Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

Second rate reporter says what?

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

I am pretty sure these ‘journalists’ were not always such a bootlicking sycophants.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

So many bastards, so little time.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / ‘This is where we are. Observe, orient, decide, act. The side which acts faster and smarter wins.’

‘This is where we are. Observe, orient, decide, act. The side which acts faster and smarter wins.’

by | 240 Comments

This post is in: 

I’ll share three long excerpts from Josh Marshall’s post but you really need to read the whole thing.

I would encourage you to think about getting a membership at TPM – they are steady-as-she-goes, and we need good independent media right now.   

h/t Aggieric from the lurker thread who brought the article to my attention.

Josh Marshall’s Notes on Preserving the American Republic

A short time ago, former U.S. Attorney Barb McQuade posted this passage from a Chronicle of Higher Education interview with Lee Bollinger, First Amendment scholar, former law school dean and former president of the University of Michigan and of Columbia. I note the thumbnail biography because Bollinger, apart from subject qualities, has ascended to the the peaks of two of the foundational nodes of power in American civil society: the legal profession and the university system.

He said this …

“We’re in the midst of an authoritarian takeover of the U.S. government. It’s been coming and coming, and not everybody is prepared to read it that way. The characters regarded as people to emulate, like Orbán and Putin and so on, all indicate that the strategy is to create an illiberal democracy or an authoritarian democracy or a strongman democracy. That’s what we’re experiencing. Our problem in part is a failure of imagination. We cannot get ourselves to see how this is going to unfold in its most frightening versions. You neutralize the branches of government; you neutralize the media; you neutralize universities, and you’re on your way.”

We’re beginning to see the effects on universities. It’s very, very frightening.

For anyone who reads TPM or any of a host of other publications or online conversations, this is neither a surprising nor an outlandish statement. This is a conversation we’re all in the midst of. But that first sentence is important: “We’re in the midst of an authoritarian takeover of the U.S. government.” That is what is happening. And we’re in the middle of it. As semi-familiar as the words and concepts are, we all collectively need to concentrate on that statement. It’s neither a future possibility nor an accomplished fact. We’re in the midst of it, as Bollinger says.

That means that if we’re political people, if we care about the American Republic, if we care about this country, everything we do right now has to be guided toward defeating this takeover. These aren’t one and done things. It’s complicated. It’s often incremental, albeit sometimes unfolding very fast. Gains can be reversed. In the political realm it’s almost a zero sum game with the power of the Democratic Party, simply because that’s the one organized political force in the country that can contest the takeover in the political arena.

.

A free society exists not simply because there are limits on the power of the government. The state may have a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. But it does not have a monopoly on power. It’s free because there are multiple nodes of power — cultural, economic, social — in the national space. Universities are one of those. The private sector economy is another.

There’s another that’s been in the news over the last week. And I’m going to discuss it here, briefly, because, while it can seem sort of niche and on the margins, it’s very far from it. It’s the nation’s “Big Law” law firms. The President recently signed an executive order targeting Perkins Coie, a big national law firm headquartered in Seattle.

The actions against Big Law firms may end up being some of the biggest stuff happening right now. As you know, I’m far from someone who takes a lawyer-centric view of the world. But Big Law firms are a critical power node in the U.S. system.

.

One thing we’ve seen with the universities is that at least mostly and at least up until now each target has been hit and handled the situation more or less alone. I heard from a source this week who shared with me how a sizable flagship public university in a very red state had just taken a bodyblow loss of funding tied to scientific research and they were just trying to lay low, saying as little about it as possible. Clearly, collective action is going to be necessary to fight this off among the universities, the legal profession and numerous other nodes of power the White House wants to bend to its will.

We’ve got a huge job on our hands and there’s no guarantee we’ll succeed. But the first step of acting is knowing exactly where you are. People who are thinking in terms of Viktor Orbán are not surprised by each successive move. It’s actually pretty textbook. How it all shakes out comes down to the decisions countless private actors make. It also means supporting institutions that are meaningfully supporting free society. That doesn’t have to be a matter of performative spectacles. At its most essential, it means not changing behavior. One bright moment on the Big Law front came last week when the medium-sized but highly prestigious Big Law firm Williams and Connolly took on Perkins Coie’s case and filed a lawsuit in which 14 individual lawyers, including the firm’s former chair, signed as lawyers on the case.

Again sounds all very insidery and niche. But these are critical nodes of power in a free society. They may be richies and they may be the establishment and a lot of their muscle goes into servicing the powerful. But when their power ebbs the power of the state swells into its place. Meanwhile, all the gutting going on inside the government right now is being carried out for the one purpose: that the power of the state is really the erratic and degenerate will of one man, Donald Trump.

MAGA makes no secret of its love for Viktor Orbán and his model of degenerate autocracy. It’s not a wink-on-the-side thing or something like getting caught lurking on a white supremacist message board. It’s totally open. They hold their conferences there. It’s totally overt. He’s their ideal.

None of this is good. But clarity in itself has power. Once you know where you are you stop being bewildered by each new development. You begin to be able to construct strategies based on the reality before you. You can take action with a realistic chance of success. The great majority of political media in the United States doesn’t get this or isn’t interpreting the news through this prism. They’re using the prism of conventional electoral politics and DC battles and trying to squeeze the new world into that model, all the while kind of getting and sometimes saying that something doesn’t quite seem to fit. Free media is yet another critical node of power.

.

This is where we are. Observe, orient, decide, act. The side which acts faster and smarter wins.

x

Reader Interactions

240Comments

  2. 2.

    New Deal democrat

    I was taking a walk through my neighborhood this morning and saw something that I think is an outstanding symbolic idea. You know those cute seasonal and holiday flags people hang from mailboxes?

    This house was hanging a Canadian flag.

    I’ve already started looking for where I can buy one nearby, and I’m pretty sure a few of my neighbors and relatives would like one too.

    Canadians have started to ask why we aren’t doing more to oppose Trump on this issue. I think this is a great way to build grass roots momentum.

    FLY THE CANADIAN FLAG!

  3. 3.

    eldorado

    it’s also important, for me anyway, to remember that both the threats and actions are being timed so that it’s a constant onslaught meant to generate wins and demoralize us

  7. 7.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    University funding is complicated and some folks here know way more than I do. But I do know that some of my colleagues in the sciences had contracts that required them to bring in their own salary in grant money. That doesn’t touch support for PhD students or the lab itself, let alone overhead for things like heat, AC, and someone to clean the snow off the walks outside. A cut off in grant money is far reaching.

    On a personal note, many of you know Mr DAW in the relatively early stages of Parkinson’s. Any hope we had of a medical breakthrough is gone

  10. 10.

    Ohio Mom

    Even though I already knew we are in the midst of an authoritarian takeover, there was something about reading this on Josh Marshall’s site the other day that took the air out of me.

    It’s tempting to look at the Keystone Kops moments — I read yesterday that DOGE cancelled the dog food order for the TSA’s bomb-sniffing dogs, that’s easy to imagine, they saw “dog food” and couldn’t imagine why pet food was listed, and more importantly, couldn’t imagine that there was a question to be asked, and if they had only asked “What’s dog food doing on this list?”, the TSA dog handlers wouldn’t be reduced to buying the food out of their pockets.

    But those moments of comic relief shouldn’t distract us, Vought and the Heritage Foundation, who are the real brains behind all this, are serious and well-organized.

    DOGE’s antics and Trump’s various petty vegenances and wild schemes about taking over sovereign countries work in their favor. They probably can’t believe their luck in having those distractions to mask their real work.

  11. 11.

    frosty

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I’m sorry to hear about Mr. DAW. I watched my dad live with Parkinson’s; he lived for 15 years with it. The first 10 weren’t too bad – the medications 20 years ago worked pretty well, even without a new breakthrough. Best wishes for both of you.

  13. 13.

    New Deal democrat

    @WaterGirl: Exactly. People hung Ukrainian flags from these three years ago (and a few still do).

    Do the same thing, but this time with the Canadian flag.

  14. 14.

    Ohio Mom

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Maybe another country will create a Parkinson’s breakthrough? Or some bigwig Republican will get Parkinson’s? It’s a terrible disease, you and your husband have my sympathy.

    I’ve known some science professors. The pressure to being in grants was always eating them.

  15. 15.

    Jeffro

    gift link from the NYT: The Authoritarian Endgame on Higher Education

    When a political leader wants to move a democracy toward a more authoritarian form of government, he often sets out to undermine independent sources of information and accountability. The leader tries to delegitimize judges, sideline autonomous government agencies and muzzle the media. President Vladimir Putin of Russia has done so over the past quarter-century. To lesser degrees, Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey recently have as well.
    The weakening of higher education tends to be an important part of this strategy. Academic researchers are supposed to pursue the truth, and budding autocrats recognize that empirical truth can present a threat to their authority. “Wars are won by teachers,” Mr. Putin has said. He and Mr. Erdogan have closed universities. Mr. Modi’s government has arrested dissident scholars, and Mr. Orban has appointed loyal foundations to run universities.
    President Trump has not yet gone as far to impede democracy as these other leaders, but it would be naïve to ignore his early moves to mimic their approach. He has fired government watchdogs, military leaders, prosecutors and national security experts. He has sued media organizations, and his administration has threatened to regulate others. He has suggested that judges are powerless to check his authority, writing on social media, “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.”…

    …Mr. Trump and his advisers are tapping into public dissatisfaction with real problems at universities. But as is the case with their approach to trade, government waste, immigration policy and European military spending, many of their would-be solutions will not solve the underlying problems or will create new ones. The American higher education system, for all its flaws, is the envy of the world, and it now faces a financial squeeze that threatens its many strengths — strengths that benefit all Americans.
    Chief among them is its global leadership in medical care and scientific research. American professors still dominate the Nobel Prizes. When wealthy and powerful people in other countries face a medical crisis, they often use their connections to get an appointment at an American academic hospital. For that matter, some of the same Republicans targeting universities with budget cuts seek out its top medical specialists when they or their relatives are ill.
    American leadership in medical and scientific research depends on federal money. Private companies, even large ones, typically do not conduct much of the basic research that leads to breakthroughs because it is too uncertain; even successful experiments may not lead to profitable products for decades. Mr. Trump’s planned funding cuts are large enough to force universities to do less of this research. The list of potential forgone progress is long, including against cancer, heart disease, viruses, obesity, dementia and drug overdoses. And there will be costs beyond the medical sector. There is a reason that Silicon Valley sprang up next to a research university….

    What is the most effective response to Mr. Trump’s campaign against universities? For people outside higher education, this is a moment to speak publicly about why universities matter. They promote public health, economic growth and national security. They are the largest employers in some regions. They are an unmatched, if imperfect, engine of upward mobility that can alter the trajectory of entire families.
    For people in higher education, this is a moment both to be bolder about trumpeting its strengths and to be more reflective about addressing its weaknesses. About those shortcomings: Too many professors and university administrators acted in recent years as liberal ideologues rather than seekers of empirical truth. Academics have tried to silence debate on legitimate questions, including about Covid lockdowns, gender transition treatments and diversity, equity and inclusion. A Harvard University survey last year found that only 33 percent of graduating seniors felt comfortable expressing their opinions about controversial topics, with moderate and conservative students being the most worried about ostracization.
    “The insularity of American academia is appalling,” said Michael Roth, the president of Wesleyan University. “It has led to massive resentment against intellectual elites.” This insularity does not justify Mr. Trump’s policies, but it does help explain the dearth of conservatives defending universities today. Universities will be in a stronger long-term position if they recommit themselves to open debate.
    As for trumpeting the sector’s strengths, the leaders of American higher education have been largely timid and quiet in the face of the Trump onslaught. “The people who are attacking higher education are talking nonstop,” said Holden Thorp, a chemist and former university administrator who runs the Science family of journals. “And the people leading higher education are not saying very much.” (Mr. Roth, a frequent critic of the administration, is an exception.) University presidents seem to be hoping that if they keep their heads down, the threat will pass — or at least pass by their campus. They are unlikely to be so fortunate.

    In Mr. Trump’s first term, administrators and professors sometimes made the opposite mistake and commented on political issues about which they had little expertise. College presidents do not need to become pundits. But they do need to defend the core mission of their institutions when it is under attack. University leaders would help themselves, and the country, by emerging from their defensive crouches and making a forthright case for inquiry, research, science and knowledge.

  19. 19.

    Elizabelle

    @eldorado:

    both the threats and actions are being timed so that it’s a constant onslaught meant to generate wins and demoralize us

    Absolutely.

  21. 21.

    Elizabelle

    @Ohio Mom:  Start where you are.  Use what you have.

    FWIW, I don’t think I have an American flag.  So:  Slava Ukraini!  And WTG Raptors, or whatever Canadians say, eh?

  22. 22.

    Elizabelle

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:  I would bet that France and Germany and Scandinavia and Asian countries are studying Parkinson’s, enthusiastically.  It affects the world.

    Good luck to you and Mr. DAW.

  25. 25.

    HopefullyNotcassandra

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    I don’t want to give you false hope.  I just want you to know the research continues and break throughs keep on occurring.

    In Australia, this is from yesterday

    https://www.aol.com/news/scientists-life-changing-discovery-over-181831440.html

    This is from today and discusses a drug under trial with much fewer side effects

    https://newatlas.com/disease/parkinsons-dyskinesia-drug-trial/

    From mid February, out of Wuhan China

    https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-just-found-a-cholesterol-clue-that-could-change-parkinsons-treatment/

    Other countries will pick up this dropped ball.

  27. 27.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Our problem in part is a failure of imagination.

    If there was only a group of people to inform the public, Josh and not just constantly toss out slogans like this.

    Once you know where you are you stop being bewildered by each new development.

    Does Josh it? Then explain to me how trashing the FBI accomplishes at Victor Orban style of take over. Considering the FBI been the way the elite controls the general population since like the 1930s in this country.

    This feels like Trump does something dumb because that’s Trump, and then everyone fills in the blank, Which according Scaramucci is exactly what Trump wants.  The way Scaramucci  describes it is Trump is constantly testing other people for thinking for thinks Trump can exploit and what Trump wants is everyone around him obsessed with Trump.

  28. 28.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Ohio Mom: I assumed that they knew exactly what they were doing there: if a terrorist attack happens, it only helps them politically, so of course they’re not going to concentrate on preventing them. (But they’ll put lots of effort into detaining people they don’t like who are coming through the immigration checkpoint.)

  29. 29.

    Susan of Texas

    Americans are authoritarian. Authoritarians suffer from a deficit of imagination because imagination leads to questioning authority. But all authority must be questioned, and this is the source of the fatal flaw in American society: authoritarians do not question their own authority, only others’ authority, since that opposing authority threatens the superiority of their own authority.

    Authoritarians derive their identity and self esteem from their relationship to their authority, thus their authority cannot be questioned without threatening the authoritarian follower’s self esteem and identity. Since very few people want to acknowledge that their identity is based on obedience to authority, they tell themselves that their identity is based on positive personal characteristics that they share with their authority. People cannot survive happily or healthily if they think they are bad, wrong in some way. They must believe they are good, and therefore they must believe that their leaders are good.

    Some leaders are good. Not all leaders are authoritarian. But most are. Most people are authoritarian. They were raised in an authoritarian society and they are taught their authoritarian society is good, in fact, superior to all other societies. Exceptional. Authoritarian leaders do not want their followers to be good. They want them to be obedient. They want their followers to have the personal characteristics that will keep them submissive to authority.

    So how the hell do well tell who is good and who is bad? We can’t see into their hearts and nobody is perfect. They make mistakes, have fears, have moments of weakness. The only thing we can do is look at what they do. What is the result of their actions, on the whole? Is it helpful or harmful to others? For the only thing we have in this short, brutal life is how we treat each other. If there is no benevolent Authority, nobody to come to our rescue and save us, no reward for goodness, the only thing we have in this life is how we treat each other.

    The result of our leaders’ actions is the return of Trump. It doesn’t matter if they are good or bad people. What matters is that their actions or inactions facilitated the return of Trump. People must make a choice. Either they can support their leaders or they can try to get rid of Trump. They can’t do both. The first time is an accident. The second time is negligence.

    And this is where things fall apart. If the center does not hold, the authoritarian becomes immobilized. They cannot imagine a world without an authority to depend on, to lead, to do their thinking and acting for them. They cannot even imagine finding a different authority who does not support their own authority.

    When you wait for a Second Coming to rescue you, sometimes a rough beast is born instead.

  30. 30.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Jeffro: I see the NYT is still trying to blame us for not throwing the trans people under the bus or letting everyone die of COVID.

  31. 31.

    stinger

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: ​
     Oh, Dorothy, it breaks my heart to read this.
    As a recent cancer survivor, I’m so angry about the curtailing of cancer research. Every single public service in this country has to be monetized on behalf of the already rich.

  33. 33.

    Salty Sam

    @WereBear: I find the fact that it’s clearly stupid has a paralyzing effect on those still grappling with the moment.

    I posted a comment yesterday, about an old friend who I discovered is so much a “normie” that even though he agrees we are in the midst of a constitutional crisis,  he’s OK with that because “everything is too expensive- the government is ripping off the American people.”

    Now I will confess that I used to have that level of detachment from politics myself.  That changed in 2000 with Bush v Gore.

    We keep saying “they’ll figure it out when the leopards are gnawing on their face”, but I have my doubts.  This old buddy of mine is married to a naturalized Mexican national.  I warned him after the election that she would have a target on her back, and his comment was “Meh, she’s got a green card- they won’t touch her.”

    If things don’t change with these kinds of people, we are fucked.   We (people like us here at BJ) do have power and agency to go out and work for change,  but dear god, the institutional inertia is a big hump to get over.

  34. 34.

    dc

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I see the NYT is still trying to blame us for not throwing the trans people under the bus or letting everyone die of COVID.

    Not so many decades ago, the NYT would be suggesting that Academia be open to debating the pressing question of whether or not anyone who is not a White male is a real person.

  35. 35.

    HopefullyNotcassandra

    @Jeffro: imagine how much better this would all be if the federal government, under conservative guidance, had not been pushing greed and defunding education since at least Ronald Reagan?

    Here is the recipe.
    Republicans inflict a terrible, incredibly difficult to shed policy on us.  Wait for that to marinate causing the obvious from the beginning effects.  Get somebody like Ezra Klein to blame democrats.  Laugh all of the way to the bank with our money in their pockets  and our votes behind their crappy candidates.

    I was just listening to Ezra Klein blame democrats for the Howard Jarvis association and proposition 13.   My head is still exploding.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Jarvis

    Jerry Brown, democrat, fought proposition 13 with everything he had.  Howard Jarvis, Republican/proto-maga, wanted to drown government in a bathtub.  Grover Norquist is his mentee.  

    Mr. Jarvis was an apartment owner.  Duh.   Did he lower his rents?  Who knows.  I sincerely doubt it.

    In the campaign, Jarvis argued that lowering property tax rates would cause landlords to pass savings on to renters, who were upset at their rapidly rising rents driven by the high inflation of the 1970s. Most landlords did not do this, which became a motivating factor for rent control.[7]: 2 

  41. 41.

    stinger

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Oh, how kind! Thanks for letting me know that. I think of that group often, and how much I enjoyed reading their works. Two workshops a week was just too much for me.

    I’ve taken a break from my WIP and am revising my almost-got-published novel about Robin Hood to see if perhaps I can get it actually published.

    That, and getting ready for gardening season — anything to keep from thinking too much about the current political situation.

  42. 42.

    WaterGirl

    @New Deal democrat: I thought the plane took off with one of the people, even after the order prohibiting it had come down.

    Off to read to see if it was more than one, and learn about the gloating.

    I see that it’s much worse than I had heard.  I think I might throw up.

  43. 43.

    John S.

    We’re in the midst of an authoritarian takeover of the U.S. government.

    First of all, not everyone seems to believe this is the case. Second, there are way too many politicians who say this but then act otherwise.

    Despite these two rather large populations of 1) fools and 2) hypocrites, the fact remains that we are in the midst of an authoritarian takeover.

    It’s up to the rest of us to decide how long we’re going to suffer fools and hypocrites.

  46. 46.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @Jeffro: Thanks for the post but fuck the fucking NYT with their “legitimate questions” framing.

    Please show me any institution or business sector that isn’t insular.

    The president of Wesleyan should fucking resign with his “intellectual elites” talking point. The dearth of conservatives defending universities has been hallmark for decades. Conservatives were front and center in turning universities into trade schools but that wasn’t enough. They want serfs.

    I will mourn the loss of scientific and medical research and the dashed hopes and dreams of those seeking cures, both researchers and those afflicted with disease. But let’s not forget the loss of programs and majors in the humanities. Those were the first line of attack and IMHO, how we got here to authoritarian America.

  47. 47.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Susan of Texas: thank you for this piece of writing about authoritarianism. It has been one of the models for a lot of peoples lives.Zoom in, scale out: the Christian it’s idea of man as head patriarch authoritarian of the family. The dominance- submissive expectations of male female relations, roles and positions, in some circles.

    I forget about it, and get shocked by it, because I hang out in a matrifocal and egalitarian religion. And in schools, where authoritative policy is contrasted with permissive. So while obedience is often useful, and functional, it’s not the only form of relationships and aims. There are structures, and norms, and within that, there is personal encouragement and development. I guess it’s healing to be around that, especially when it’s working well and feels inclusive.

    I found your thoughts on this topic very insightful.

  50. 50.

    Susan of Texas

    @WaterGirl: The first thing you do after you dug a hole that is too big to get out of is to stop digging. There is no easy answer at this point; we have lost too much power. So we must figure out how to take that power back. Power is taken, not given. Did electing Democrats give us power? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. But even when we were successful, we continued to lose power. So this is where imagination comes in. We need an Imagination Project to figure out new and successful ways of taking and keeping power.

    But power is useless unless you use it. The Republicans and that loathsome gibbon in the White House know this, which is why they constantly use performative demonstrations of power. What is our source of power? And do we have the courage to use it? Using power is messy and can cause harm. People who identify as good and reasonable think that using raw power is distasteful, brutal, classless and common. And it will result in serious consequences. I guess the question here is are we willing to fight, or will we continue to hope that civilized discussion and trusting our leadership will suddenly stop the brutal forces that have been defeating civility and cooperation for decades?

  52. 52.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Elizabelle: Im rooting for international medical research to find more solutions. For some great new options to come through for Mr DAW. Dorothy, I’m rooting for you both!

    I helped take care of a close family friend w Parkinson’s. It’s not easy.

  54. 54.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Omnes Omnibus: Thanks, good to know it was not only me that thought that characterization was rather odd.

    The result of our leaders’ actions is the return of Trump

    I also don’t who the “we” in the comment is and which leaders is she talking about. I am guessing that the comment made more sense in original Russian.

  57. 57.

    Jay

    ChrisO_wiki
    @ChrisO_wiki
    5h
    Just to put this in context, it would be five times the number who died in the Rwandan genocide, and about twice as many people as were killed over four years by Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. It would only be surpassed in modern history by the Great Leap Forward and the Holocaust.

    Mar 16, 2025 · 1:56 PM UTC

    ChrisO_wiki
    @ChrisO_wiki
    4h
    And remember, this is the toll for just *one* year of defunding.
    Mar 16, 2025 · 2:13 PM UTC

    https://nitter.poast.org/ChrisO_wiki/status/1901271466651365424#

    US Aid Defunding, numbers in link.

  58. 58.

    John S.

    @WaterGirl:

    But wait, it gets better!

    “Oopsie … Too late,” Bukele posted online, followed by a laughing emoji.

    The President of El Salvador is shit posting like a teenager about helping Trump fragrantly violate a court order, and the Secretary of State thanks him for it:

    Soon after Bukele’s statement, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, thanked El Salvador’s leader.

    Social media has to fucking die.

  59. 59.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Susan of Texas: please request my email; I’m interested in your imagination project, and would welcome the chance to brainstorm w you.
    wrt are all Americans authoritarian? It’s interesting to sort through where that model has permeated through family and community life, and where other models are succeeding. Certainly it’s not everyone, or all the time. But it may be more present that has been noticed. The way fish don’t notice water.

  61. 61.

    John S.

    @Gloria DryGarden:

    I stared at that skeet (or whatever the hell they call posts on X these days) for a minute, blinking in disbelief. But you can’t unsee something like that.

  62. 62.

    John S.

    @schrodingers_cat:

    I am guessing that the comment made more sense in original Russian.

    This is complete horseshit.

    Is this the new BJ standard? People who say things you don’t like are now equivalent to murderers and terrorists?

  63. 63.

    Ohio Mom

    I can see why normies don’t get it. If you followed me around with a camera, my life would look liked it looked last year: Ohio Dad makes lattes first thing in the morning, the garbage gets put out Wednesday night, there’s always another load of laundry to do, blah, blah, blah.

    I remember going to the mall during the fall of 2008, Ohio Son had outgrown his old winter coat and I wanted to see what was available. My neighborhood mall, which is usually quite busy, was empty. Everybody had gotten the message about the Great Recession. It had hit them.

    And Covid turned everyone’s life around, at least in the beginning. Who doesn’t remember the supermarket’s empty toilet paper shelves, the rush to get cloth masks, then medical ones?

    The bird flu is similarly having an effect, I go into the supermarket and there is a sign on the egg display warning about shortages.

    But our slide in authoritarianism? If I didn’t follow the news, I’d have no idea. I’m not looking forward if/when it becomes obvious in my midwestern suburb.

  64. 64.

    Steve LaBonne

    Around 50 or 60 people demonstrated around Medina (OH) Square today, lots of friendly honks and waves from drivers and fewer rude gestures than I expected.* Pretty good for a fairly conservative place, and it won’t be the last one. Things are going to get quite a bit worse before they even start getting better, but I believe they will get better and I have never been known as an optimist.

    *The funniest one had a passenger shouting something unintelligible and giving us the finger, while the driver was so undone that he almost caused an accident by making a left turn right in front of an oncoming car.

  65. 65.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @MagdaInBlack: interested in further discussion.

    As women, I think we see authoritarianism through a particular lens. Because of misogyny, bcs we got some rights in 1974, and a few with suffrage, but we fight tooth and nail in the work world, some of us. because we Watch life unfold while we make 75 or 83 cents to the dollar, we watch medical research  study men, we fight for position in churches, and companies, and sometimes in our families, which can be mini authoritarian cults. There’s a blurred line from paternalism (allegedly  benign) to patriarchy, to authoritarian.

    There’s a line in Martha Beck’s book, “the joy diet,” about probably the Mormon church ( she doesn’t say, but it’s a clear inference) about goody two shoes yet terrifying authoritarians, when the leaders got mad at her for what she was saying/ writing as she left their fold. I’m paraphrasing terribly.

    And there I go off on the soap box. Apologies.  I think there are layers and nuances, and it gets into people’s psychology. Just meant to invite further discussion

  66. 66.

    Susan of Texas

    @schrodingers_cat: If you think of questioning leadership as Russian agitprop, look at it this way: how can we give our leaders more power? After we get some of our power back, that happy occasion will be the time to bicker and argue over who killed who.

  69. 69.

    chemiclord

    At the end of the day, nothing is going to happen against Trump until the people are ready to do so… and frankly you aren’t going to push them to move to that point faster… and it’s never going to be fast enough.

    For example, in Hungary and Serbia right now? It took them over a DECADE of authoritarian rule just to get to THAT point.

    Now, don’t get me twisted. That’s not a call to give up. It’s in fact, the opposite. Because we need to be ready for when the people finally say “Enough.”

  70. 70.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @John S.: thanks. Put downs and labels aren’t much fun. Can be authoritarian, them selves. Control what people can say..control the narrative.

    I come from a family that worked to silence me, because I wanted to talk about the “elephant in the living room “

    if you don’t talk about it, everything stays the same, how cool is that?

  73. 73.

    different-church-lady

    @chemiclord: A lot of our problem is that we’re still in the phase where a lot of people still think this is what they want. It’s not even a question of their complacency, it’s a question of not even recognizing the danger yet.

  75. 75.

    Steve LaBonne

    @different-church-lady: Conservatives especially, but also a lot of nonpolitical normies, ignore most things unless they’re affected directly or via people in their own family and circle.

  79. 79.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Susan of Texas: and it’s different from authoritative parenting.

    It’s a pretty big topic. And it’s an art form, tricky to learn. There are limits that need to be set. Don’t steal, don’t destroy, and yes you will clean up your own mess, and no I won’t put up with that.
    deoends on how tight the limits get, what you are allowed to think and do. No dancing, no religions but our sect of “Christianity” etc..

  80. 80.

    Jay

    @Ohio Mom:

    And Covid turned everyone’s life around, at least in the beginning. Who doesn’t remember the supermarket’s empty toilet paper shelves, the rush to get cloth masks, then medical ones?

    Sadly, for a lot of people, Covid has been “memory holed”.

    You can see in in Bird Flu responses, measles outbreaks, vaccine resistance, cut’s to USAID.

  83. 83.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    @different-church-lady: …we’re still in the phase where a lot of people still think this is what they want…

    I wonder how many people would agree with taking a sledgehammer to the federal government. Sure, Grover Norquist types are overjoyed. Trump had to deny Project 2025 before the election because it wasn’t popular.

    I think the news hasn’t quite sunk in yet. [ETA for a large number of people]

  85. 85.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @different-church-lady: isn’t that weird, that so many folks don’t see the dangers unfolding? It’s been glaringly obvious. Of course, I’m wondering how can they not see, and how can congress critters act like things are business as usual?

  86. 86.

    Martin

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Yeah, it’s an institutional policy so it’s not universal, but faculty can be allowed to ‘buy out’ their teaching with grant money. Apart from that, every intuition I’m aware of faculty are on 9 month teaching contracts and the remaining 3 months salary they are free to find – quite often grants, sometimes summer teaching, etc.

    You can also do that as part of a broader salary. We had faculty that demanded a certain amount of retention compensation because they were such stellar researchers and we said ‘sure, but because you’re such a stellar researcher, you have to find all of that in your grants, and we’ll cover your retirement contribution’. Most faculty positions are constantly adjusting fractional pay lines – you have a 50% appointment with us (so we pay half your salary), a 15% appointment with this research institute, a 10% appointment with this other unit (maybe you have an administrative role there), and so on, and if you have your research group as an organizational unit, that just becomes one of those percentages that you as head of that unit are responsible for finding the money for the payline that you with an appointment in that unit receive.

    A lot of faculty having these grants cancelled are realizing that 25% of the source of their salary just got yeeted into the nether. But that cut in overhead is going to nuke most of the research infrastructure at a lot of institutions. That’s a more complicated situation to explain.

  88. 88.

    Interesting Name Goes Here

    @Susan of Texas: Questioning leadership is one thing.  But as with a lot of things since 2016, too many people that I’m supposed to agree with are taking lessons from the James O’Keefe School of Questioning Leadership…and we should ask ACORN how that worked out.

    Some Democrats could stand to learn a little more about the difference between questioning and harassing in order to score a takedown.

  92. 92.

    u

    @WereBear: Yes.  That is a tactical advantage that Trump/Vance/Musk has.  Intelligent people cannot imagine this level of stupidity, and decent people cannot imagine this level of evil.

  96. 96.

    u

    @Steve LaBonne: Yes.  The fact that his DOGE bullshit is hurting Real Americans (not just those brown people over there) makes me suspect that they’re really going to cancel elections.

  98. 98.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Omnes Omnibus: usually I do too. Anything that states that everyone, All people .. is an instant fallacy

    I just didn’t take it that way,

    but more as a pretty common insidious thing going on in more ways than had been looked at. But I operate from curiosity, and her discourse on authoritarianism piqued mine. I think it’s worth discussing, as a trend, or undercurrent to many parts of our society. it could be a fruitful conversation. YMMV

  99. 99.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    @u: Intelligent people cannot imagine this level of stupidity…

    [ in the voice of Han Solo ] I can imagine quite a bit.

  101. 101.

    Steve LaBonne

    @u: Red states can do plenty of fuckery, and now they will have encouragement from DC, but the Federal government doesn’t actually run any elections.

  104. 104.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Interesting Name Goes Here: wish I understood what you’re getting at; will consider googling later.
    meanwhile this I found quite useful:

    the difference between questioning and harassing…

    Harassing in order to score a takedown.

  105. 105.

    Martin

    @Omnes Omnibus: I don’t think so in that I think a large percentage of people everywhere are authoritarian receptive. Studies on authoritarian leaders vs followers show that shares of the population that are open to authoritarian appeals is give or take 50% – higher in some places and lower in others, but kind of in that range.

    The way you keep them from embracing authoritarian appeals is you constantly drum out the authoritarian leaders from politics as they rise through the ranks. Democrats have done an outstanding job of this, Republicans not so much. With no appeals being thrown out, it can appear that your authoritarian curious population is pretty close to zero. If one gets into power, that can seemingly change overnight.

    In the US, I would argue there is another place to look – public tolerance of heavy-handed policing, tough on crime policies, and so on. The US is very receptive to these appeals from both Democrats and Republicans. Same too for privacy invasions from corporations, etc. We’re very tolerant of that. Tolerant of labor crackdowns, etc.

    I’m not sure why you would find that characterization surprising.

  107. 107.

    HopefullyNotcassandra

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:   Scientists won’t quit science-ing and working toward a cure no matter how much this White House resents their brain power.   My heart is with you here.

  109. 109.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Martin: this adds very useful clarity. Thank you.

    confused by the phrase “ authoritarian appeals”. You mean when they try to sell their authoritarian pov to the masses, perhaps camouflaged or sane- washed?

  111. 111.

    Susan of Texas

    @Interesting Name Goes Here:

    There is no relationship between Republican dirty tricks campaigns and Democrats brainstorming more successful ways to gain power over Republicans. It is a deeply ungenerous leap of logic to associate  the desire to gain more power to fight Trump with a desire to undermine Democrats. Unless you think that Democrats must be undermined to defeat Trump, which I do not agree with. I believe Democrats must become more powerful to defeat Trump, which implies analyzing how we got into this powerless position, increasing our power, and eliminating obstructions to the use of that power.

  112. 112.

    Bill Arnold

    @Susan of Texas:

    The result of our leaders’ actions is the return of Trump.

    Republicans have agency. Their actions also resulted in the return of Trump; the GOP and their allies (some foreign, sigh) fought the 2024 election well, though with despicable tactics.
    They need to be attacked, ruthlessly. Fault lines mapped, and exploited without mercy. Etc.

  113. 113.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    @Bill Arnold: They [Republicans] need to be attacked, ruthlessly. Fault lines mapped, and exploited without mercy. Etc.

    Agreed. [ETA with deliberate care and thought. Sometimes a frontal attack strengthens the enemy. That is to be avoided.]

  114. 114.

    WaterGirl

    @schrodingers_cat:

    I have never seen a comment from you before. Why should I take what you say seriously?

    I hate to see a new person attacked and dismissed because they are new.

    “Every day someone new shows up and we love that.” ~ John Cole

    From the About Us page for Balloon Juice.

    Balloon Juice is an online community created by John Cole in January, 2002.

    Why the name Balloon Juice? Straight from dictionary.com: “Balloon juice is a slang phrase that primarily means ‘hot air’. It inspired the name of an influential political blog.”

    Hey, that’s us!

    The name started as a joke because the blog would be the random musings of one particular idiot: me, John Cole. In fact, our tag line started out as “Consistently wrong since 2002.” Now it’s “Come for the politics, stay for the snark.”

    While initially a one man show, the blog expanded and now has multiple people who write for the blog covering a wide array of topics.

    We have a number of experts in a range of fields, with everything from health insurance to security on the front page, and every one of our authors brings something unique that helps make Balloon Juice what it has become.

    As do our commenters! One person likes to describe it as like being at a party with really smart and interesting people. Every day.

    The talk focuses on politics, pets and animal rescue, gardening, pop culture and more, but what it really does is serve as a meeting point for interesting, like-minded people to talk, argue, share, and cope.

    We pride ourselves on being a real community — we get to know each other, help one other and serve as a (mostly) friendly refuge in an often ugly world. Like all families, we sometimes fight.

    Many members of our community have been lurkers (aka readers) and commenters for a very long time, but every day someone new shows up and we love that. The comments are open, so hop on in and join us.

    Welcome! We really hope to see you in the comments section.

  116. 116.

    zhena gogolia

    @Susan of Texas:

    I believe Democrats must become more powerful to defeat Trump,

    And calling them feckless and wimpy every day will make them become more powerful?

  117. 117.

    Interesting Name Goes Here

    @Gloria DryGarden: What I’m getting at is that there is room and allowance for actual, valid questioning of leadership; as a matter of fact, there was quite a bit of that leading up to Friday’s CR vote.

    But there is a thin line between doing that and just fishing around for soundbites and quotes that can be manipulated to use against the subject as a cudgel.  Frankly, there’s far more of that nowadays than there is actual questioning and criticism, and it’s overwhelmingly biased against Democrats – hence my invocation of James O’Keefe and ACORN; he was the driving force behind that organization’s dissolution because of his manipulated undercover videos.

  119. 119.

    RevRick

    @Ohio Mom: You have well described the reality of vast swaths of our people. An authoritarian regime doesn’t have immediate, discernible impacts on most people. And they can persist for a long time. Consider how long the Franco and Salazar regimes lasted on the Iberian peninsula. And the Communist Party is not going to go away anytime soon from China or North Korea.
    Life goes on, and people adjust and adapt. And because so many go untouched, motivating them to resist is hard. Which means we need to consider the possibility that the no matter how smart we are, our actions will always lag and be reactive.
    My answer is to find and create communities of resistance now, which means very much going local. I consider it a blessing that I belong to a progressive church and have ties to others. We will all need supportive communities, because none of us can resist alone.

  120. 120.

    Suzanne

    @Susan of Texas:

    I believe Democrats must become more powerful to defeat Trump, which implies analyzing how we got into this powerless position, increasing our power, and eliminating obstructions to the use of that power.

    I will note that soft-power tools, like ability to command attention, creativity in use of media, perception of what appeals to people, instinct for giving voice to people’s aspirations and moods, etc…. that can all be done when we don’t have hard power.

    The nature of this threat is so different than what we have seen in most people’s lifetimes. This is one of those times that I think experience isn’t helpful. Might even be fooling people into thinking this threat is analogous to others.

  122. 122.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Susan of Texas: you look up “contact us,” on the blog page there’s a link up there or on the side. It explains how you email a front pager to request your email be shared w someone else here. Some people ask watergirl, or Anne Laurie or Betty cracker, or john cole; their names are on the sidebar too.
    I’ve not seen you comment before today, if you’re new, you’ll soon get the hang of it, and soon you’ll get the flavors of people, so you know who you prefer to ignore.

    also pie. I don’t use it, but it blocks seeing certain people, so you don’t see them in the thread, i4 the replies they get. Click on the pie at the beginning of the comments, click on names y wish to block. Apparently you can toggle to peek. And you can un pie someone, I’m pretty sure (though I don’t know)

  123. 123.

    Martin

    @Gloria DryGarden: So, there’s research that suggests that there’s a whole class of people wouldn’t offer up an authoritarian idea to solve a problem, but when presented with one find it appealing.

    One place where you see this dynamic is teams of people who engage in behavior that makes you wonder ‘how did this group of people find each other?’ The military squad that is torturing civilians. If these people are so rare, how did 5 of them all find one another in a system where individuals don’t get to form their own teams? That seems statistically impossible. Well, the answer is that these people aren’t rare. The leader is rare, the followers are common. Thats’ why the military usually works really hard to find those people and get them out of the service because they know that’s how a Mai Lai happens. That’s how you get a Manson Family. Even though Milgram and Stanford Prison experiments were very flawed in their execution, they still reveal these tendencies. Getting a person to stand up and say ‘whoa, this is wrong I won’t do it’ is shockingly uncommon.

    The known solution to the problem is to find the authoritarian leaders early and keep them out of positions of authority – military squad leaders, sheriffs, prison leadership, etc.

  124. 124.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Martin: I don’t disagree that many people are receptive to authoritarian arguments.   But as you note, that is not unique to Americans.  Also, I see enough of us who are not that I objected to the blanket statement.  It does seem that my take is in the minority on the commenters on this thread and I don’t feel like arguing.  Have at it.

  125. 125.

    TBone

    Open Thread Jeff Tiedrich’s birthday, for all who celebrate this national treasure:

    imagine lecturing Germany for being insufficiently racist. how horrifying. they had to be on the losing end of a world war in order to rid themselves of this monstrous shit the first time around — and now here it comes again, knocking on their door in the form of some unpleasant furniture fucker.

    Germany doesn’t want you to save it, JD. Germany wants you to leave it the fuck alone.

    https://www.jefftiedrich.com/p/some-days-you-just-have-to-listen

  126. 126.

    Cathie from Canada

     

    @schrodingers_cat: Hey  I remember Susan, maybe from other earlier blogs (FireDogLake? Kevin Drum?)

    So actually I’m glad to see her commenting here.

    Moving to the point, Canadians are now gathering around the slogan “Elbows Up!” so if you want to show support for us you might use that too.

    It’s from hockey and reminds us of the great Gordie Howe (who was actually born near my dad’s farm in Floral SK!) because when Howe got his elbows up it meant he was aiming for a fight. A Gordie Howe Hat Trick is a goal, an assist and a fight!

  127. 127.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Suzanne: I will note that soft-power tools, like ability to command attention, creativity in use of media, perception of what appeals to people, instinct for giving voice to people’s aspirations and moods, etc…. that can all be done when we don’t have hard power.

    Bingo!

    meanwhile, this threat is not analogous to hitlers time?

  132. 132.

    Susan of Texas

    @zhena gogolia: I called them unsuccessful in stopping Trump, not feckless or wimpy. Then I said we should find successful ways to increase our power.

  134. 134.

    Interesting Name Goes Here

    @zhena gogolia: It’s funny, isn’t it?

    One thing I find amusing, in a not-really-funny and more bitterly frustrating way, is that for all of the allusions to and invocations of war imagery amongst left-leaning people in situations like these, not many of them realize or even acknowledge that they are asking people to directly confront what is effectively a modern-day army with outdated and very ineffective weaponry, if they have any weapons at all.  Remember the scene from Aliens where Gorman has the Marines disarm all of their projectile weapons right before SHTF?  That’s kind of what we’ve done to the Democrats.

  135. 135.

    Susan of Texas

    @Suzanne: I agree, and I think these are areas that Democrats can be better at utilizing than Republicans. One thing that greatly concerns me however is the church-to-Trump pipeline. I think its effectiveness has been overlooked somewhat.

  137. 137.

    WaterGirl

    @Susan of Texas: I think zhena may have been referencing a lot the comments made here in the past few days – not comments made by you .

    Zhena, please correct me if I’m wrong.

  138. 138.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Martin: to your first paragraph, it’s easy to fall into, for a quick fix.

    Sometimes I find myself wishing that certain oppressive people could be made to go away, to shush, and I won’t mind how it’s done. It’s a fantasy, but it falls under authoritarian thinking. Legal experts sosamente out against it, and they’re right to do so. But I understand the temptation.

    there’s the example of a parent who is against physical discipline, but things get to a point, and they slap or spank a child, to get them to stop. I know people who ended up choosing this. Didn’t beat their kids, but resorted to physical intervention. It’s understandable, in a way.
    Im so glad you’re commenting on this troubling difficult topic. I probably want to read the research.

    Remember the electric shock experiment? Very few people refused to administer it, they were persuaded. I’ve been in a similar position, once. Im not pleased w myself, about how that went. So part of what we’re watching out for, is internal tendencies.

  140. 140.

    Suzanne

    @different-church-lady: Yes. People are often willfully dumb.

    I remember debating with a former colleague about Confederate general statues. I said the better statues could be put in museums. He responded, “Might as well throw them away, then, nobody will ever see them.” That was when I realized that conservatives don’t go to museums.

    Probably the same for public libraries, theaters, etc.

  141. 141.

    A Ghost to Most

    “And on the brave and crazy wings of youth

    They went flying around in the rain

    And their feathers, once so fine, grew torn and tattered

    And in the end they traded their tired wings

    For the resignation that living brings

    And exchanged love’s bright and fragile glow

    For the glitter and the rouge

    And in the moment they were swept before the deluge”

    Jackson Browne

  143. 143.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Suzanne: but, but, but, history class?
    I’ve met the people who were there, just a few. But I knew from history class. And movies about it all.  So little of the history I got in school stick, all about men and wars and government, and very little about the oppressed peoples. But the stuff about hitler and Stalin and Lenin stayed with me, and Hiroshima. Siberia, the holocaust, the inquisition, going further back. Dictators and oppressive monarchs and Coups in many places.

    so you’re saying it’s so long ago, the analogous history doesn’t illustrate things?
    but the Jay says folks already forgot about Covid. 5 years ago, but like it was last month, for me.  Jeepers.
    do some people never take their heads out of the sand?

  144. 144.

    WaterGirl

    @Omnes Omnibus:

     It does seem that my take is in the minority on the commenters on this thread and I don’t feel like arguing.

    I had the same reaction as you.  I wouldn’t assume that reaction is in the minority, though it can feel that way for sure.

  146. 146.

    u

    @Suzanne: Yes.  I had (past-tense) several people in my family who were World War Two veterans, plus two Holocaust survivors.  All of them died years ago.  The Nazi era is, for most people, as ancient as the Egyptian pharaohs.  Hell, my own sons (in their mid-thirties) barely remember George W. Bush.

  148. 148.

    am

    Thank you. Again, I feel like you are one of the few people I follow anywhere that “gets it”.

    There is no time to primary people, there is barely any time to take normal measures. We need alliances with anyone and everyone who would be an ally (Republicans, Democrats, anyone), and we need to strategically use every lever of power.

    A smaller set of goals and a larger group of people, before it is too late. I am sorely waiting for an opposition coalition to organize.

  150. 150.

    Suzanne

    @Gloria DryGarden: I grew up living with my grandfather, a WWII vet who read the encyclopedia for fun and loved various media about it. Like, I was eight and watched “War and Remembrance”, LOL. And most of the other big movies and TV. I didn’t really get a sense of what the rise of fascism really would have felt like at the time until I went to Munich and to Dachau in 2009. Y’all are thinking that this kind of knowledge is surviving, but it isn’t.

    The median American voter was 44 last year. Born in 1980. That happens to be the year I was born. None of my grandparents made it to my 18th birthday. The formative political events of my young life have not been analogous to what is happening now.

  151. 151.

    karen gail

    I haven’t read the comments, yet, so don’t know if anyone mentioned Trump’s ordering the bombings in Yemen (pre-emptive strikes) which is supposed to send a message to the Houthis. So the US will succeed where all others have failed?

    Just goes to show that the US has learned nothing since Vietnam, nor from any other failed attempt to bring a group into submission. What the US has is a long line of failures; with nothing learned in Korea, Vietnam, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan all come to mind. But what the US has managed to do is give a bigger slice of yearly budget to “defense” and has become the number one dealer and seller of arms in the world. War is good for US economy.

    For as much as Trump, GOP blame the Democrats for warmongering; they sure seem set on starting WWIII.

  152. 152.

    Bill Arnold

    @Gloria DryGarden:
    I do not know who is tracking division in the GOP. Will poke around for political scientists who have been willing to write about such.
    Here’s a starter list, of current divisions:
    Hawks vs isolationists
    Medicaid/SNAP
    Inflation/recession – good or bad?
    SALT deduction (mainly in higher-tax states)
    Ukraine
    Trump’s visions of ethnically cleansing Gaza
    Gutting of funding for science in America

  154. 154.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Suzanne: thanks. Do you suggest that learning history is useful, not useful?
    You understood it’s relevance because of your grandfather, and the movies you watched. But for others? How to make it real to the younger generation? Any suggestions?

    I grew up with the adage that we learn history so we don’t repeat its mistakes…

    Much as I disliked it, and it had lots of darkness, it also shows how we got here, how people get to the situations we get into.. to some extent, anyway.

  156. 156.

    TBone

    In response to a WaPoo article about the erasure of the “DEI” patriots:

    How does one discuss the history of Arlington National Cemetery without mentioning the grounds were seized from Robert E. Lee because of his service on the Confederate side in the Civil War?

  157. 157.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Jay: so when certain officials fly over international waters… anything goes?
    sigh. Cannot discuss corollaries

  158. 158.

    kindness

    @Suzanne:

    That was when I realized that conservatives don’t go to museums.  Probably the same for public libraries, theaters, etc.

    This is accurate but can someone please explain how they know to throw fits and picket any time there is a Drag Story Hour at a library?

  159. 159.

    tobie

    @New Deal democrat: In court the govt said it couldn’t disclose anything about flights for “national security” reasons. Boasberg made a ruling from the bench effective immediately. Every one of the flights defied that “effective immediately” order. I hate what Trumpers have done to this country. I am filled with nothing but horror and shame at the actions of my ostensible govt.

  161. 161.

    chemiclord

    @Jay: The first step needs to be these people ignoring court orders need to be taken to jail.  Donald Trump may be immune, but his underlings aren’t.

  162. 162.

    Jay

    @Bill Arnold:

    As we have seen in the House and Senate, there are no effective divisions amongst the ReThugs. Some may make mouth noises to the Press, but when push comes to shove, they all fall in line.

  163. 163.

    Suzanne

    @Gloria DryGarden: I think we have to teach it, and talk about it with one another, and do our best to pass lessons to our children. Go to historical sites and watch movies and look at art.

    But, like…. something like half of adults don’t ever read another book after high school. We need to remember who we’re dealing with.

  165. 165.

    chemiclord

    @Suzanne: ​
     And that is a massive part of the problem. The people don’t want to know. They don’t want to think about politics, and will in fact get angry at you for trying to convince them it’s important.

    It’s a willful ignorance that the GOP can exploit in a way that Dems simply can’t.

  167. 167.

    Steve in the ATL

    @TBone: when my daughter was 12, she vomited on the front steps of the Sorbonne. It was initially hailed by the locals as a brilliant piece of social commentary, then as avant garde performance art, though that would have been more appropriate on the steps of the Pompidou. As it turned out, she just had rotavirus and was just gross rather than brilliant or insightful.

    I assume that was the scandal in Paris that the movie was about ?

  169. 169.

    chemiclord

    @Jay: Well, there is a degree that they “aren’t even trying.”  I think there would be some value in making our law enforcement say with full throats that they won’t enforce the law, and that they are there to be Trump’s civilian army.

    But the legal system repeatedly giving Trump’s cronies a latitude that they would never give anyone else is a huge problem.

  170. 170.

    Martin

    @zhena gogolia: If they don’t know they are being feckless and wimpy, then, yeah.

    Look, Democrats have been beating this drum that Trump and MAGA represent an existential threat to the US. That’s their messaging. And many of us believe that, either for our own reasons or because they sold that to us. Existential threats ARE THE THING YOU TO GO WAR FOR. They are the things we have nuclear weapons for. They are the things we have aircraft carriers for. If you truly believe this is an existential threat, your decision making is ‘who are we going to march to their death to stop this threat’.

    This was my primary focus during Covid – the response was incongruous to the threat. You are facing a million dead Americans and you are debating shit that belies the threat that is coming. You look clueless and too cowardly to make difficult decisions.

    That’s where we are with Schumer and most of dem leadership. Many of us are looking at an out of control executive, a complete breakdown of separation of powers, a nearly complete defiance of rule of law, and we want to know ‘when do we start taking action commensurate with this threat’ whether they feel it should be a general strike or storming buildings. But it sure as shit shouldn’t be voting for the CR that simply legalizes this behavior.

    This is what we want: “I hope he comes; I’m going to punch him out. I’ve been waiting for this, for trespassing on the Capitol grounds. I’m going to punch him out. And I’m going to jail, and I’m going to be happy.”

    Let me be clear here – people are going to die in this moment. They already are, that will get much worse, and we’re at the point of choosing. That was true with Covid and we chose poorly.

  171. 171.

    Suzanne

    @chemiclord: Agreed.

    This is why I push back whenever I see well-meaning liberals talk about needing better civics education. I mean, sure. But, like…. we all learned this stuff in school. I went to a high school politely described as “urban”. The kind of neighborhood where the teachers would encourage us to be one of the kids who “make it out”. I still learned this stuff. You simply cannot make people learn or retain info they don’t give a shit about.

  172. 172.

    Ohio Mom

    @Jay: Okay, Covid has been memory-holed by many but my point still stands: Back in mid-March 2020, Normies finally knew this new thing called Covid had arrived.

    They could have known for several months by that time, but being Normies, they didn’t. And that’s where we are now metaphorically speaking, it’s still the beginning of February, we know what’s coming and they are going to be very surprised in six weeks.

  176. 176.

    Ohio Mom

    @different-church-lady: No, that’s not what I meant. I meant that there aren’t enough things happening directly in Normies’ lives for them to gok that we are sliding into authoritarianism.

    They know about bird flu, they see things are different in the supermarket.

    Maybe they will never see we are sliding into authoritarianism. Maybe all they will see is higher prices from the tariffs and the stagflation headed our way.

  178. 178.

    Steve LaBonne

    @RevRick: I keep beating the drum for the importance of progressive churches. And even atheists like me can find one (I am a UU, but eg. nontheist Friends meetings would also be a comfortable fit, as well as a lot of Reform temples for those from a Jewish background.) Not only for the community and the organizing opportunities, but for the theology- a counterculteral stance toward our society’s hyper-individualism and warped values.

  179. 179.

    Interesting Name Goes Here

    @Martin: Two things wrong here:

    1) As I’ve noted above and elsewhere, WE (again, in the general sense) have done a really good job of disarming the people we elect to represent us and then demanding that they fight as if they still had those weapons.

    2) Want to know what happened the last time I was in a fight?  I was threatened first, I was attacked first, and aside from a defensive collar grab I never threw a punch back in anger.  And yet, I was still fired because friends of the instigator convinced my POS boss that my verbal confrontation of him over his provocative words and actions in the lead up gave him just cause to attack me.  This, despite knowing that the prick was a problem to multiple people, including the boss.  The only comfort I can take from the situation is that he got fired too.

    Too many of us have this idea that if we puff up our chests and project this image of being a True Badass, then whatever happens in the end will make it all worth it and it’s entirely possible that everything will be just fine.

    My personal experience, unfortunately, has taught me otherwise.

  180. 180.

    zhena gogolia

    @WaterGirl: Not just the past few days.

    I was mad at the elected Democrats when they abandoned the President. Now I could care less. But I don’t thinking it’s helping the situation to get mad at them at this point. The solution is not going to come from them.

  182. 182.

    Jay

    @Ohio Mom:

    We will see. The common response in the r/LeopardsEatingFaces threads is people who’s faces have been eaten,

    A). Blaming Democrats

    B). Variations on “if only the Tsar knew what his Cossacks were doing”

    C). “He’s hurting the wrong people”, but this still needs to be done.

  184. 184.

    cain

    @Martin: ​
    Let me be clear here – people are going to die in this moment. They already are, that will get much worse, and we’re at the point of choosing. That was true with Covid and we chose poorly.

     

    Not just die – but they will be tortured and held indefinitely with no access to lawyers. They will do it for the “illegal”immigrants but will also move on to H1Bs or any other immigrant class that they perceived can be isolated. Eventually, I am sure they are going to come for citizens after they work out how to remove the citizenship status from us.

  186. 186.

    RaflW

    I am an alum of sorts* of U.T. Austin. It occurs to me only now that I can (ought to?) write the admin as well as the alum association and start agitating that “lay low” and other isolationist thinking is bad for U.T. and for higher ed collectively.

    *Enrolled in a grad program, hated it, and became a ‘nontraditional’ student taking lots of bonus undergrad classes in areas of personal interest. So not a graduate of U.T.

  189. 189.

    Professor Bigfoot

    @WaterGirl: I think one of the challenges in recognizing the authoritarian tendency in Americans is that it primarily manifests itself in white supremacy.

    From the Enslavement to Jim Crow to Derek Chauvin, this country has always been a “police state” for Black people.

  191. 191.

    RaflW

    Josh “Meanwhile, all the gutting going on inside the government right now is being carried out for the one purpose: that the power of the state is really the erratic and degenerate will of one man, Donald Trump.”

    Yes. But also, I am just hearing about the idea of resilience targeting. I need to read up on it, soon, but it makes intuitive sense: weakening or even destroying the things that help make communities resilient (social services, or inexpensive clean tap water, lots of other things) makes resisting authoritarians much harder.

    And I think resilience targeting explains some of the hollowing of institutions that we look at like “why would Republicans end childhood cancer research?” What possible motive is there besides just pure evil? Well, parents struggling to keep their kids alive have NO time for anything else.

  192. 192.

    Jay

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    People who couldn’t/wouldn’t connect the dot’s between DJTdiot’s Campaign and what was going to happen, will not connect the dots between DJTdiot’s actions and their impacts on their lives.

    If a Government worker who voted for DJTdiot can’t or won’t connect the dots, a Normie who didn’t vote won’t connect the dots either.

    Another strong common thread is they had people in their lives who warned them, but they clung to denial right up until the Leopard ate their Faces, and still do.

  193. 193.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Jay:

    OK, I’m sure those people exist, but those reddit threads you’re talking about is anecdotal evidence and not something representative of the whole population.

    IOW, you can’t possibly predict/know how people are going to react, especially with the degree of certainty you are expressing

  194. 194.

    Ohio Mom

    @rikyrah: So much for Righties supporting the military. Who do they think is going to replace all those Black service members they push out? Well, I guess if we are going to be isolationist, maybe we don’t need that big a force?

    They really are evil geniuses. They see openings where I wouldn’t.

  198. 198.

    karen gail

    I don’t know about anyone else but I am sick and tired of headlines, leads that say “X is saying the quiet part out loud.” These people have been saying things that others don’t want to hear for years, just have been in a position to where their comments are now “news.”

    The latest headline was bout Hegseth admitting US bombed Yemen because US assets are being attacked.

  199. 199.

    karen gail

    @Ohio Mom: Since Hegseths apparent goal is to make the military all white males; not only does that remove a percentage of soldiers but much of support staff.

  200. 200.

    WaterGirl

    @rikyrah: It’s easy for me to say, but if I were a female in the military, I would want to get the hell out at the soonest possible moment.  It will surely be open season on females for rape, etc, with no consequences except to the person reporting their assault.

    If I were a black man, I would want to get the hell out at the soonest possible moment.  Open season, just like with the women.

    If I were a white male who is not a nazi, i would want to get the hell out at the soonest possible moment because I would not want to be faced with illegal orders.

    I also realize that a lot of folks in the military chose it because it’s their best option toward building the life they want.  So what the hell do they do?

    It’s a scary thing when your government can’t be trusted.

  201. 201.

    Harrison Wesley

    @Ohio Mom: If you’re going to use the military to supress domestic protest, you’re looking for a certain mindset. I suspect that a lot of the people currently red-flagged by the armed forces for extreme views are going to be actively recruited

  202. 202.

    WaterGirl

    @karen gail: I think the difference is that they are openly bragging about all this horrific behavior now.

    They went from 2025 isn’t real (bullshit, yes it was) to hell yes we’re getting rid of anyone and anything we don’t like, the hell with laws and judicial rulings.

    So it is a change from how things were before.

  203. 203.

    Martin

    @Interesting Name Goes Here:

    1) I’m not taking about these leaders using those tools. The legal tools Democrats have are useless against an administration that ignores the law. I’m speaking of leadership. One of the things leadership does is invent new tools, new strategies, and then marshall the resources needed. That’s leadership. That’s what we did during Covid. At the start, the notion of closing a university was unthinkable. I needed to change that, to make it possible, then to make it necessary. My university wasn’t the first to close – credit to UWash administrators for getting there. But I was behind closing 2, 3, 4, and 5, all in one day and that opened the floodgates that along with UWash made it clear to everyone else that it was both possible and necessary. That’s what leadership does. To be clear, it wasn’t my decision, just my plan.

    2) You don’t go into a fight with guarantees you won’t lose something along the way. See my quote from Pelosi above: “And I’m going to jail, and I’m going to be happy.” How much of a price are we willing to pay for our kids, etc? There’s always a price to pay, and we choose to pay it, and then we erect monuments to the people who were willing to pay it. Maybe you can’t get there, but a lot of us can.

    We draw these comparisons between Trump and Hitler. How many of our relatives freely walked into recruiting offices on Dec. 8, 1941 and signed up, knowing damn well what their fate might be? I have 3 grandparents that did that. All they needed were leaders to give them a plan. That’s all we’re asking. That doesn’t seem like too much.

  204. 204.

    WaterGirl

    @Martin: I’m sure this is all particularly glaring in a special way for you, as the guy who used to write the plans where you worked.

    Of course we need a fucking plan!

  205. 205.

    Martin

    @RaflW: Yes. But also, I am just hearing about the idea of resilience targeting. I need to read up on it, soon, but it makes intuitive sense: weakening or even destroying the things that help make communities resilient (social services, or inexpensive clean tap water, lots of other things) makes resisting authoritarians much harder.

    “Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.”

  207. 207.

    Gvg

    @Nelle: DC and Puerto Rico should be 51 and 52 (assuming PR decides to go for it) so I am not against the 51 stars, but it should not be sold right now. Trump of course did not bring up these legitimate matters, but proposed conquest.

  208. 208.

    Interesting Name Goes Here

    @WaterGirl: You need a plan, but you also need people to execute that plan.  You don’t get those people going on to MSNBC and CNN every day and night and doing the work of the GOP for them.  You don’t get those people telling other people to not vote or leave ballots blank as a protest.  You don’t get those people by railing against people who’ll give you some or nearly all of what you want because you wanted the whole damn thing.  What you get when you do stuff like that is a bunch of incoherent nonsense posing as freedom of thought.

    Again, until we figure that out and stop it, the only way this ends is for a lot of people to get hurt bad.  I’m not looking forward to seeing what form that takes this time.

  209. 209.

    chemiclord

    @Martin: Now this is where I will defend the Democratic Party, at least a little.

    Yeah, they told us repeatedly that Trump represented an existential threat to the country.  The country then said, “Fuck you, shitlib.  We don’t believe you,” and elected Donald Trump anyway.

    So if we don’t give a shit, why wouldn’t the Democrats take that cue?  I mean, that’s kinda what I would do.  “Fine.  You want to pretend things are all normal and that there’s nothing wrong?  We can do that.  It’s on your head.”

  211. 211.

    TBone

    @chemiclord: because they know their base is what holds?  At this point, it may be the only institution (We the Democratic Party people) that holds the line!

  212. 212.

    Another Scott

    @Susan of Texas: Thank you. Post more often.

    Kinda relatedly, I’m reminded of one of Popehat’s mantras:

    https://bsky.app/profile/kenwhite.bsky.social/post/3lkhm3ipszc2t

    Domestic Enemy Hat
    ‪@kenwhite.bsky.social‬

    A reminder in dark times: kindness, mercy, decency, and respect towards the least of us enrages Trumpists. It burns them. It’s like a mirror that shows them how they fall short of humanity.

    Kindness and decency towards the people Trumpists hate is not just right; it torments Trumpists.

    March 15, 2025 at 10:34 PM

    I don’t know how or when this monstrousness will end, but the warning that we need to preserve our humanity (while we fight in every sensible way we can) is probably a good one to keep in mind.

    Thanks again.

    Best wishes,
    Scott.

  213. 213.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @chemiclord:

    So if we don’t give a shit, why wouldn’t the Democrats take that cue? I mean, that’s kinda what I would do. “Fine. You want to pretend things are all normal and that there’s nothing wrong? We can do that. It’s on your head.”

    I think that’s terrible, honestly. I might be demoralized (as I was in reality after the election) but if I were in their position I’d still stick to that messaging that Trump is a threat because it’s true and I, for example, definitely wouldn’t vote for (not even present, but a yea) a law that would’ve given the president unilateral authority to declare any non-profit group ‘terrorists”, even if it didn’t have the votes to pass.

    All of them, including Bernie Sanders (yes, I know he’s not a Dem, but he’s aligned more or less), voted to confirm Rubio as the Secretary of State, and we’ve seen how he’s been doing his job, openly thanking the El Salvadorian president for accepting people stripped of their rights by his own government, in defiance of court orders

  214. 214.

    chemiclord

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Again, it was clear that “Donald Trump is a threat” was not a winning message.  Why should they cling to it when the American people clearly didn’t give a shit?

    Remember, the one thing Americans hate hearing above all else is, “I told you so.”

  215. 215.

    Another Scott

    @HopefullyNotcassandra: OMG, did he really argue that??

    In the campaign, Jarvis argued that lowering property tax rates would cause landlords to pass savings on to renters, […]

    OMG.

    Adam Smith worked on that argument in the Wealth Of Nations around 250 years ago.

    Ground-rents are a still more proper subject of taxation than the rent of houses. A tax upon ground-rents would not raise the rents of houses. It would fall altogether upon the owner of the ground-rent, who acts always as a monopolist, and exacts the greatest rent which can be got for the use of his ground. More or less can be got for it according as the competitors happen to be richer or poorer, or can afford to gratify their fancy for a particular spot of ground at a greater or smaller expense. In every country the greatest number of rich competitors is in the capital, and it is there accordingly that the highest ground-rents are always to be found. As the wealth of those competitors would in no respect be increased by a tax upon ground-rents, they would not probably be disposed to pay more for the use of the ground. Whether the tax was to be advanced by the inhabitant, or by the owner of the ground, would be of little importance. The more the inhabitant was obliged to pay for the tax, the less he would incline to pay for the ground; so that the final payment of the tax would fall altogether upon the owner of the ground-rent. The ground-rents of uninhabited houses ought to pay no tax.

    IOW, land owners always charge as much as they can for use of their land – independent of their costs. Cutting property taxes will not decrease rents.

    This is Econ 101 stuff.

    The GQP has been in the thrall of broken economic thinking for far, far too long.

    (To be fair, Smith does talk about taxes on rents and on houses as well. And there could be effects on housing (e.g. making houses with fewer windows to try to reduce the tax), but he notes –

    “The natural tendency of the window-tax, and of all other taxes upon houses, is to lower rents. The more a man pays for the tax, the less, it is evident, he can afford to pay for the rent. Since the imposition of the window-tax, however, the rents of houses have upon the whole risen, more or less, in almost every town and village of Great Britain with which I am acquainted. Such has been almost everywhere the increase of the demand for houses, that it has raised the rents more than the window-tax could sink them; one of the many proofs of the great prosperity of the country, and of the increasing revenue of its inhabitants. Had it not been for the tax, rents would probably have risen still higher.”

    So, again, the market adjusts and supply and demand always dominates, and landlords always try to charge as much as they can. Cutting property taxes will not reduce rents.)

    Thanks.

    Best wishes,
    Scott.

  216. 216.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Interesting Name Goes Here: I’m reminded of the Inspirational Bully Story. You know the one: “a bully bothered me in school until I finally gathered up the courage to punch him in the snoot, and then he didn’t bother me any more. That’s you how handled bullies.”

    I always wonder if these people went to a school like mine, where the bullies were more like an organized criminal gang who sort of ran kid society. If you tried to punch the bully in the snoot, chances are, you’d be surrounded by a dozen of his friends who all outmassed you by 50 pounds and they’d beat the living shit out of you.

    And then the administration might give you detention, for “fighting”.

    That’s kind of where I’m coming from with bullies. It’s maybe affected my thinking about these things in a bad way.

  217. 217.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Suzanne: I’m old enough that I actually HAD a class called “civics” in junior high! Guess what: my generation are Trump’s most enthusiastic voters.

  222. 222.

    Interesting Name Goes Here

    @Matt McIrvin: My initial takeaway after the incident was that I should have never let us get separated.  I should have let him tire himself out with his ineffectual punches, and then I should have beat the brakes off of his ass until I was tired.  After all, if I was going to get fired anyway, why not go all in?  At least then I would have had some sweet, sweet catharsis.

    Of course, as things unfolded in the aftermath, I quickly found out that the allies I knew I had were powerless to do anything about it…and the allies that I thought I had were absolutely fine with stabbing me in the back repeatedly, especially when I filed for unemployment.

    Now the lesson is this: unless my life is in imminent danger, I just have to shut up and take it.  I told my boss about the problem – repeatedly.  Others told him about it – repeatedly.  But it was never handled until it was too late, and then I ended up paying the price for it anyway.  As far as I know, that boss is still there, and in all likelihood he’s still the same ineffectual asshole who won’t do a goddamn thing except to ask “How high?” when his superiors tell him to jump.  And as for me, I now know that going forward in life I cannot count on anyone having my back for any reason, possibly even if it’s a matter of life and death.

    I see that chemiclord has addressed it a few posts above, so I’ll say this in agreement with him.  Some of us in this country like to believe that we are the bosses of the people we elect to hold office.

    How many of us are going to admit that we’re shitty fucking bosses?

  223. 223.

    Martin

    @chemiclord: Because it was a vote for a President, not a vote on what the constitution should be. It wasn’t a vote to remove democracy, despite the warnings that was about to happen. These are different things, and nobody explicitly spoke to the latter.

    That’s the trap authoritarians set – you voted for me, I get to do whatever I want. No, we voted for you within the constraints that the law and the constitution set. Once you cross those, all bets are off. One of Trumps many, many inabilities is the inability to separate the person from the office. And he has convinced a lot of people that there should be no such separation, but there must be. That’s what separates us from monarchs. It’s all that separate us from monarchs.

  226. 226.

    YY_Sima Qian

    Pursuant to the title of this post, the reactionaries have been inside of everyone’s (at home & abroad) OODA loop, w/ their complete disregard for laws, & the utter ineffectiveness of the remaining institutions to even serve as speed bumps.

    Yes, the reasonable expects that Trumpian misrule will benefit the Dems by default in the mid-terms, but what if the elections will not be free & fair enough to matter for the Dems. We have to start planning for that contingency. That probably means mass civil disobedience to start, but we have to get people conditioned to organize & protest in the next 2 years. Only then can you expect a massive & coherent response to a call for a general strike, for example.

    If the national elected Dems are unwilling or unable to serve as leaders to build that movement, & if the national Dem party is unwilling or unable serve as the vessel to embody that movement, then we have to look to the local Dem parties & outside organizations. If the leaders of elected Dems are impotent in the minority & can’t be expected to lead a resistance, then they don’t deserve any deference.

    As I wrote yesterday, this CR vote is merely one battle in a loooong war, they will be plenty more to come & opportunities to recover. However, we & the elected Dems have to recognize the correct the tactical & strategic mistakes & make adjustments. AKA the OODA Loop. The moment is too dire to fall back to conventional politics of waiting for Trumpian misrule to hand electoral victory on a platter to the Dems.

  227. 227.

    Jay

    @YY_Sima Qian:

    Keep in mind, that despite the overt threats to US Democracy,

    36% of the eligible voters couldn’t be arssed enough to vote,

    and 33% voted to end American Democracy.

    I don’t see a Maiden happening.

  228. 228.

    am

    @WaterGirl: It was directed at you and your original post. I can’t @ reply to the original post (or at least, I’m unaware how).

    There are basic approaches to conflict where one disorients and creates divisions in ones opponent. I’m not pleased it is working so well against the Democratic party. I’m grateful for your willingness to and talent for countering attempts to create these reactions, and maintaining composure and focus.

  229. 229.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Jay: The ingredients for a mass disobedience movement will be there, as MAGA moves swiftly to dismantle the US government & materially damage everyone except a select group of kleptocrats (although most plutocrats will probably make accommodations to the new regime to preserve their interests). They are moving much more quickly & much more broadly than other illiberal democrats or authoritarians have in other countries (such as Hungary, India & Poland), which should generate a broader backlash once the pain is felt broadly.

    However, having the raw ingredients is not enough, we need cooks to turn them into a meal, before the reactionary counterrevolution is fully entrenched (by which time normalcy bias will become headwind against resistance). That is why it has taken so long for mass movements against Orbán & Vučić to develop, Hungarians & Serbs had let illiberal “democracy” become entrenched. At the pace the US is going, illiberal/managed democracy could become entrenched before the 2026 mid-terms, & certainly if an unfree & unfair mid-terms goes w/o effective challenge.

    That is why may of us want to see a far greater sense of urgency from the leaders of the elected Dems.

  230. 230.

    Martin

    @Jay: A Maiden doesn’t happen. It’s not spontaneous. A Maiden is created. Someone needs to have the vision and initiative to make it, and the opposition leaders are supposed to be the ones who do that. That’s their job.

  231. 231.

    John S.

    @schrodingers_cat:

    You are not the victim here.

    You accused someone of spreading Russian propaganda because you didn’t like what they wrote. Then you doubled down by insisting you’ve never seen them comment here before.

    Nobody attacked you.

  232. 232.

    Jay

    @Martin: A Maiden needs to have people show up. 36% couldn’t bother to vote, 33% are all in on the cruelty, even when it hits them and family,

    How many will show up when the MAGgot’s are running wild or the KKKops are bashing heads?

  233. 233.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Jay: Resistance movements generally start w/ a relatively small minority of the committed, in a sea of the indifferent or the not motivated enough. They gain support from a combination of the authorities overreacting (& thus garner sympathy), & winning small victories that puncture the myth of invincibility surrounding the authorities.

    That is why the expedient path in conventional politics is generally not effective for resistance & insurgency.

  234. 234.

    Jay

    @YY_Sima Qian:

    The Civil Rights movement prepared for violence.

    There were self defense groups from the Black Panthers to the Ministry.

    The peaceful protestors and Organizers walked out there, knowing full well that there would be police brutality, lynch mobs and murders.

    They believed that exposing State and vigilante violence would sicken Mainstream America.

    It’s not that America anymore.

  235. 235.

    Martin

    @Jay: Are you trying to argue that 100 million people showing up won’t be adequate? Maidan was like 25,000 people.

  236. 236.

    Jay

    @Martin:

    Based on the 2024 votes. Roughly 1/3rd of the US won’t cant be arrsed. 1/3 will be enthusiastic participants in the cleansing and purges.

    Donno how many of the other 1/3rd will show up.

    Maiden, 800,000 showed up. About 4% of the population, and that was one, protest center.

  237. 237.

    Jay

    @Martin:

    If there was 100 million, that showed up.

    100 million would be happy they finally got to use their AR-15’s,

    100 million would be “price of eggs”, not my problem. Do you know how many work emails I have to respond to?

  238. 238.

    TerryC

    @WaterGirl: When I was but a lowly white male E-4 in the Navy during Vietnam I stood up for the right thing ended up getting my commanding officer removed for racism. I was the ship’s secretary and pretty much knew everything.

    Instead of getting in trouble, which I didn’t – and to this day I do not understand how that happened – my new CO called me in and said several officers were afraid of me or angry and he gave me my choice of available spots open in the Navy through his friends in BuPers.

  239. 239.

    rebelsdad

    @Jay: there is nothing any of us can say or do to disabuse you of your “Americans are cowards and they suck” mindset. You clearly don’t like us and are comfortable dishing out stereotypes and weak arguments to suit your own narrative. That’s why I’ve pied you.

    Bless your heart.

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