but I am not even sure how to do that, especially because I now realize no one will save us. Perhaps, though, that’s a safer place to be than hoping someone will.
p.a.
@Jeffro: Has any fascist movement had a clear successor after the dopamine rush of dear leader? If they survive past #1 at all (maybe S. American “a succession of colonels”)
RaflW
@A Librarian: I’ve searched my browser history and came up empty, maybe it was a Bsky thread, but yeah, I did see a write up some time in the past 48h saying that union organizing in one’s workplace may be a useful strategy.
One problem, likely to get worse given the RW courts, is that employers will probably throw a lot of roadblocks at the effort, and that may sap energy better directed elsewhere. So, IDK. Maybe? (Sorry I can’t be more helpful in the moment.)
strange visitor (from another planet)
@Adam L Silverman: surely some people didn’t get back on line after their polling sites were closed. i dunno if those numbers would’ve made a difference in the popular vote for 1600, but how could everyone be so confident about the tallies of the house races?
EZSmirkzz
If you’re this paranoid then you might want to read about German resistance movements to the Nazis, like the white rose. Obviously I’m not there yet.
RaflW
@SC54HI: We will save us. As in, you’re correct that institutions won’t save us. Their failures have been mounting for years and years.
Only solidarity and networked communities can save us, usually at rather granular levels. Mass movements, once the shit hitting the fan / leopards eating faces part gets societally exhausting enough, could save or really redirect-rebuild whatever this nation is by then.
Splitting Image
@p.a.:
North Korea managed to establish a dynasty. But yeah, other examples are few and far between.
Adam L Silverman
@Splitting Image: Thank you for the kind words. You are most welcome.
Adam L Silverman
@Butter Emails!: It’s possible, but he’s too angry, too erratic, and too far out there. Also, he’s making too much money from the grift.
Adam L Silverman
@raven: Yep.
Adam L Silverman
@SC54HI: You’re welcome.
Adam L Silverman
@p.a.: The Kim’s in North Korea. Yes, there are still elements of Marxism, Leninism, and Maoism in the Juche concept, but it is really a Kim family centric fascistic movement.
RaflW
@p.a.: No joke, I was busy trying to get sober then. So, no I don’t.
Looking it up briefly now, I’d say that’s not what I mean. I am talking about strengthening the connections we already have. Sure, adding in a few people who get connected via trust networks is fine.
And one goal should certainly be convivial. But that Bush-era thing sounds like an excuse to go out to bars. I mean dig in and get deeper with people who will have your back and who you’re willing to stand up for.
Covid atomized many of those relationships, at least I feel like that’s been the case for parts of my network. We’ve been rebuilding, having bbqs and pontoon rides and dinner parties just because they’re nice and we like being social. But we’re gonna get a little more intentional and active on that.
Adam L Silverman
@EZSmirkzz: I’m well aware of their history.
And who told you I’m that paranoid?
Jeffro
just racking my brains for a moment, while taking all of the above good advice into account…here are some of the things (in no particular order) that might come into play as trumpov goes full-on revenge fascist mode:
In short, I feel like it’s much more likely that the whole country grinds to a halt at some point in the next 24 months, wracked by economic collapse (or near-collapse) and constitutional crisis. I’m sure that’s a partial failure of imagination, or perhaps being overly imaginative in the wrong direction – perhaps many more folks and institutions will simply capitulate. But between big business and the military, I’m having a hard time seeing it.
And then…? Impeachment III ? 25th Amendment? Who knows?
hrprogressive
The thing is,
“Adam’s #4” would almost be closer to #1 for me, but only if people were able to, you know, unite against it and say “We said we aren’t going back, we meant it”.
I understand what that sounds like I’m advocating, but the thing is, I really don’t know what an effective countermeasure(s) is/are here.
The right has spent the last generation slowly consolidating various forms of soft power (the media, big corporations, etc) and are now poised to consolidate a lot of hard power.
A lot of “swing voters” are mad they didn’t get ahead, and instead of blaming billionaires, they blamed Biden.
The people who actively want to burn the place down only want that because they think they will survive the inferno.
I don’t think they should be able to get away with that, but short of accelerating something kinetic, I don’t know how one does that.
So, falling back to that as “Option 4” is preferred, but, also one I think a lot more people need to be ready to engage in, if (when, IMO) it comes to that.
I think too many on the center and left don’t really recognize that level of danger is really real.
I also don’t think emigrating out of the US is anything other than delaying the inevitable, because the Global Fascist Movement around the world has been coordinating this in plain sight.
So yeah.
Adam L Silverman
I’ll be back in a bit. I’ve got to get the Ukraine war update done.
KatKapCC
@Adam L Silverman: This should be one of those slogans up top, though it might be too long.
eemom
@p.a.:
Thank you. One of the reasons I stopped coming here some years back was disgust at the knee jerk apologism for that ballsless chickenshit coward.
He could have fucking prevented this horror, had he not been a ballsless chickenshit coward.
Hope he enjoys his watching a new generation of fascists take seats on the supreme court that was stolen from him.
hrprogressive
Adam I have one other direct question –
What do you make of Dave Troy claiming they may well crash the entire global economy and “make the dollar worthless” with lightning speed?
Because I gotta be honest, if the vast swath of not just American, but global society takes the level of dive that they can’t afford anything anymore, we’re gonna speed run “Option 4” pretty damn quick.
But I also find his claim…not “out there” but I just think the rich like being rich and crashing the global economy because Elon Musk said so is bad for their wealth.
Eolirin
@hrprogressive: Option 4 is the only option that has a chance of changing anything, though realistically, those odds are very low. It is also the option that gets you killed for sure, is wildly illegal and requires critical mass to have a chance of success, yes. That’s a large part of why it almost never works.
No one can recommend or suggest anyone takes that option. And anything to do with it should never be discussed in an open forum such as this.
Draco7
Thank you, Adam – for this post as well as the Ukraine posts (which I read consistently).
I grew up with dirty politics as my father was an elected official. Essentially the same people were doing the same things then as they are now, and I never developed an expectation that things were on the up and up. I see (or think I do) that there are many folks browsing BJ looking for some kind of comfort or direction. All are welcome to argue the point(s), but I would like to emphasize what a few other commenters have noted, and seeing some acceptance of that would start to comfort me.
The dog has caught the car; maybe doesn’t know what to do with it, but why would a dog care? The main takeaway for me is that I cannot expect free and fair elections from this point onward. I’m familiar enough with these people to know that if I were them, I most certainly would attend to that business if nothing else. I’d need to get that nailed down to carry out the plan, whatever might be anticipated would take more than 2-4 years.
Having said that, I don’t intend to accept that. Rather, I’d want to acknowledge it now in order to start structuring process monitoring and fast reaction. Of course, I couldn’t do that by myself, but the first step is acknowledging that this will be a focus. I have no idea what, if anything, would be successful in response but there’s little chance of remediation otherwise – at least near term.
The words that freak me out no matter who is saying them are “Oh, they won’t/can’t do that.”. Yes, they can – even if what they’re doing doesn’t seem to make sense. They are obeying the will of…the Almighty? Who knows, but we are dealing with True Believers.
Eolirin
@hrprogressive: I don’t know that it is bad for their wealth, actually. Like in absolute value, sure, but what a lot of people like Musk and Thiel are after isn’t so much getting ever higher dollar amounts, but ever greater amounts of power over everyone else. And in that kind of a crisis, the relative value of their wealth increases even if the absolute value goes down a little.
It also would make it much easier for Putin to complete a take over of Europe.
p.a.
@eemom: That’s the real 😳 He got screwed out of his spot and then… oh well, bygones! Mulligan! Not taking it personally! Must maintain institutional norms despite what happened to me!
Reminds me of the old The Onion article: “ACLU Defends Right of Nazis to Burn Down ACLU HQ.”
Adam L Silverman
@hrprogressive: I go back and forth on Dave Troy is reporting something interesting and Dave Troy is posting his delusions without any sourcing.
That said, if they do this inane and economically insane tariff regime, they’re going to tank the US economy and, most likely, the global one. I have no really good idea what happens then other than a lot of immiseration.
Viva BrisVegas
@hrprogressive: After every global economic downturn in my lifetime, the very rich have come out the other end owning an ever larger proportion of the economy.
I don’t think they fear a global depression.
hrprogressive
@Eolirin:
All I am saying is that the Fascist right has made no small effort to hide their desire to quite literally exterminate wide swaths of the population they find undesirable.
To not even consider that, and an appropriate in-kind response, is foolish.
But in terms of maintaining OPSEC, as it were, I agree.
Jay
@hrprogressive:
“Everybody” outside the US is making plans for Dolt45 2.0, while at the same time, talking “down” the effects that it will have, to avoid panic.
A Librarian
@Adam L Silverman: That’s fair. Of course, that the unions that are likeliest to engage in #4 are also the unions likeliest to support whatever is to come is its own thing to deal with, barring any threat to their own rights to unionize. (Then again, it wouldn’t surprise me to see an absence of carve-outs for those unions once moves start being taken against labor…)
hrprogressive
@Adam L Silverman:
That’s kind of my thinking too. He says some stuff that seems right on the mark, and then other times…I have to wonder.
IMO a big difference between “Ridiculous tariffs and inflation ruining the economy” which would be Very Bad Indeed and “destroying the Fed, shunting the US Treasury to BitCoin, and destroying the value of the dollar.
Thanks.
hrprogressive
@Viva BrisVegas:
Ordinarily I’d agree, but if the dollar becomes a useless currency, I think even the hyper rich would have an issue with that.
Peal
@Terry: on your number 4, China can’t call in our debt, and even if they could, we’d just “print more dollars” to pay them. China could stop buying our debt, and that might be a problem, but over the past decade, the amount of debt China holds has decreased from 1.2 trillion to 800 billion. They can’t really threaten to stop buying what they don’t buy.
strange visitor (from another planet)
@Adam L Silverman: after reading your posts for a while now, i have always thought that the tariff plan was always about shattering the global economy and the dollar as the reserve currency at moscow’s behest.
in addition to abandoning NATO, wouldn’t that kneecap america and be just what is expected of putin’s puppet?
A Librarian
@RaflW: So, as a member of a union local with a largely white membership but a largely WOC activist core, I do suspect that there will be some movement in that direction — that there will be more of a push from a community-building and support standpoint, even with the very likely challenges coming down the pike for public sector unions like ours. (Full disclosure: our national is already sending out messaging along these lines.)
I’m just wondering more broadly if the organized labor movement will have to occupy that sort of sphere, especially as future union growth is now very likely stymied otherwise.
If you do find that thread, please share — sounds like it could be a good read.
Eolirin
@hrprogressive: In case you missed my blow up earlier today, and I’m making an exception to not posting here for the foreseeable future only on Adam’s posts, I got your point, and am in full agreement with it.
It’s not that it’s not necessary for a lot of people to do it if we’re going to avoid that. But you still can’t suggest to people to do that. For moral, legal and operational reasons.
hrprogressive
@Eolirin:
@Eolirin:
I didn’t see that, but I get it. I do.
But yeah.
Eolirin
@hrprogressive: People doing election analysis and treating this like a moment we need to figure out how to adjust our messaging strategies around for future elections feels so tonedeaf and pointless to my non-binary queer jewish tuchus.
And I said as much. In an awful lot of words.
hrprogressive
@Eolirin:
I’m a boring cishet straight white guy and I would agree with your sentiment.
I don’t know what the future will end up looking like
But there’s a lot of white guys who might look like me who would be shocked to find me not on their side, is all.
Ohio Mom
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Ah, the curses of being neurodiverse (for one, blurting things out when your sense of justice is offended). Try hard to squash yourself, you are capable of learning new skills. And don’t let your natural anxiety get the better of you.
Rooting for you, as always.
frosty
@raven: OT but I’m glad you got a diagnosis. I remember that not knowing has been driving you crazy for awhile.
Adam L Silverman
@strange visitor (from another planet): Part of Putin’s goals have always been a leveling. To bring the US, the EU and its member states down to the level of Russia. This might do it.
minachica
@Adam L Silverman: International crab-bucket politics?
YY_Sima Qian
@Adam L Silverman: Thank you Adam, for the very informative read, and the very sobering reminder of the 4 courses of actions for average citizens.
One minor quibble, I recall US intelligence community’s assessment was that Iran was influencing against Trump (should not be surprising), & the PRC was conducting extensive espionage against both campaigns but not attempting to influence things either way (since Beijing expects either administration to continue to intensify the Great Power Competitions, present dangers and opportunities in different ways).
YY_Sima Qian
@Peal: As long as the PRC is running large trade surpluses, balance of payment means it must continue to accumulate foreign exchange, much of it in USD. While the PRC’s holding of treasury notes have dropped, its dollar denominated holdings remain very large.
Consensus among analysts of the PRC economy expects aggressive devaluation of the RMB if Trump goes through w/ his threat of 60% tariff levy, both to partially counteract the tariff, & to mitigate capital flight from expectations of gradual devaluation.
Viva BrisVegas
@hrprogressive: Well before the dollar ever becomes useless, the ultra rich will have moved out of it into euros, or Bitcoin, or New Zealand Real estate, or Rembrandts or whatever. They can do that a hell of a lot quicker than Trump can tank the US economy.
For the ultra rich an economic recession is a fire sale. Bargains galore!
Eolirin
@Adam L Silverman: An unintended side effect of that will of course be that it’ll bring Russia further down too.
The only possible end result of that kind of strategy is a world in ruin.
But that’s kind of besides the point I suppose.
This might be one area where there’s significant fighting between the various internal factions.
But one thing that’s of significant concern to me is that going by emails and texts that were made public during Musk’s legal fight with Twitter over whether he had to actually buy it, and the leaked WhatApp chat of the people in Erik Prince’s orbit, is that a lot of the business and billionaire people that are in this movement are incredibly stupid.
It’s very hard to predict the behavior of people who don’t understand much about what they’re doing. They might not see this as likely to create massive economic ruin even to their own industries.
Adam L Silverman
@minachica: Pretty much.
Ohio Mom
@Jay: One of my mother’s cousins was in the European underground in WWII. I don’t know any details but growing up, everyone was very proud of him. He ended up in L.A. — we were in NYC, which is why I never heard his stories, if he told any. He lived into his nineties.
Anyway, by my calculations, he was very young man back then, and that seems to me to be almost a requirement — fit, energetic, adventurous, daring.
I don’t think any of us on this blog are that young. Even Goku has aged out.
We will do what we can in other ways.
NutmegAgain
What in the jeebus are these pointy-headed cretins going to have to be angry and resentful about now? It’s seemed to me that they’ve been the party of grudges, therefore Trump was a well matched figurehead. But seriously, how much wind might be leaving their sails? Of course that leaves the professional villains to do their worst. Shit Howdy.
Adam L Silverman
@YY_Sima Qian: My take is that Iran both does and does not want a second Trump term. The Quds Force wants revenge. Other parts of Iran’s leadership know that he provides them a rally round the flag opportunity.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jay: I don’t know and I don’t want to know. That’s basically my point.
The Truffle
@Adam L Silverman: There are going to be people in for a rude awakening. Also a lot of states without GOP trifectas who won’t go along with it at all. I just think there will be a lot of clashes on the right and maybe even a 1929-type scenario. Which would be very bad.
I was talking to my therapist who reminded me that as long as we’re still alive, we can keep going. I told her I thought we’d lost the courts for at least two decades and she doesn’t even think it’ll be that long. She’s an older European lady, so she has seen a lot.
Meanwhile, everyone might want to check out http://weareworthfightingfor.org when ready. One thing Hungary, Russia et al. don’t have is something like that.
I just think the combination of bad management, buyer’s remorse and more GOP nastiness/overreaching will lead to very dark times, but if people can stick together it will end.
Ohio Mom
@raven: I missed any earlier announcements of your diagnosis. Kudos to the doctor who finally figured it out.
Sorry to hear it’s MS, that’s not a great diagnosis. At least you have a direction now. Hang in there.
YY_Sima Qian
@Adam L Silverman: But Trump will let Bibi wage his war against Iran, & might get hoodwinked into direct U.S. involvement, as well. I don’t think Iran is ready to fight that war, now that its network of proxies has been badly weakened.
Eolirin
@The Truffle: They don’t have something like that because having something like that would give them target list of people to go round up.
We have not yet devolved into a full police state.
We can use that time to prepare, but it will go away unless they fail to consolidate power in a spectacular fashion. I’m not going to count on that, and I don’t think it’s safe for anyone at risk to do so either.
It’ll end though. These regimes don’t last forever. Nothing does. As long as there’s life there’s hope, and work to do. It’s important not to lose sight of that.
But I think we all better get used to the idea, like black Americans have had to for the entire history of this country, that we are fighting for a future that, we ourselves, will not see. Because if we can’t do that, I don’t think we’ll have the wherewithal to keep going.
Adam L Silverman
@YY_Sima Qian: I think Bibi will wage that war in the lame duck.
Chris
@Zelma:
They’re angry at the Castros and Chavez/Maduro for oppressing the wrong people, and wish they had their own oppressor in their place instead.
YY_Sima Qian
@Adam L Silverman: Geez. There was speculation that Bibi held off on attacking Iranian nuclear & oil export infrastructure in the last round of escalation to wait for the election outcome.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Ohio Mom:
How old do you think I am? I’m still well within the prime of my life, honestly, late 20s. Anyway, I’m not really any of those things, adventurous or daring. I’m not especially fit or energetic either.
Paul in Jacksonville
I have a 15 year old son. I’ve raised him as a single dad from the time he was 16 months old. I had read somewhere that one of the actions the new regime would put in place is arresting anyone who donated money to the Harris campaign. I told my son that, for the first time in my life (I’m 70), that I did make a $25 donation to the campaign. He has asked me a few times if I’m going to be arrested. I’ve told him I don’t think so.
frosty
@strange visitor (from another planet): I’m not so sure. I think the tariff plan is just a stupid man who doesn’t understand tariffs at all seizing on something he can do himself with a stroke of a pen.
“We’ll have tariffs and China will pay for them.”
Darkrose
@sentient ai from the future: If you’re not doing so already, I HIGHLY recommend following Erin in the Morning, for coverage of trans issues, and especially for her anti-trans risk assessment map.
Eolirin
@YY_Sima Qian: I could actually see Trump leaving Israel to twist in the wind in a growing conflict, even if he wouldn’t place any restrictions on them.
Biden is going to be more consistently there for them if the Iranian response requires US assistance. Trump has no particular concern for the state of Israel in the way that Biden does.
And then there’s the Russian angle.
Jay
@Ohio Mom:
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
A lot of Resistance roles were filled by people who did not meet that description, forgers, gunsmiths, safe house people, spies and informers, smugglers, wheel men, radio operators, etc.
Ohio Mom
@Paul in Jacksonville: if there ever was a little fish, you are it. I agree, the chances you are worth frying are very, very small. Your poor son, worrying so.
Nettoyeur
@Terry: I’ve been going to Germany for work regularly the last 10 years. My German’s not great but I can follow things. My Russian and French are good (lived in both) so I follow things there, too. My worry about Germany is actually that they won’t militarize fast enough to counter Russia. (I’v been working with German physicists and engineers for years. They are thorough and deliberate, but not as fast as the Americans). Germany has had several non military experienced Ministers of Defence because of Ost Politik and gender equity correctness (sorry to say this, but it is true). The newest one, Boris Pistorius, is experienced +effective and is the most popular politician in Germany. He quckly used the one off Scholtz 100B defense add on, and is looking for more. Germany has deficit limits inflexibly applied by the Free Democrat budget minister, which is why the AMPEL (street light red blue green) coalition collapsed this week and a snap election is coming. There is very very quiet discussion of possible nuclear weapons development, and also talk of starting laser fusion research like hat done in US, UK, France, Russia. As a magnetic fusion energy physicist for 50 yrs, I can tell you that 90% of such work is to develop the targets for implosion fusion weapons. H bombs. Ergo, my guess is that if Trump weakens NATO, some combo of Germany, Sweden Poland, Finland (all nuclear capable), possibly with French or UK help, will develop nukes on a crash time scale. I am no nuclear war hawk (I’ve lived and worked in Japan, too), but that is what anyone who knows this stuff would advise. Russia -which has under Putin reverted to its origins with the Mongol Horde, attacked Ukraine rather than Poland or the Baltics because of the absence of the NATO nuclear umbrella over Ukraine. I occasionally check Kremlin TV, and the nuke threats to Warsaw, Berlin, Paris, Washington are weekly events. I hope none of these things happen, but I am watching, the more so as my late mother in law was a Holocaust survivor from Dresden, and there is an eery similarity between present US politics and Weimar Germany. I am coming to retirement, our family has dual US/Australian citizenship, so there is a shadow of On the Beach as well. I should add that there may be some routes forward vis a vis Russia/Ukraine but whether there is a open conversation window I don’t know. I have watched in horror for 35 years as successive US admins have misunderstood the Russian collective psyche, which has suffered huge humiliation post USSR….which is not unlike what happened in post Versailles Treaty Weimar Germany. I have to hope that the narcissistic oligarchs playing at politics at least realize that they too stand to lose everything.
Ohio Mom
Another thank you for Adam here.
It’s better to have a good straight look than hopeful fantasies.
Chris
@Adam L Silverman:
The sheer amount of denial among Democrats about who and what the GOP has become and how urgently a partisanship-uber-alles response to them is needed has been horrifying.
I’ve been saying for years and years that the worst case scenario, civil-war-wise, isn’t that we have another one. It’s that the South fires on Fort Sumter and the political system doesn’t even allow “Lincoln” to fire back. (Or worse, “Lincoln” doesn’t even want to).
eemom
@Eolirin:
fwiw I’m an old straight white woman and it feels that way to me as well.
I also absolutely, wholeheartedly, and utterly agree with Elie Mystal’s piece today.
Paul in Jacksonville
@Ohio Mom: That’s how I think about it, too. I’m trying my best to convince him of that fact. I told him that tfg wants to round up several million people that he thinks do not belong in the US, so going after people like me will be towards the bottom of his “to do” list.
Chris
@Adam L Silverman:
I’ve heard it said that North Korea owes a lot to the legacy of Imperial Japanese rule. In the same way that the East German security state was basically the Nazi security state, with the topmost rungs swapped out and the labels changed.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Ohio Mom:
I hope my comment at #128 didn’t come off rude or anything, that wasn’t my intent
Adam L Silverman
Ukraine war update has posted.
Adam L Silverman
@YY_Sima Qian: The Iranian leadership’s statements about moving through breakout to actually having to build nuclear weapons and extending the range of their missiles is not the deterrent and deescalatory messaging they think it is. Rather, it provides Bibi with a casus belli for a preemptive strike on the nuclear sites. He wasn’t listening to anything Biden, Austin, or Blinken was telling him before Tuesday, he sure as hell isn’t going to now.
Adam L Silverman
@Ohio Mom: Thank you for the kind words, You are more than welcome.
Adam L Silverman
I’m going to rack out. Two posts in one night has done tuckered me out.
Ohio Mom
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I chuckled affectionately.
Chris
@Ohio Mom:
You ain’t just whistling Dixie.
It’s amazing what a difference time makes. I’m not even that old, only in my late thirties. But I’m overweight, really out of shape, and have a bunch of medical conditions, not to mention a bellyful of anxiety about the future and some low-key PTSD to fuel it. When I was 20, shit, you probably could’ve convinced me to pull an Orwell/Hemingway and go fight for Rojava.
RaflW
@The Truffle: I think one thing that is quite different than Hungary’s illiberal ‘democracy’ is that fully one quarter of the US population is Black, Asian, Native, Hawaiian, API, or bi- or multi-racial. Another 19.5% is Hispanic or Latino.
Of course those populations don’t all vote or do act in other says as monoliths, and even some — or many — of the people in some of those groups can hold anti-immigrant and or anti-LGBTQ sentiments.
But I do think a guy like Orban has had more success there because the Hungarian population is significantly less diverse.
Yes, lots of very bad things are planned here by Trumpists. And they’ll attempt and even do many of them.
But I have questions about how a 58% white country with much more religious diversity, several decades of more open and accepted gay and lesbian (alas, not so much trans) populations, etc, will really react, given that some swathe of people who voted R this year did so not believing he’ll do what he says (that’s a big problem in itself).
RaflW
@Nettoyeur: The last couple days, I’ve assumed the Doomsday Clock will jump ahead several seconds in 2025. Though I think for many people younger than me, the whole thing may come off as an anachronism and not resonate. (eta: What I mean is, I’m a little too young to have been directly affected by the “Daisy” ad, but I feel like the Doomsday Clock probably has more meaning for anyone who was around in the Civil Defense Drills era and so on.)
85 seconds? 80?
Gaaah.
Anyway
Could Biden and Harris skip the inauguration? Obama should but doubt he will ..
Weftage
@Paul in Jacksonville: <waves to Paul’s son> Hi, kid. I am the most paranoid person in the world, and I have worried some about that mass arrest thing, but I want you to know that this internet stranger agrees with your dad. A lot of bad things are going to happen, but the trump-thugs arresting your dad is not one of them. It’s up to you what you worry about–there’s plenty to choose from–but you can stand down about that, at least.
Gloria DryGarden
Duplicate
Gloria DryGarden
@Adam L Silverman: really grateful for this post, the straight up hard cold look at it.
the sooner we get real about it,
and talk -in person, or via encrypted texts and emails, or by snail mail- about plans and options,
the better.
Thanks for telling us what you can about your perspective.
StringOnAStick
So, my continuing to give $ to ballot curing efforts for Senator Rosen in NV and to the DCCC for the same means I’ll be in the gulag sooner rather than later I guess. I’m being a bit flippant, but not entirely. I’m trying not to let depression get the best of me but it’s becoming a struggle.
FDRLincoln
@Adam L Silverman: Adam, if the military were given orders to shoot nonviolent protestors, would they follow the order?
StringOnAStick
Should we be trying to raise money for ballot curing for Senator Rosen in NV or is it a lost cause? Same for House races in need of ballot curing.
TooManyJens
@FDRLincoln: If not, it’s easy enough to overcome that little objection by doing some shit-stirring to make sure the protest becomes “violent”.
MobiusKlein
@StringOnAStick: Yes.
Plan B benefits from Plan A
Adam L Silverman
@StringOnAStick: It is not.
Gloria DryGarden
@Jay: thank you.
i used to teach first aid, need to review, might be clever to build a kit.
my out of town buddy was here 6 weeks ago and I finally got help to fix my door lock, so that’s something.
i don’t know the first thing about how to reinforce door jambs or to get shatterproof films for windows. Is that something I’d get at my hardware store, or a miItary supply like our army surplus stores?
which security cameras would I look into? Gosh, that means shopping on Amazon, and I hear pros and cons about that here. I’ve been on the super budget careful lifestyle on a shoestring for quite sometime, but I have wondered about security cameras. There have been reasons.
It’s a small house, inadequate, but at least it’s not a rental, which I couldn’t afford around here. Pretty glad I got the water heater and furnace and cellar door all replaced last fall; it was a rough time, but good it’s not happening now.
I appreciate the ideas. They aren’t the ones omnes was telling you not to discuss, I’m pretty sure.
N
Brilliant idea. SOmeone on Bluesky suggested that Dems follow the Black Panther model: identify a local need, meet the need, and brand the hell out of it. Example: fundraise and provide solar generators to low income neighborhoods. Organize a low cost day care for working moms. Be the people who are at the food bank, visit the nursing homes, volunteer at an animal rescue. Make “support your community” be the grassroots Dem brand. Be creative. Be present at farmer’s market giving away something nice or selling at cost. Maybe do clothing drives for back to school clothes. Be active local do-gooders who are doing things people can see. I think it is an approach with great potential.
frosty
Don’t email if you can write; don’t write if you can call; don’t call if you can talk; don’t talk if you can nod; don’t nod if you can wink.
frosty
deleted
Gloria DryGarden
@p.a.: i need to ask my host brother from Uruguay how long it took to go from military dictatorship in 76, to a voting stable democracy again.
you guys all know about the desaparecidos in Argentina and Chile, right? Well, Uruguay too, and I heard a few stories. Political prisoners. Some people left the country on 24 hours notice, because someone tipped them off. I met them in France, Sweden.
and all these crazy younger people who somehow didn’t learn about and see video after video of nazis, ghettos, trains, camps, kristallnacht… I don’t get it. I know it’s too late now, Americans have voted. I’ve seen peoples tattoos, I’ve spoken with people. It’s so real.
Bupalos
The Yelsin/Putin Trump/Vance correlation here is fascinating. Almost mindblowing. Really, as a student of Russian History that is very deeply steeped in this American phenomenon… that’s just a fascinating juxtaposition.
Not often do I read something in one of these spaces that makes me think “oh…. I have some work to do.” .
Bupalos
@frosty: that’s great.
Chris
@Gloria DryGarden:
The problem with education is that it runs afoul of the human brain’s capacity for impossible shallowness and narcissism.
You can teach people about the concentration camps, the gas chambers, and the tattoos, but you can’t stop stupid people from going “oh, I get it! The Nazis exploited and killed the Jews because they hated them for their race! Just like Obama takes everything from hardworking white people and give them to black illegals on welfare because he hates us for our race!”
YY_Sima Qian
@Chris: I think it SK, especially under the right wing military dictatorship that owed a great deal to Imperial Japan. Those authoritarians, & the senior leaders in the military & the bureaucracy, were officers in the IJA during WW II. The NK organization came out of fighting w/ the CPC forces, against the IJA during WW II & against the KMT government of the ROC during the 2nd Chinese Civil War.
YY_Sima Qian
@Nettoyeur: SK will probably go for nukes now, soon to be followed by Japan.
Gloria DryGarden
@frosty: well, my pal assumes NSA could be listening to or reading our texts, emails and phone calls. He says, snail mail, talk in person, or use encryption on texts and emails.
He is regularly vague with me on the phone, and says it’s a conversation for in person only.
when I reference in person conversation, or simply conversation, this is what I’m referring to. If it needs to be private, or it’s delicate, if safety is involved, talk in person. For resources, options, plans.
when I commented this on an earlier thread, I added, there are people with land you can visit for camping and conversation, and people with room in their homes, also, for guests.
@Geminid: thank you for telling us this. I will put some extra attention on this.
@EZSmirkzz: paranoid, or realism?
@Eolirin: i did see your long comment earlier. It quite grabbed my attention. I appreciate your comments and learn from them, and I am glad to see you here, after that.
I had been going to ask you to guest post about branding vs messaging, something you said days and days ago, that might have been useful if we could have semi normal life, repair of skewed political processes and campaigns. Now, I agree w you, discussing messaging is tone deaf, and the election is over now.
More importantly, if you want another lead for someone to visit for camping and conversation, email me. I’m understanding you’re at that juncture of legal, moral, operational+ safety.
if you can use a relaxing read, I just enjoyed a novel by a non-binary author, about 2 old friends/ lovers traveling around Europe, and one of them is non binary. “The pairing”, by Casey McQuiston
Blessings, I hope you remain safe.
Kelly
Advice from the National Lawyer Guild
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=nWEpW6KOZDs&ab_channel=NationalLawyersGuild%2CDetroit%26MI
Gloria DryGarden
@Chris: people connect a real thing, a very serious genocide and mass oppression and torture event, with such evidence and witnesses,
to a bullshit made up thing, that is unprovable, and has no evidence.. Obama doesn’t hate… equity diversity inclusion is not an attack on anyone.
it does sound shallow, and tone deaf, and self centered. And like unwillingness to learn or be aware.
In massage school, they told us that much of what we know about human physiology comes from
I’ll l start crying, NOT going to finish that sentence. IYKYK.
Jay
@Gloria DryGarden:
i don’t know the first thing about how to reinforce door jambs or to get shatterproof films for windows. Is that something I’d get at my hardware store, or a miItary supply like our army surplus stores?
Gloria DryGarden
@Chris: ptsd is no fun..
Gloria DryGarden
@frosty: talk where you’re not overheard. Away from walls, or buildings.
They told me things at night in the middle of the street, while walking. I distinctly got the impression it was not supposed to be talked about.
YY_Sima Qian
@Gloria DryGarden: Speaking of NSA eavesdropping:
Successive US governments hyper focused on getting Chinese gear out of any & all US networks, & as much Chinese made components out of the networks as possible & as soon as possible, to reduce vulnerablility. At the same time, USG put in these back doors for its own access, one hopes w/ at least FISA warrants (however perfunctory the exercise), & introduced vulnerabilities that it somehow was convinced the PRC (& presumably others) could not exploit. But exploited them they did.
These kinds of sh*tshows the Dems in Congress & successive administrations were complicit in, if not enthusiastically promoted themselves. As we try to fight for lives & liberty against the oncoming Fascist onslaught, & hopefully build something better out of the ashes, we have to be vigilant against repeating such mistakes that both encourages authoritarian tendencies & provide more power tools to would be authoritarians, not to mention vulnerabilities for foreign actors to exploit.
Into the Trump Administration, we should expect the reactionaries to introduce more & more intrusive policies that squeeze the private space that any resistance could hide in, using foreign threats (the PRC, Iran, NK, Russia, whoever is convenient) as justification, & we have to prevent any Congressional Dems from giving them cover, because they think the “threat is real” (looking at you, Mark Warner, & the reps of NoVA).
The threats are indeed real, but the purpose of any policy promoted by the reactionaries will not be to combat foreign threats, they represent the far bigger & far more immediate threat.
Gloria DryGarden
@Nettoyeur: why does the US government not hire you as a diplomacy and policy advisor? Do they not know of you? I don’t know what to do about their last humiliation, but with what you are aware of, your expertise and insight would surely be invaluable.
Mai Naem mobile ¹
@Adam L Silverman: I’m stealing this. It’s such an apt description of what’s going on. I’ve been talking to some friends about feeling like I’m living in Idiocracy.
ArchTeryx
@Omnes Omnibus: Signal or other encrypted point to point only!
Gloria DryGarden
@YY_Sima Qian: kindergartener reporting back with reading comprehension check :
Is this right? 1 We had devices, cellphones w Chinese components. We both tried to quit using all of it so they couldn’t intrude, and kept some in, as a way to enter their systems, but it just ended in us getting hacked and intruded. So far, ok?
2 Congress was involved in keeping parts in that were hackable, or, the opposite?
3 by getting more control of components/ cell phone systems, it made it harder for resistance to hide ( pros and cons to that..)
But then 4 I didn’t really understand the rest,
help. Gonna try. Congress Dems complicit, in___? Used as Justification, the foreign threats, but really the threat is here, in this fascism rise.
I’m missing something, trying to connect the dots.
Soprano2
@Geminid: I heard an interview of Alexander Vindman and his wife where they said they’d leave the country just because of this. His wife is convinced TCFG will try him for treason.
Gloria DryGarden
@ArchTeryx: where can I learn about encryption, what programs to use, etc?
gene108
@Adam L Silverman:
I noticed during the Bush, Jr. years and more so after the Tea Party surge, Republicans acting like radical revolutionaries and not an established political party. Everything they did was solely in service to further their power and hold on power, from gerrymandering to voter suppression, to holding up judicial nominations, etc. There was no goal behind these actions other than a power grab.
Now their revolution has won, they are in the consolidate power stage. They will make it perniciously harder to oppose them. They will make voting harder, they will make elections less secure to move things in their favor*, they will criminalize peaceful protests and allow law enforcement to beat up or shoot protesters, etc.
The only saving grace is the Congressional Republicans seem incapable of governing. They will pass a tax cut. They will dismantle the PPACA**.
But when it comes time to pass a budget? Who knows. Democrats shouldn’t bail them out like they have been doing for 13 years.
Let shit burn. People will suffer, but that will include Republican voters***. Mitigating damage only puts off consequences for Republican officials and their supporters.
*There have been cases of ballot stuffing, voter fraud, voter intimidation, etc. over the last 248 years in this country, but the corruption was largely local in nature and not part of a national movement.
**I have health problems (kidney transplant) and have had issues holding down a job as a result. The ACA is my lifeline to accessing healthcare. Without it I’ll either go bankrupt or forego healthcare and take my chances. I’m willing to do this if Republican voters will get fucked as well.
***Edit: I doubt Republican voters will blame Republicans. Right-wing media will shift the blame to something else. They will suffer all the same.
Jay
@Gloria DryGarden:
Start with a VPN on all your devices. Allows you to hide your location and provides a bunch of other security features.
YY_Sima Qian
@Gloria DryGarden: Sorry, you probably couldn’t access the WSJ articles behind the paywalls.
w/ the Patriot Act, USG mandated backdoors in the telecom infrastructure (not your personal devices) for it to access ostensibly under counter-terrorism/counter-espionage/law enforcement justifications, theoretically only w/ FISA warrants, thinking they will remain secure. At the same time, the USG hyper-focused on eliminating equipment made by Chinese vendors from telecom infrastructure, & removing as much Chinese made components from equipments made by European vendors as possible, to reduce vulnerability to Chinese hacking. Now Chinese hackers (can others be far behind, if not there already?) have hacked the USG mandated backdoors to gain access to communications by high level personnel of both Trump (such as JD Vance himself) & Harris campaigns transmitted through said networks, & it appears the scope the attack is spreading w/ the announcement out of the CFPB. This time, the purpose is old fashioned espionage.
Lessons:
The reactionaries will utilize such backdoors to monitor communications of anyone they deem a potential threat, only w/ sham FISA warrants (that is if they still feel the need to wear the fig leaf).
Foreign actors will exploit the backdoors for their own purposes, which can range from traditional espionage, transnational repression, or just stirring up sh*t.
Plenty of Dems supported putting these government mandated backdoors into the US telecom infrastructure, w/ inadequate considerations of how such powers could be abused in the best of times, & w/o considerations as to how a full blown Fascist regime might utilize them or how foreign actors might exploit them.
There will be pressure on Congressional Dem to agree to further expansions of the surveillance state by the reactionaries, citing foreign threats as justification. If history is any guide, some Congressional Dems will be sorely tempted, hence the references to Mark Warner & the NoVA D Reps. Don’t let them, the reactionaries will not be acting on good faith.
Many parts of the “Blob” will be looking to reach accommodations w/ the reactionaries to secure their continued funding & relevance (example below), & many establishment Dems are awfully close to the natsec establishment. Something to look out for. The natsec technocrats will not be our saviors, many of them may not even be reliable allies.
Hopefully, this clears it up.
frosty
@Bupalos: Mafia rules maybe? Not sure where I ran across it.
At work I called it CYA Rules.
Mai Naem mobile ¹
@gene108: the GOP can try and blame.somebody else but the party in power especially POTUS gets the blame. I don’t think even RW media can change that. People don’t deep think this stuff. It’s just ‘X’is president and it’s all his fault.
Gloria DryGarden
@YY_Sima Qian: that helped a lot. It’s new, dense, and multi layered, and things you can see from both sides, lots of opposing pros and cons. A bit like a chess game with many possible moves, some of which end up being traps later.. but I’m being metaphoric and non specific. Your explanation is great.
BellyCat
Maybe mentioned somewhere, but great article by Benjamin Witte at Lawfare: Were the Trump Trials Pointless?
He closes with:
YY_Sima Qian
@Gloria DryGarden: The way the Chinese surveillance state works is that the state can demand front door access if they deem fit, w/ weak due process (& none whatsoever if the target is deemed a potential threat to the CPC regime: dissidents, activists, separatists, militants, foreign agents, etc.). The US could have done it that that way, only w/ proper due process that would not have created vulnerability for others to exploit, & would have placed greater defense against government abuse. However, that was not “efficient” enough for the natsec technocrats, so the Patriot Act passed & have been renewed w/ broad bipartisan support. & yet the expansion of government surveillance also played into the right wing paranoias about abuse by “Left Wing dictators”, even though it will be the reactionaries that abuse the tools by far the most.
The meta point I have been trying to make the past couple days is that establishment Dems played a part in creating & feeding the reactionary monster: from the Cold War Liberals allying w/ conservatives to kneecapping the Left & undermining the labor movement, Third Way Dems w/ their neoliberalism further weakening labor & furthering conditions of working/middle class precarity & scarcity, mainstream Dems working w/ the neocons & the reactionaries (such as Liz Cheney) to expand the surveillance state from the GWOT to the current era of Great Power Competition, to Biden pivoting from neoliberalism to economic nationalism (although doing some great things for American labor). These policies all helped to fertilize the soil for the rise of domestic reactionary forces, continued to feed them meat, & gave them enhanced tools to soon suppress their opposition.
The point of all this is not to self-flagellate or blame the victim, but to squarely face our past mistakes in contributing to how we got here (I certainly made every excuse I could think of every time Obama advanced policies predicated in neoliberalism, advocated for drones strikes, & argued to extend the Patriot Act, & I still love the guy). Not all parts of the anti-Fascist coalition were caught up in it, African Americans, Progressives & Leftists were pretty consistently skeptical of all of above.
If the point of any resistance is to eventually defeat the reactionary regime & build something better, then we should take care not to make the same mistakes again, lest we recreate what we hope to defeat, under a different banner.
& yes, surely some here will laugh at me for thinking about victory usurped, when the immediate challenge will be fighting for lives & livelihoods. This missive happens to be on my mind right now, so these are my two cents.
Gloria DryGarden
@YY_Sima Qian: This is really great. I’ll study it and look up some of these movements. What a lot of layers and varied purposes over time. This makes a very complex situation much more approachable. Thank you.
The point of all this is not to self-flagellate or blame the victim, but to squarely face our past mistakes in contributing to how we got here (I certainly made every excuse I could think of every time Obama advanced policies predicated in neoliberalism, advocated for drones strikes, & argued to extend the Patriot Act, & I still love the guy). Not all parts of the anti-Fascist coalition were caught up in it, African Americans, Progressives & Leftists were pretty consistently skeptical of all of above.
worth more than two cents. At least $500 bucks.
I think that might be several decades of history and a semester college course, condensed into a few paragraphs! Brilliant. What is the name of this course of study and theory?
I’ll look up the bold things, because I don’t have the background knowledge of all that. My italics were so I could highlight some concepts I think I understood. This was clear enough that I could identify what my questions are, formed into search terms.
It’s an art to explain really complex things so a beginner can follow along. It’s always worthwhile to study mistakes and patterns, to understand how to not repeat the same mistakes. I might not be the only one who would like to understand this better. Thanks for bringing me along.
YY_Sima Qian
@Gloria DryGarden I don’t if know there is college course on any of this. Reading Van Jackson (his sub-stack is called Un-Diplomatic) & the people & writing he references helped inform my understanding of this history, but this was lived experience for the members of the Left, labor movement & civil rights movement. I also recall the fights on liberal/progressive/left forums when Patriot Act came up for renewal under Obama, where many on the Left-Progressive end of the spectrum called for repeal or deep reform, but most recommended not dying on that hill to preserve other parts of the program. This happened again & again. Obama argued that he was constrained by the composition of Congress, & if he had dictatorial powers he would have pursued a much more progressive/left program. I believe him, but then he ended up running on these compromises as his accomplishments in protecting the homeland through killing suspected terrorists by droning them around the world, balancing the budget through “responsible stewardship of the taxpayer’s money” (i.e., the damaging sequestration), helping to topple dictators (but leaving failed states behind), bragging about saving the banks & big corporations, touting rising asset prices, thereby reinforcing all of those conservative-right wing concepts & keeping the Overton Window firmly skewed right. Sured seemed smart general election strategy at the time, the results showed, but there were pernicious long term consequences.
This is what Clinton did, & to a lesser extend even Harris, running to the center in the general election.
We don’t need any of that kind of thinking now.
Gvg
@YY_Sima Qian: one thing that surprised me about Trump was he consistently resisted actuality committing US troops to anymore fighting. He talks tough, but he doesn’t actually do, except apparently against Americans. He will legislate and make laws, do lots of harm, but seems so far adverse to war for real. I think he wanted the generals to do that for him though and they knew better. This time he may be getting other advice. Rumors of wanting Businessmen in charge. Idiots.
BellyCat
Agreed. If Biden can manage ONE thing before Jan 20th — even if it stretches the normal limits of Presidential powers — it is this.
The Supremes gave him immunity. Time to use it (and test said power) to save democracy.
YY_Sima Qian
@Gvg: Trump is a coward. He got hoodwinked by the über-hawks in his NSC & at CENTCOM to assassinate IRGC general Suleimani in Iraq, & panicked when he realized that could lead to a major Iranian retaliation against U.S. troops in the ME region, & possible a regional war. He was so relieved when the Iranian leadership decided on the course of strategic patience, & specifically limited their targeting try to avoid U.S. casualties, stopped there.
He remains a coward, he remains vulnerable to being taken advantages of by unscrupulous advisors to advance their own agendas, but he has significantly declined enough that I am not sure even his cowardice would prevent his advisors from escalating tensions to fight the wars they want to bring forth, or be mentally competent enough to force an end the fighting (by hurriedly agreeing to disadvantageous deals).
MomSense
Just stopping by to recommend re/reading Milan Kundera’s books especially The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. I am calling on all the stories and advice of the ballet teachers I had who survived WWII, who served in the Resistance, and who defected from the USSR. I can no longer perform fouettés but I learned many other steps that will hopefully save my family. They were formidable women. They never lost their smiles, hearty laughs or creativity.
Thank you Adam for all of it – all the wisdom and information you have shared over the years. I wish you and your family and pups health and the ability to create joy and beauty to sustain you.
Listening to a lot of Shostakovich and music my sons are writing.
YY_Sima Qian
@MomSense: Good advise on Milan Kundera & Shostakovich, arts that didn’t resonate w/ me in my younger days, but I can really appreciate them now!
Chris
@gene108:
It was also bipartisan, which to some extent canceled it out.* And due to the weirdly non-ideological nature of U.S. parties for most of history, when progressive good-government reformism got some steam and really started to roll it back, it was largely doing so in both parties at the same time. That helped.
* The most often cited example: Republicans chose not to contest the close results of the 1960 election despite being fairly sure that the Democrats had been stuffing ballot boxes in Chicago, because any investigation would’ve revealed that Republicans had been doing the same thing in every other part of Illinois. (The fact that Nixon never got over that election, and for the rest of his life remained angry that he’d been cheated – out of a contest where he was himself cheating – is an early example of the sort of aggrieved entitlement, transparently hypocritical yet very sincerely felt, that’s come to define the entire party since).
BellyCat
@Paul in Jacksonville: Mad props to you being an older single Dad!!!
I had my son at age 50. I’m a single dad every other week now when his mother is agreeable. As she’s often not, she recently (as in three days ago) convinced the court that my 50% status should now be 14%. Never, and I mean NEVER try to divorce a vulnerable narcissist.
BellyCat
@Nettoyeur: Really appreciate these thoughtful insights on what the EU is thinking. They, rightly, realized that the US could not be relied upon for protection. Not sure whether what you’re suggesting will happen is good news for now or bad news ultimately.
Chris
@BellyCat:
This is a silly conclusion.
Lots of us (most of us, probably) knew from the start that the trials were a long shot and that there was a good chance they wouldn’t lead to justice. (You don’t even need official corruption for that; in a country where roughly half the population keeps voting for a straight fascist, there’s every chance of a hung jury, too). The reason we supported them anyway isn’t because of some Madisonian faith in a government of laws, it’s for the same reason that 99% of Republicans supported Trump in 2016 when they were certain he’d lose: you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.
Paul in Jacksonville
@Weftage: Thank you for your kind words.
MomSense
@YY_Sima Qian:
The liner notes for Shostakovich’s works are really interesting. I recommend.
Eolirin
@ArchTeryx: Signal is not secure.
Chris
@YY_Sima Qian:
One of the weirdest things about 24, the ultimate post-9/11 show, is that it’s actually packed to the gills with suspicion of the security state, the security-industrial complex, and politicians too attached to them. Arms dealers and oil barons try to provoke (the in-universe version of) the Iraq War, the military-industrial complex tries to overthrow the government, Jack Bauer’s ultimate archnemesis is a Republican politician who’s a mishmash of Nixon and Cheney. And yet at the same time the solution to all these conspiracies is always to give Jack Bauer free rein to kill, beat, and torture his way to the bottom of the problem, and anybody who advocates any kind of accountability or restraints is at best an idiot and at worst a mole.
It really captured the utterly schizophrenic attitude of twenty-first century Americans towards their government, where they simultaneously more paranoid and terrified of their government than ever and yet frantically demanding that it be more all-powerful and unaccountable than ever.
BellyCat
@eemom: Righteous Rant ™ by Elie Mystal. This where I am as well.
We as a country are going to get what we want, good and hard.
Eolirin
@Gloria DryGarden: Thank you.
BellyCat
I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
YY_Sima Qian
@MomSense: Will look for them! Thanks!
Eolirin
@Chris: Truth is, if Trump and the GOP hadn’t already corrupted the Judiciary, he would be in jail already. The DoJ could have been more aggressive about going after members of congress and especially the oligarchs providing funding. Ginni Thomas should have been indicted.
But with this court it wouldn’t have mattered. We were already past the point of being able to hold the big fish accountable without relying on norm breaking or extra judicial means.
The only slight hope we would have had was if we had won this election. It was a narrow window and depended too much on the electorate doing the right thing.
BellyCat
Agreed in part. Disagreed in part.
Your assertion that most of us knew this was a longshot is correct. What is incorrect is the failure to acknowledge that most of those working within the justice system actually, really, truly, for realzies, believe that the justice system we currently have actually does or even can work.
YY_Sima Qian
@Chris: Ha! Thanks for bringing up old memories! I binge watched a few seasons back in the day, true opium for the masses!
Come to think of it, 24 really does embody the MAGA ethos. Your average MAGA voter despises arms dealers, oil tycoons, Nixon/Cheney types & thinks the invasion of Iraq was a big mistake, a debacle caused by the elite establishment. They gravitate to a Jack Bauer type who will both kick America’s enemies in the nuts & clean up the “cesspool” that is the establishment (regardless of party). What they don’t realize is that at least some of the people they will vote into power are cynical charlatans, from the very elite they despise, playing them for fools. Why they gravitate to Trump as their Jack Bauer, that is the part I can’t think serious for any length of time w/o feeling my brain cells committing suicide in real time.
KeninHogtown
@Jay: How do I set up this VPN? I would like to do this as a start. Thank you very much!
Elizabelle
@YY_Sima Qian: I never watched it, but I wondered if 24 paved the way for some Americans’ acceptance of torture, and Abu Ghraib.
Chris
@BellyCat:
Maybe?
I’ve got limited exposure. The only person I know who’s in the criminal justice system is a friend who’s a public defender. I don’t think he’s got any doubts that plenty of the people he defends are guilty, or that too many trials end with innocent people going to jail or guilty people walking. He certainly doesn’t have any illusions that the justice system treats the kind of criminals who get dumped in his lap the way it does the drug lords, corporate vultures, and other criminals in $500,000.00 suits.
Most of the other lawyers I’ve met aren’t in that kind of law, but seem similarly cynical. The immigration lawyer over at LGM pretty much acknowledges that how his cases work out depends 100% on the whims of the judges he ends up in front of, and that the system is so overworked it can’t possibly be expected to consistently deliver anything like a just result.
It’s what they’ve got, the people caught up in it are worth fighting for, and sometimes they manage to get the right result for them. That’s as far as it goes.
YY_Sima Qian
@Elizabelle: Torture was acceptable to a lot of Americans waaaay before the GWOT, see how the Jim Crow law were enforced, how US troops behaved as they conquered Cuba & the Philippines, or the entire history of slavery. There is not a war where at least some troops from every side did not commit war crimes (including torture of POWs.& innocents), it’s just that in some cases it was systemic & state sanctioned/encouraged, & in others it was more isolated cases due to breakdowns discipline, & everything in between. The GWB era & mass entertainment of the time just made it OK in the mainstream & in polite company again, after a couple of decades of being ostracized as beyond the pale.
Chris
@YY_Sima Qian:
Your average MAGA voter enthusiastically supported the Iraq War when it actually happened and spent pretty much the entire 2000s sneering things like “oh you don’t like OIL, what kind of CAR do you drive” and “oh you don’t like GUNS, who’s going to arm our soldiers then?” whenever anyone expressed concerns about Halliburton or Blackwater’s war profiteering. The “elite establishment” narrative is one they settled on long after the fact as a blame-shifting self-exoneration, but it’s not something they really care about either way. Even today they have no real consistent line on this: warmongering is bad when the enemy’s Russia (because Trump says so but not before he was a factor) but good when it’s China, Iran, or Palestine.
I think that inconsistency is the most proto-Trumpian thing about the show: it views the universe as a world where everybody is a Jack Bauer type violent thug, and you just have to find the right one who’s on your side and therefore good because he’s going to do all the bad things to the bad people you don’t like and not to the good people like you. And they’ve decided that’s Trump.
I think this is the longstanding lie at the heart of these kinds of stories – that the kind of people who’d be Jack Bauer in real life are somehow going to protect them from malignant elites, rather than throw open the doors to them. If Jack Bauer was a person in the real world, he’d be President Logan’s most trusted hatchet man in the G. Gordon Liddy/Oliver North vein, not his nemesis. But then the average wingnut enthusiast probably doesn’t have the self-awareness to know they’d 100% be a Logan voter in real life, too.
The real harm in this may not even be wingnuts, but normie and if anything liberal-leaning voters, who’ve completely swallowed the notion that these people are Great Principled Selfless Men Of Integritude who are totally going to stand between us and the fascists when the time comes. Debates over the police illustrate it even more starkly than debates over big-picture national security.
YY_Sima Qian
@Chris: Heh, too true!
Ramona
@Terry: By China “calling in our debt” do you mean selling an masse the US T bonds they’ve accumulated on the open market?