I, like many here, have said that we’re in an existential moment for the Republic. But I’ll confess that for all the cynicism and world-weariness I’ve accumulated over the years of Trump and the GOP’s steady turn towards authoritarianism, I still held on to the delusion that the US really had a robust immune system when it comes to explicit, overt fascism.
Adam Silverman has, of course, been trying to warn us all, me included, that this is in fact a delusion. That we’re in a low-intensity but real war for the direction and soul of the United States, and that by many measures, we’re in a bad position to fight that war.
The last few days have finally tipped me over.
Adam’s right.
One of America’s two political parties is not just cheating to try to win elections, but has accepted/adopted the basic tropes that have driven European fascism since the 20s, and we need to be prepared not just for electoral battle but, perhaps, for much worse.
What tipped me over? A few things. But the catalyst was an email from former Boston Globe columnist turned Substacker (Truth and Consequences) which pointed me to this week’s public post. on the experience of wading into the cess pool of a website calling itself American Greatness. It was, as ever, more persuasive in the original German:
The crux of the argument made by Christopher Roach, an adjunct fellow of the Center for American Greatness, is that the right can no longer acquiesce to liberal indoctrination. “The forces of the aggressive, secular Left are not going to let any of us retreat into our own enclaves,” says Roach. “They will hunt down every last private club, pizza shop, and bakery out of mere spite. They will steal your kids and destroy your life.”
Cohen emphasizes that this isn’t just a matter of a handful of wackaloons on some web backwater.
For months now, political observers have noted the conservative movement’s increasingly authoritarian bent, so I suppose it’s not surprising that a publication devoted to promoting Donald Trump would unabashedly embrace such a message. But after reading a number of posts at American Greatness, I was struck by something even more disturbing — the increasingly existential, even eliminationist rhetoric emanating from the far right. Liberalism is presented not as an ordinary political or cultural movement. Instead, it is a clear and present threat to America’s future and the American people. To read American Greatness is to believe that America is in the last throes of liberal indoctrination, and the time is now to confront it with force, if necessary.
The crux, as Cohen points out is that this is exactly the same line that the right’s leading “intellectuals” are pushing:
It would be easy to dismiss the writings at American Greatness or any publication that attempted to put an intellectual gloss on Trumpism. This kind of language has long found a home on the fringe right. But the site includes a roster of what Sykes calls “right-wing luminaries as Victor David Hanson, Seb Gorka, David Harsanyi, Conrad Black, Roger Kimball, Mark Bauerlein, Josh Hammer, Ned Ryun, Dennis Prager, and Salena Zito.” These are writers who have some level of intellectual currency and influence in the conservative movement.]
I know, I know, an intellectual murderer’s row there and all that. But this kind of violent eliminationism is both terrifying to anyone with a historical memory that reaches further back than last week and hardly confined to the bay-at-the-moon end of the GOP spectrum. Tucker Carlson is in Hungary praising an real-life fascist dictator, Orban, with Rod Dreher, the noted Christianist authoritarian, cheering him on.
Mike Flynn has just gone full-on Triumph of the Will at a widely web-cast mega-Church event. Newt Gingrich is openly touting “replacement theory” on Fox News, explicitly channelling a Nazi framework on mass media to justify the radical right’s ascent/return to power. And there’s more besides.
I’m not posting this out of a sense of fatalism or despair. These people are clearly a minority. There are as many grifters as true believers, probably more, making bank off of gullible, timid Trumpoids, with no intention of risking a good thing by actually taking up arms. There are a handful who we know have some tactical and political skill working this crowd; Mike Flynn may have drunk waaaaay too much mercury on his way to the haberdasher, but you don’t get three stars for being wholly incompetent in the military arts, and there are others who truly seek power (not just cash) and have skills to pursue it. And yet it’s pretty clear that if allowed to express their views peaceably and the ballot box, a significant majority of Americans reject the poison these anti-patriots are peddling.
That’s the crux, of course; if allowed…
I’m not going to pretend to know how to make that our reality. But I’m actually hopeful, in the sense that I think much of the elected Democratic leadership and an increasing number of both elite and ordinary citizens have become aware of the gathering threat. Certainly readers of this blog have. That’s the start from which all further action will flow.
We’re back to where we’ve often been: the preservation of liberty requires eternal vigilance.
To that end, I don’t have a broad based prescription. But I can say this: any Jackals that live in AZ or WV: call your senators and (politely) express your strong support for voting rights legislation. Do it often. Get to the point where the staff (and/or the answering machine) know your voice and ask after your kids.
I have some thoughts about what more to do, but they’re worth what you pay for them, and I’ll mull a bit more (as in, try to get some actual expert insight). Further suggestions welcomed below, including, especially, how to confront the increasingly armed and dangerous attempts to intimidate democracy and seize power by force.
When and as we triumph, we can gather for a Balloon Juice chorus reading of the St. Crispin’s Day speech. Deal?
Open thread, friends.
Image: Eugène Delacroix, Liberty guiding the people, 1830
zhena gogolia
Carlson going to Hungary has me very nervous. This guy is dangerous, even if he did lose Dancing with the Stars on the first round. He has even less moral sense than TFG.
Zzyzx
Free Republic leading up to 1/6 had me terrified. Sure it was just random nutjobs talking about Pinochet helicopters and that liberals shouldn’t even be allowed to govern cities where they were in obvious supermajorities, but they had cachet.
PJ
Larry Flynt and I celebrate that Liberty goes topless.
sukabi
The eliminationist language has been the go-to on FOX since 1999-2000*** … that’s when they really started targeting “liberals” in their language….Hannity, O’Reilly and Limbaugh turned it up to 11 at that point…the rest have joined in and keep cranking up another notch or two every time they open their maws.
*** Had been without cable for a couple of years prior to yhen, when I got cable again it was an OMG!!! WTF HAPPENED!!!?!! shock.
Omnes Omnibus
Make sure you are registered to vote. Jump through whatever hoops are there. Seek help for the hoop-jumping if needed – organizations are there to help. Then vote. Stand in line as long as necessary, but vote. If people don’t want to count your vote turn out en masse to protest. If we lose in a fair election, accept the result. If we win, demand that they accept the result. If they don’t, use every legitimate means available to make them.
Tom Levenson
@Omnes Omnibus: Concur.
germy
Ten Bears
I’ve been bayin’ at the moon about this since the appointment by an ideologically stacked actively partisan panel of non-elected lifetime vigilantes of the scion of old school Hitler financing Robber Baron money with limited intellect, less education and no experience to the highest office in the land ~ since many of us started blogging. May have cost me a career. I’m not feeling the despair, probably because I’ve already been through that phase; nor do I feel any particular satisfaction with being right. Cassandra’s Grandson, I’ve grown accustomed to being ignored.
I don’t know what phase I’m in, but despair isn’t it.
Omnes Omnibus
@sukabi: It happened before that. These assholes have always been with us, and they always need to be opposed.
Adam L Silverman
via GIPHY
Kay
The teenagers tricked him into corresponding with them then revealed that he’s a white nationalist .
JPL
@zhena gogolia: It’s time to hit all the advertisers on Fox. I’m not even sure that’s possible, but that’s the only way he will be kicked to the curb. As long as he has a microphone, he’s dangerous.
Tom Levenson
@Kay: Those kids are all right.
debbie
@zhena gogolia:
Am I wrong to think Orbhan is losing support?
Another Scott
I think you and Adam make a good case, but I don’t find it persuasive. We have (as you know) always had a small minority that have wanted to overthrow what our parents and forefathers (and foremothers) fought and died for.
These times are very different from the 1930s, they’re different from Orban’s Hungary, and they’re different from other slides to fascism. Although it doesn’t look like it in many respects, I think we turned the corner on November 3, 2020. They had the seat of power and they lost. It will not be easier for them next time.
We know what it takes to defeat them, and we are doing the necessary work. It won’t be a linear journey, there will be setbacks, but we are winning.
Keep the faith, hang in there, and keep moving forward.
Cheers,
Scott.
Mike in NC
Budapest has a museum called “House of Terror” documenting the fascist and communist regimes of the 20th century. We didn’t have time to explore it when we visited. Maybe Tucker Carlson should check it out. He can buy a souvenir armband or something.
Adam L Silverman
@zhena gogolia: Carlson is the most dangerous man in America right now. His nightly viewership averages 2.81 million. Monday through Friday. And he’s got thousands more watching his daily streaming show on Fox’s streaming platform. Trump, at his best, is holding one or two rallies a month with a several thousands in attendance and a few thousand more watching on OANN or Newsmax, depending on which one is broadcasting it, and whomever is streaming it on YouTube and Rumble.
President Biden doesn’t reach that many people per day because he doesn’t hold a press conference or a rally or anchor a broadcast every night. Carlson’s message both reaches more Americans each day than any other political figure in the US, but it has now, as Tom notes, become the default ideological position of Fox News. Far farther to the extreme than Rupert had ever dared previously go. I expect, unless something significant happens to disrupt where things are going in the US, that Carlson will run for president in 2024 and if not 2024 then 2028 at the latest.
hrprogressive
dailykos.com/stories/2021/8/4/2043809/-Extremist-groups-are-causing-political-refugees-to-flee-Vermo…
It *is* happening here. Present Tense.
This isn’t what most of the polite progressive left want to hear, but honestly, the sooner everyone mentally prepares themselves for the idea that, sooner than you’d like, there may well be a concerted movement by extreme, white supremacist, fascist movements to violently overthrow every state house, and the federal government.
And/or to engage in all-out warfare against their fellow Americans.
You can shun me if you think that’s hyperbolic, but these people are admitting this truth with their own voices, in plain language.
The idea that the “institutions” will protect the Republic is a fantasy.
If the non-fascists in this country don’t realize what may occur, I suspect it very well may lead to the end of the United States of America, as we currently understand it.
I encourage everyone to consider these possibilities, and consider preparing accordingly.
Grumpy Old Man
It’s time for liberals who are able and willing to shoulder the responsibility to arm themselves, and learn to use their firearms safely and effectively.
We pray and work for peace. But we need to be prepared to respond if violence is used upon us.
Not in anger, but with sadness. Not with hatred, but with resolve.
I expect the time will never come to pass. But I’m not counting on it anymore.
Omnes Omnibus
@Another Scott: Co-sign. But vote.
Steeplejack (phone)
“Boston Globe columnist turned Substacker” Michael A. Cohen.
Missing a first-reference reference there.
Scamp Dog
I recently read The Fighting Bunch: The Battle of Athens, by Chris DeRose, about how veterans recently returned from WW II had to fight to have their votes counted in order to oust the people who were blatantly rigging elections in McMinn County, Tennessee. It wasn’t a metaphorical fight, either. They had to steal rifles and explosives from the National Guard armory the night of the election, pinning their opponents (largely deputies) in the jailhouse with rifle fire. The deputies only surrendered when they started tossing sticks of dynamite.
So, yes, things can get that bad here in the good old USA. The bad guys in that situation were Democrats and the reformers Republican, but we here on this blog know that the Democrats of that era are now Republicans.
Patricia Kayden
debbie
@Tom Levenson:
Between that and what they did to Trump on TikTok, they’re better than all right!
Mike in NC
Of all the rotten fascists at FOX News, I read that the one who most influenced Trump was the asshole Mark Levin, whose latest tome is called “American Marxism”. Projection, as usual with these scumbags.
Adam L Silverman
@JPL: Thread:
Another Scott
@Mike in NC: It’s a powerful place and well worth the visit. When the virus is under control. :-(
terrorhaza.hu/en
Cheers,
Scott.
burnspbesq
@Ten Bears:
Ten Bears, my ass. You’re not exactly honoring the memory of those great men.
japa21
@Kay:
@Tom Levenson:
The kids may be all right, but what about the voting adults?
sukabi
@Omnes Omnibus: I know, but the tone really changed about that time.
Adam L Silverman
@Another Scott: Congress is going to be flipped solely on the basis of gerrymandered redistricting in Florida, Georgia, and Texas. In fact it is going to flip solely on the basis of Florida’s gerrymandered redistricting. Unless, and only unless, a bill is passed by the current Congress in the next 45 days that makes it illegal to gerrymander in redistricting. You CANNOT organize your way out of an extreme gerrymander. You CANNOT voter turnout your way out of an extreme gerrymander.
You CANNOT also organize your way out the GOP majority Georgia legislature taking over the Fulton County board of elections. Nor their giving themselves the right to substitute their preferred electoral outcome for the actual one. Nor Texas doing the same thing. Nor a dozen other states with Republican governors and legislative majorities.
We can either recognize the terrain of the war we’re actually in and develop effective strategies and tactics to win that actual war or we can continue to do what is being done, which is to talk about how good we’re doing fighting a war that we’re not actually in.
But what do I know?
Starfish
@Zzyzx: Liberals shouldn’t be able to govern cities even when they are in the majority happens regularly. What do you think those governors taking over “failing school districts” things are about?
Instead of giving urban school districts the funds to deal with really horrible poverty, the governor takes over the school district and lets charter schools pretend they can solve this stuff. It never works out, and the kids who lose out on their education are poor so no one really cares.
Brendan in NC
I think I’ve found my reason to get active in politics again. I’m in NC, so my Senators are useless (for now). But I can, at the very least let President Biden; and VP Harris; to put pressure on Senator Quirky; and Senator Coal/Koch money. Along with those who share their views.
JPL
@Adam L Silverman: You hit the nail on the head.. One could boycott Tucker advertisers, and they would just move their funds to anothe Murdoch station.
debbie
@Adam L Silverman:
I wish Joe would hold press conferences. I’d love to hear his measured responses to Doocey’s foolishnesses. “Yes, as I’ve said many times, I want to reach across the aisle, but I will not engage with those who espouse—literally—Nazi themes and principles.”
He can be that direct, while Jen would be called a bitch for saying that same thing.
Another Scott
@Adam L Silverman: I guess you’re right and we’re doomed then. Might as well give up, since I don’t live in FL or GA or TX – none of those anti-democratic officials will listen to what I have to say since I don’t donate millions to their dark money groups.
Where’s a good place to emigrate to?? How soon should I buy my tickets??
Cheers,
Scott.
New Deal democrat
Yes, the American Republic is in dire peril. We may have already seen the last uncorrupted Presidential election in 2020.
And the vigilance extends beyond elections, because the entire concept of Judicial Supremacy – a radical break from the past history of Republics, in which the more power vested in an office, the shorter the term for which it was held – needs rethinking.Many of the most important steps towards fascism have been taken by the Rehnquist and Roberts court majorities, as to which there has been no realistic remedy possible.
But from one point of view, the Republic already was subverted by the entire Jim Crowe edifice. It’s just that this time it won’t only be the South, and it won’t only be racial.
Edmund Dantes
@Adam L Silverman: no Adam. We’re going to be alright. We just need to vote more (clap louder).
This place used to mock the tinker bell fairies of the W years with the clap louder bullshit. And now here we are with the “vote” more crowd.
Adam L Silverman
@Another Scott: You are missing my point. I am not saying do nothing. I am saying stop focusing on doing things because that’s what we’ve always done. What we’ve always done won’t work. Right now the only target is getting Manchin to move on voting rights and electoral reforms. If he moves, Sinema will cave as she’s not going to put her neck out by herself. But the effort right now has to be on the two of them. If they don’t move, then what has to be done shifts. Some of that will continue to be Marc Elias’s legal campaign to get these new voter suppression laws thrown out. Some of it should go back to the more traditional organizing. But we didn’t turn a corner in November or in January. We bought ourselves some time. Whether that investment turns into something good in the long term or we’re in a brief interregnum remains to be seen. But right now the Republicans the conservative movement and conservative news, social, and digital media are all squarely focus on it being the latter. We can either recognize it and act accordingly or we can just keep doing what we’ve been doing and ensure it.
Omnes Omnibus
It is difficult to make predictions, particularly about the future. You have an opinion based on your education and experience. Others may have differing opinions based on theirs.
Starfish
@Scamp Dog:
This Nonviolent Stuff’ll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement Possible is about how a lot of the people working in the most difficult places on voting rights were often veterans.
WaterGirl
@Adam L Silverman: I totally agree on all of this:
You also wrote this:
Why the next 45 days? And only the next 45 days? What makes you believe that it’s too late after that?
germy
@Adam L Silverman:
Aren’t there others besides Manchin and Sinema, though?
I thought there were about seven conservadems who are happy to let M&S get all the attention.
Edmund Dantes
@WaterGirl: legislative calendar and courts. The timing works against you. 2022 voting season is approaching super fast.
Patricia Kayden
Edmund Dantes
@Edmund Dantes: Dems negotiating against themselves have taken how long to get an infrastructure bill to the point of we are now considering starting the process of actually voting on the first part of it? Think voting rights is going any quicker than that?
Another Scott
@Adam L Silverman: I understand your point – I disagree with it.
Manchin has explicitly said that he welcomes criticism from outside WV and that it helps him. He’s not going to listen to anything I say. Making it all about him in public isn’t going to get him to move.
Biden and Schumer and the rest of those guys and gals knows how the Senate works. They’re confident that a voting rights bill will pass, and I believe them. Will it be perfect? Of course not. Legislation is always a compromise. It will make things better.
Politics is slow. It’s frustrating. It’s annoying when we see ways to make it better that they don’t take. But that’s the way it is.
It’s still not “war”.
Hang in there.
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@Another Scott:
I hear Hungary is nice.
Omnes Omnibus
@Another Scott: Again, co-sign.
germy
Meghan McCain’s husband:
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud:
The goulash is delish.
Grumpy Old Man
@Starfish: Thanks for sharing.
Not a veteran, but I grew up in a rural community where gun ownership was the norm.
As a result, I own and know how to use several firearms.
They are tools. Nothing more. I use them less often than my Dewalt drill, but think of them in the same terms.
I pray I’ll never be unlucky enough to have to look to them as tools to defend our democratic republic against authoritarian thugs. The very thought makes me sick to my stomach.
But if the time comes where people who believe in this democratic experiment are called to step up, I’m ready to employ those tools as needed to defend the right.
Were it to happen, I will curse the day I was born. No one should be called to make such a choice. But the choice that will need to be made seems clear to me.
debbie
@germy:
Sinema was interviewed on NPR this afternoon. She’s a snake, and I wouldn’t be surprised if McConnell entices her to caucus with the Republicans.
Adam L Silverman
@WaterGirl: Because redistricting formally begins as soon as the Census Bureau provides the states with the data from last year’s census. The deadline for that was extended this year from 31 March to 30 September. If the law is not in place before redistricting begins the states seeking to impose extreme gerrymanders will argue in their lawsuits to stop it that it has to be stayed, at the very least, for the 2022 elections, because the redistricting is already underway.
It is also important that the states planning these extreme gerrymanders have already created their maps. In fact multiple variations of them as contingencies since they are not 100% sure what the census data is. They are teed up and read to move quickly through their redistricting processes as soon as they get the official results from the Census Bureau on 30 September. We’ve got 45 to 60 days. That’s the window we’re now working with.
Adam L Silverman
@germy: There are, but they’re soft. King, Coons, Feinstein or Feinstein’s staff because she seems to be out of it most of the time, won’t hold voting rights and electoral reform legislation up. Right now the only hard holdouts are Manchin, who reiterated his position over the weekend, and Sinema.
germy
Can you blame her? Who can resist his charms?
Seriously though, I am hoping Biden/Pelosi/Schumer can do some enticing.
Kathleen
@germy: Great tweets. Thing is, if we listen closely we can grasp the subtext of today’s “discourse”. I think we’re already there.
Omnes Omnibus
Okay, I see how this thread is going to go. I said my piece up at #5, and I pretty much co-sign what Another Scott has said. Everyone can have fun with nightmares of inevitable doom or fantasies of heroic violence. Have a good evening.
Adam L Silverman
@Another Scott: People have already been killed. People have already been wounded. People have already been terrorized. It isn’t an interstate war, but it is a low intensity revolutionary war.
germy
@Adam L Silverman:
Is it possible to use a carrot or stick on Manchin/Sinema?
I’m thinking some old fashioned LBJ arm twisting
Adam L Silverman
I’ve warned everyone repeatedly. I’ll catch everyone some other time. I’m done for the night.
A Ghost to Most
Some of us were ready to stand up when it mattered. Others, not so much. The system held, barely. This time.
Kropacetic
@Omnes Omnibus: @Adam L Silverman: @Another Scott: “Use every legitimate means to fight for the best” and “prepare for the worst” aren’t mutually exclusive ideas.
Adam L Silverman
@germy: So you’re not left hanging: I have absolutely no idea what would move them. Since Sinema’s behavior appears to be solely because she wants to be important and the center of attention, I would think that Schumer and Biden, who have known Manchin for a long time, have some idea of what he will and will not accept. He should be the focus of efforts. I expect if he moves, then Sinema won’t like being the center of this attention.
Omnes Omnibus
@A Ghost to Most: Jesus Fucking Christ, of course you are here to call anyone a coward who isn’t yelling ” I want to kill. I mean, I wanna, I wanna kill. Kill. I wanna, I wanna see, I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean kill, Kill, KILL, KILL.”
Brendan in NC
@Another Scott: I see merit in both your arguments, and Adam’s. I’m confident a voting rights bill will be passed, as well. But if you keep the pressure on Biden, Schumer, and others – to pressure Manchin – the better the bill can be. I hold no illusions that it’ll have everything we want, but the more we tell them what it needs to have, the better the chances.
Kay
Genuinely great news. You go, Marjorie.
debbie
@Adam L Silverman:
That’s exactly what came through in her interview.
Starfish
@Grumpy Old Man: That is exactly what a lot of the book is about.
Organizers went to the South to help them organize for voting rights. Some Black man got accused of something and had is gun taken away. He said he was going to go ask for his gun back because he needed it to hunt to feed his family. The organizers from other places were very much like “What?! You are going to just go ask that white man for your gun back?” And he did and it was fine because that is what the gun culture in the South was like.
Anyway, all these people practicing non-violence were surrounded by people with guns protecting them against the local white supremacists where ever they were. People would stay up and do guard duty.
debbie
@Kay:
A squatter Michele Bachman. ??♀️
Dan B
@Adam L Silverman: What you describe is what scares me about the mid terms. Manchin, Sinema, and the entire GOP seem to believe that politics is a game. I’m concerned that either political coups in several purple states will entrench the far right or overt paramilitary attacks will shock low information people into appeasing the paramilitary leaders.
The broad public is not paying much attention to the small but fevered minority that looks forward to violence. The MSM is not doing its job of reporting on the connection between voter suppression efforts and people throughout the GOP.
The mob will be screaming for the blood of immigrants, trans, BIPOC, Jews, and liberals. What can turn down the temperature?
Baud
@Kay:
The media will eat that up.
ETA: like a corn dog on a stick.
Brendan in NC
@Adam L Silverman: I agree. Manchin’s the lynchpin. If he moves, Sinema will, too. As will all the others who are hiding behind those two. It’s just frustrating as heck to see Manchin come around; then a week later regress to his original position. But, as the son of a former politician (Mom); I’ve seen what goes on behind the curtain.
Ksmiami
@Ten Bears: I’ve been reviewing the fall of Rome again and I think successive pandemic waves could ultimately dissolve the Union. Reap the whirlwind and all that
prostratedragon
@Patricia Kayden: That’s a good article.
Roger Moore
@WaterGirl:
Redistricting is happening now. IIRC, that 45 days is the deadline for the new districts to be drawn up. Anti-gerrymandering legislation is going to be a lot more effective if its passed before the districts are approved than after. Maybe we’d be able to overturn the new districts through lawsuits in time for the 2022 elections, but it’s easier if the legislation is in place before they’re approved.
Ksmiami
@Adam L Silverman: we can use our technologies to reduce their messaging and their supply chains… Also, our side can buy guns too…
Dan B
@Another Scott: Acknowledging that things could go south in a hurry and preparing to respond is prudent. It doesn’t mean all is lost. There are ways to be proactive. I’m mire concerned by people who put their fingers in their ears.
We need to be strategic and focus on alerting people who are powerful but feel they are protected or that things can’t get truly terrible for large numbers. Covid has exposed that fantasy.
Just Chuck
Why the FUCK hasn’t Flynn been hauled into a Court Marshal yet?
Kay
@Baud:
I feel like we can use her in the Georgia Senate races. Just put her everywhere. Completely blot out their candidate and replace that person with her. “Did I say Marjorie Taylor Green? I meant whatshisname over there”
Omnes Omnibus
No one here is suggesting putting fingers in ears.
Brendan in NC
@Dan B: Almost…Sinema sees it as a game. Manchin sees it as a battle of wits. The GOP has seen it as a war for the last 30-40 years.
I think that January 6th may have lessened the chances of massive bloodshed; as the insurrectionists realized that Law Enforcement and the military were not coming to their aid.
Hopefully, that, and the upcoming trials for 1/6 participants, will be enough to cool things down.
Hildebrand
The doom-singing of this post, and Adam’s general vibe, is beyond wearying. It’s as if we have no voice and no agency.
WaterGirl
@Brendan in NC: Everyone on our side knows what the stakes are, including and especially Biden, Madame VP, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Stacey Abrams. The list goes on.
They are not fiddling while Rome burns.
Stacey Abrams and Fair Fight are starting a new initiative with Four Directions to get organizing boots on the ground in Georgia in about 7 or 8 weeks. They obviously think that organizing and getting out the vote is still critical.
So while I agree that some of these laws, and the gerrymandering, can make it nearly impossible to win fair and square, we still have to work on every front.
In case anyone wants to donate:
Four Directions – Georgia!
Read More:
Four Directions teams up
with Fair Fight in Georgia!
Stacey Abrams is also starting a new lobbying campaign for the voting bills, which I talked about in a recent post.
I’ll roll over in defeat when she rolls over, which I would say is the first of never.
Brendan in NC
@debbie: I don’t think she will. She’d lose what little leverage/power she has now.
WaterGirl
@Ksmiami: Now this is doom and gloom, personified!
Kay
@Dan B:
The kind of “traditonal media person” who impressed me the most with his ability to see and adapt was Jake Tapper. I usually can’t stand him but he got that Trump wasn’t playing with the refusal to concede. I think he played a role in getting the rest of them to take it seriously. It was a change in intensity. He saw the threat and he saw it before January 6th.
Gin & Tonic
@Just Chuck: Because he’s not in the military? Just a guess.
And its “martial.”
germy
A long thread, but worthwhile. Here’s some of it:
Brendan in NC
@WaterGirl: Yup. I did not mean to imply otherwise. Watching politics is like watching ducks on the water. Nothing going on up top; but lots of things going on underwater; where no one can see.
H.E.Wolf
I stand with Abraham Davenport. I choose to be found doing my duty.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_England%27s_Dark_Day
UncleEbeneezer
My hope is that Manchin is maintains this position until he doesn’t. He is still open to reform of filibuster (like talking or 41 present to keep it going) so I still have hope. New Voting Rights bills being presented this week (that I think will address gerrymandering and election subversion from what I’ve heard) so I like to think that they are doing that for a reason. That said, I share the general dread of Tom/Adam that organizing won’t be enough to counter gerrymandering.
Omnes Omnibus
@Gin & Tonic: Retired military personnel can be recalled to active duty for court martial.
Roger Moore
@Gin & Tonic:
Technically he is. General officers don’t actually leave the military when they retire. They’re placed on inactive status, but they are technically still part of the military and subject to recall to active service. It would be legal to recall a general officer to service solely for the purpose of a court martial.
dexwood
Hate to comment and run, no choice.
What’s the old saying? Hope for the best, prepare for the worst?
Work for the best, prepare for the worst is better. I no longer view some as alarmist just as I no longer agree with those who have faith in institutional stability. War has taken on a different face. Few want to believe war is at hand, but, damn, domestic terrorists sure think it is. How can that be ignored?
Cmorenc
@Adam L Silverman:
Agreed about the voting/redistricting barriers, but the practical issue we need to effectively counter that is:
– how do we twist manchin’s and simena’s arms painfully or persuasively enough to go along with filibuster reform on voting rights? They are being worse assholes undermining their own party than the slimeball joe lieberman
At this point both of them are being willfully perverse
Joy in FL
@WaterGirl: Thanks for this comment.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Omnes Omnibus:
@Roger Moore:
Which raises the question: why hasn’t he been recalled for court martial yet?
Omnes Omnibus
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Probably because everyone associated with the military is a secret fascist and wants Trump to be reinstated later this month.
RSA
@Another Scott: Agreed.
Tom, maybe you and Adam are using the term “war” in a specialized way, to mean something other than “armed conflict”?
debbie
@Brendan in NC:
In the interview, she wouldn’t commit to saying she would work for the Democratic agenda. She sort of chuckled, brushed aside the question, and said she would remain focused on bipartisanship.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Omnes Omnibus:
No need for snark. I was thinking more along the lines that the military brass is too afraid or something
Happy Belated Birthday, btw
WaterGirl
@Brendan in NC: I didn’t mean to imply that I though you meant otherwise. I was just jumping in where you left off.
Edmund Dantes
@RSA: Adam has laid it out numerous times as to what he means. Might want to go back and re-read what he says.
Omnes Omnibus
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): “No need for snark” is nonsense with bells on. And thank you. I don’t know why they don’t but I can say that it is not a common thing to do.
WaterGirl
@H.E.Wolf:
Too long for a rotating tag, dammit!
frosty
@Adam L Silverman: OK, thanks, that’s a slightly more positive way to look at our dire straits.
I suppose I can call my senators and suggest they twist Manchin’s arm.
MisterForkbeard
@germy: Oh look, it’s the age-old “People who actually want equal treatment are the REAL slave owners, not the people who want to keep minorities down” argument.
I don’t get how anyone takes this shit seriously without laughing them into the next city, but I agree that they’re certainly trying to build a violent movement.
Dan B
@Kay: I agree about Jake Tapper. A couple others seem to notice that there are threats that increasingly have authoritarian overtones and a host of influences that don’t seem to notice.
I’m also with Brendan that Jan 6 may have made a paramilitary assault less likely but there are those who may have concluded that it just was lacking proper preparation.
Biden and Pelosi seem to know what’s going on and Schumer may be as well. That is reassuring. The military brass seems okay at the moment. Can our institutions be wrecked by the outcome of the mid terms? The time to ponder that is not now.
Another Scott
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): IIRC, the general feeling is that they don’t want it to appear that he’s being punished for his expressions of opinion. TFG’s pardon probably complicates things too.
The DoD appearing to be partisan would be very dangerous.
Could be wrong. My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
JR
“Liberty Leading the People” is well chosen, since we are facing the kind of opposition that closely resembles the Bourbon restoration (“Learned nothing and forgotten nothing”).
zhena gogolia
Two heroes:
Omnes Omnibus
@frosty: The calls I have made to Baldwin have asked her to do whatever is in her power both publicly and privately to ensure that the voting right legislation moves forward.
Chief Oshkosh
@Adam L Silverman:
Uh, OK. But before you go, what’re my action steps over the next 45 days? Happy to get in the ring. NB: I’m not a resident of AZ or WV.
Baud
@zhena gogolia: ?
Brendan in NC
@debbie: Right. And she’ll use that to get some small concessions. If she switched parties; she’d just be one of the crowd. I think she realizes that “quirky” is one thing; betrayal is something completely different.
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: Yes! It is weird to see Vindman in a suit and tie!
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
I just bought Vindman’s book. It looks like a page-turner, actually. I just wanted to support him, but I read the first page on the Amazon site, and it looks as readable as Mary Trump’s. Probably a two- or three-nighter.
zhena gogolia
@WaterGirl:
He is so adorable whatever he wears.
ETA: Don’t tell Richard Armitage I said that.
WaterGirl
@Joy in FL: Nice to hear, thank you.
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: Even active duty soldiers don’t wear uniforms all the time. I wore a regular suit when I went to non-military weddings for example.
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: My lips are sealed.
Brendan in NC
@WaterGirl: ? It’s all good.
zhena gogolia
@WaterGirl:
Just to lighten the mood, if anyone wants to bid on RA’s black leather Guy of Gisborne jacket:
Dan B
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m speaking of the general public, including friends who don’t want to hear any bad news. They just want the bad things to go away. They are the “good people” MLK despaired of and authoritarians rely upon.
Your viewpoint us different than Adam’s. You are listening and advancing your points. I’m thinking of friends that refuse to consider any disturbing views that would require them to put effort into being part of the solution. They frequent groups that will drive out people who sound any alarms whatsoever. They don’t want to believe that people can act in bad faith or that they could be successful.
They have done all they can do and are emotionally at their limit. It does no good to raise their awareness.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Another Scott:
That’s about what I expected
Cermet
Commented here for a while and like Cole, getting grumpy in my old age but unlike Cole, I see the facts clearly; which most of you really don’t. My generation tried and failed to stem the tide that the joke of a name – the ridiculous “greatest” generation truly fucked the world over with their stupidity, greed and false belief that they had a god given right to affluence that WW II gave them on a silver plater. The chicken will come home to roost in the next thirty years as I repeatable say ad nauseum.
Absolute fact: AGW will force billions to flee or die in all major equatorial regions; and all that food production in those regions for them will be gone with them.
Little doubt by experts: If we don’t go nuclear and soon, all accessible oil (less costly in energy to derive then costs in energy to extract) will be gone by then.
Inevitable: World population due to food shortages caused by AGW via loss of arable land and mostly by forced migrations, then add new diseases, war and depletion of all phosphate reserves will cause half of all people to die off within 10-20 years after 2040.
I highly suspect that we and all major countries will fall into fascism and destructive internal politics driven by greed and the same self interest that created all these issues.
Fight the battles but the tide has turned and not in our favor. I too will continue to hope but the facts of AGW, loss of arable land, continued population growth via capitalism and the lesser issues of pollution and disease will come no matter what we do if we do not start changing our energy course (clean and readily available) – all else is simply window dressing.
CaseyL
The American people are not united, and haven’t been for a long, long time. Maybe never: there were quite a few Nazi sympathizers around during WWII, and we are all very aware that the Confederacy never went away. We were able to paper over a lot of the cracks for a long time, but maybe it was never going to last long into the nation’s third century. Maybe the USA does contain too many contradictions.
I think what’s happening is in some ways an organic, or at least inevitable process, of people dividing along ideological and economic lines. Like mitosis, a body slowly dividing into two – unlike mitosis, though, the two-resulting-from-one will not be twins. They’ll be diametrically opposed in every way.
I’m not sure we can do anything to stop it. The people behind the GQP, the people who hold office as GQPers, and their voters, really really really hate us. They’re not going to stop just because a Federal program makes their lives a little easier for a few years. They tasted almost-unlimited influence and unlimited wealth and power under Trump, and they want that back.
So it will come to some kind of breaking point.
Historians used to like to talk about how strange it was for Germany, one of the wealthiest, most educated, most politically and culturally sophisticated countries in Europe, to go down the Fascist rabbit hole. Now we know how that process happens, and it doesn’t even require a deep global depression. Just a lot of anger over a lot of issues that soulless evil sociopaths can direct properly. It can happen here, it has happened here, it is happening here.
The best case scenario is a peaceful dissolution with the GQP/Fascists getting the South and Midwest, and non-Fascists getting everything else. That will suck for non-Fascists in the South and Midwest: they might want to think about leaving, and not put it off too long like too many Jews did in 1930s Germany.
The thing is, Red state economies suck. They will continue to suck. GQP don’t value facts, science, expertise, in any area. Left to their own devices, Red states will continue their current slide into developing-nation status, only without the “developing” part. What economies they have depend mostly on tourism, extractive tech, and service industries. They have few if any good universities, and their elementary-high school systems are horrors.
So we ride the tide, let them separate, make sure they STAY separate from us (a de facto border that’s kept as impenetrable as possible), and let them grind themselves into their chosen condition of poverty, ignorance, superstition, and death. Let the oligarchs rule there; let them be content ruling over an empire of shit. Just make sure they STAY in their empire of shit.
Then the rest of us can get on with building a better society.
Omnes Omnibus
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): FWIW Trump wanted a bunch of generals brought back for courts martial for allegedly violating UCMJ rules against disparaging the commander in chief. There’s usually been looser rules about what you can and can’t say when out of uniform and off duty than when in and on. In my view bring him back for a court martial is probably a step farther than is justified, but his case is far closer than most.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Omnes Omnibus:
Why? Honestly asking. I wasn’t trying to be hyperbolic with the doom and gloom
You’re welcome!
Omnes Omnibus
@CaseyL:
And fuck me, WaterGirl, raven, Steve in the WTF, Betty Cracker, Subaru Diane and everyone else who lives in the regions you just blithely consigned to fascism? Yeah, that seems fair.
Betty
@WaterGirl: Redistricting is starting very soon when the census data comes out.
CaseyL
@Omnes Omnibus: Like I said, don’t wait too long to leave, like too many Jews in Germany did. The ones who did manage to get out, you think it was fun for them? You think it didn’t tear them apart to leave the only homes they’d ever known? To give up everything they’d built, made, and cherished?
And the ones who didn’t leave… how long do you think they kept telling themselves “this too shall pass”?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Omnes Omnibus:
Hmm. Interesting. Thanks for the info. Probably for the best more often than not that the rules are looser when officers are out of uniform
Omnes Omnibus
@CaseyL: No sale.
ETA: I am not saying that this too shall pass (but thank you for putting words in my mouth). I am saying that those are places with fighting for. Georgia, ffs, we elected two Democratic senators from Georgia. YMMV.
raven
: fuck it
CaseyL
@Omnes Omnibus: And Georgia’s the state where the legislature is passing laws allowing itself to override the vote and substitute its own candidates/electors.
Maybe SCOTUS will strike those laws down.
Maybe they won’t.
Who knows?
This gets back to the part of Tom’s post that is the dagger to the heart: Red States passing laws that create a fake democracy. You can’t out-organize and out-vote those laws; they’ll just ignore the actual vote count and substitute their own.
frosty
@Omnes Omnibus:
That’s a good frame. I’ll get on it.
Omnes Omnibus
@CaseyL: Good point. Why try? Jesus Tittyfucking Christ! I should have walked away from this thread when I originally planned to.
Another Scott
@CaseyL:
And the ACLU and others are suing them.
The Voting Rights Act is not the only law protecting our rights.
We’re not doomed.
Yes, we have to fight them. Yes, we have to vote them out. But most of all we have to believe that we can win. Doom and defeatism is toxic.
Cheers,
Scott.
CaseyL
@Another Scott: And I support all that, with money and phone calls and all the other stuff. If the laws are overturned, I’ll do cartwheels, pump my fist, and cheer for true democracy.
That’s the thing, though. The big “if.” I don’t trust SCOTUS to strike them down.
We know Roberts, Alito, Thomas, and Barrett would be perfectly happy with a white Christian oligarchy. They only need to convince Gorsuch or Kavanaugh to join them.
What do you think of those odds?
frosty
@CaseyL:
Except the oligarchs like the East Side, the Hamptons, San Francisco, etc. They’re not going to move to Birmingham or Nashville. Good luck deporting them.
Every time I see this speculation about splitting up the USA I’m reminded of India’s Partition. This would be worse since the country is blue cities surrounded by rural red. The current state boundaries won’t even hold together.
CaseyL
@frosty: The divide has been building for decades, maybe generations. Mitosis, remember?
What do you think the long term prospects are, with 70+ million people wanting to give Trump a second term?
The oligarchs might be welcome in Martha’s Vineyard, the Hamptons, and other places the ultra-rich congregate. If we can make sure they’re not welcome anywhere else, I’ll call it good. If they need a warlord-style security escort any time they leave their compounds, I’ll call it good.
Another Scott
It doesn’t sound to me like he’s giving up or thinks we’re doomed.
Cheers,
Scott.
CaseyL
@Another Scott: If he’s right and we win, like I said, I’ll be overjoyed.
I want him to be right. I want our side to win.
I’m just looking at the trends over the last 40 years and thinking there’s a bad split coming.
Dan B
@CaseyL: If the US dissolves there may not be many safe havens, unlike The Handmaid’s Tale I don’t believe Canada will be a sovereign state. The authoritarians will want to control everything. Maybe they’ll realize their needs to be pressure relief.
It doesn’t feel Ike things are as dire as is necessary to take down individual states or the entire country but the nuts are loud. I’m staying to keep the crazies at bay. The first move is to harangue people who can get to Manchin.
lofgren
Back when Republicans were fighting to prevent gay people from getting married, I read an essay by a Log Cabin Republican explaining why he was leaving the party. It had become clear to him that Republicans didn’t have a plan for gay rights. They didn’t have any way for him to live. Sure he liked what they had to say about taxes, but you can’t support a party that desperately wants you to stop existing.
That prompted me to start looking at Republican rhetoric in a new way. And you see it over and over again. The Republican solution to many problems is just for people to stop existing. Trans? Handicapped? Single parent? Immigrant? The GOP is not interested in helping to solve your problems. To the GOP, you are the problem.
RSA
@Edmund Dantes: I’ll put it this way, then: Not being a political scientist, I think the concept of “ongoing low intensity domestic revolutionary political war” sounds more like politics than armed conflict.
Winston
I’m 74 years old. I’ll definitely vote for Democratic Candidates for the rest of my life, as I have since I was 21. I contribute money to Democratic candidates as much as I can. I know I’m not long for this world but you can count on me. I won’t live to see what really happens. But it’s up to the young. That is all.
WaterGirl
@Betty: thank you!
CaseyL
@Winston: I take some really grim comfort in being 65 and having no kids.
Chris Johnson
@CaseyL: That’ll be easier than you suspect.
Seeing as my pet conspiracyhorse is believing that Russiagate is (a) real and (b) a meme pushed BY russians to let ’em continue sabotaging this country unmolested, think about that for a second.
They never expected Trump to win. They don’t want the Right to actually win. What they want is to produce exactly the revolutionary, terrorist war that Adam is warning about, but NOT to deliver power into the hands of the seditionists.
That would lead to America being powerful.
Russia doesn’t want that, and they have substantial control of the seditionists, and I think our Dems in DC know it. I think they’ve known it for a long time and mostly not told us. Hillary told us, and a lot of good it did her, and now it’s all about kayfabe and countering the Russians without ever admitting anything is wrong… until 1/6, and now it’s about trying to paint the seditionists as just homegrown kooks. Admitting the full extent of it would be bad for business.
That said: Russia doesn’t want the GQP powerful. They just want them as saboteurs. That does matter.
Morzer
General James Wilkinson wonders about that. And Marcus Licinius Crassus would definitely like a word.
Winston
@CaseyL: I’ve a daughter and (her) granddaughter that are flaming liberals, but I’ve a son and (his) granddaughter that are flaming magats. I just don’t know what is going to happen. I just know that I won’t be around to see much of it. And that kind of comforts me.
Morzer
@Adam L Silverman: You think Carlson runs if Trump or Trump spawn does? I don’t see the Cuckster daring to go up against the Loser of Mar-a-Lardo.
Chris Johnson
@RSA: Politics as in Ireland’s ‘The Troubles’. You’re not wrong.
There is absolutely no fucking way the seditionists can pull off an actual coup and have it last five minutes. Especially with most of their ‘soldiers’ aging, raging themselves into strokes, and giving each other COVID. In no way are they in a position to rule, nor would their attempts to do so find a cowed and submissive populace. This country is HARD to suppress. It’s too big, too well armed (a gun your enemy can take away is the gun of your enemy: these stockpilers are absolute fools).
The seditionists will not win a war. Full stop.
What we want, is to not even have to bother with one. Where possible, we will go with civilization as we know it.
Suzanne
@CaseyL:
I agree with you.
I will note that Rod Dreher has gotten extra-crazy this year. Even his commenters have noticed. That dude needs mental health care. He is dangerous.
CaseyL
@Chris Johnson:
I don’t agree with this at all. Democrats are very well aware of, and vocal about, the roots of the insurrectionist movement. Things seem to be moving slowly in terms of the DoJ bringing charges, but I do NOT believe that’s because they want to obfuscate who the puppetmasters are. I believe that’s because they want to abide by the limits of constitutional law, and not damage the Department more than it has already been damaged.
I do hope they gather enough evidence to go after the funders, organizers, and Congressional collaborators. One thing that would make me feel a lot better about this country’s future would be a lot of powerful Trumpsters going to prison for the rest of their lives.
Morzer
@Suzanne: To be fair, it is hard to spend your nights and days writing “Letters to Himself by Reasonable Bigots”. In the end, Dreher just threw a rod.
CaseyL
@Suzanne: I used to read his blog, mostly for the commentary, before he started banning anyone who disagreed with him.
But then he wrote a tweet thread praising the kid (Rittenhouse?) who shot three people at a demonstration, for “protecting order,” and it was hideously clear he was going in boots and all for fascism.
I’ve glanced at his blog since, and noticed that mostly his commenters agree with him. It’s like hanging out at a crack house-cum-insane asylum, so I don’t go there anymore.
But Dreher is for sure someone who’d cheer on a bloodbath.
Winston
@Winston: On the other hand I am hoping I live long enough to see the exterestials that have been visiting us for the last 10,000+ years or so finally making meaningful contact before I die
planetjanet
@Another Scott:
Fair Fight is working to get voting rights legislation in Congress. That is where the fight is. Warner needs a good strong push.
lofgren
@Morzer: I don’t think Carlson will run. He’ll go for one of those deals that Trump was offering Kasich. Trump told Kasich he would be the most powerful vice president in history. Trump Jr. will tell Carlson that if Carlson can get a Trump in the White House again, he can basically run the country. Then the Trumps will try to shut Carlson out, realize that Carlson has all the real power, and the rest of us will get to watch as Carlson finally turns that family into cinders and crowns himself.
But I don’t think he will actually run. His career suggests he is far too smart for that.
StringOnAStick
@Winston: That would certainly upend the Apple cart and blow every Armageddon lover’s little mind.
Suzanne
@Morzer: If I had a dollar for every
anonymousmade up letter he posts complaining about woke people at some workplace and how the person is afraid they’re gonna be fired…. I’d have enough for a couple of value meals.His current hobbyhorse is saying that American media lies about Hungary. American media doesn’t say shit about Hungary.
He’s such a lazy thinker, with zero first principles.
Madeleine
Some things to do:
—Get on board with WaterGirl and others’ efforts with Four Directions/Fair Fight. We’re raising money for their effort to save Georgia.
—Call your Senators—often— to urge/demand the end of the filibuster, passage of the voting rights acts.
—Sign up for phone and text banking to get other voters to call their SenAtors. Common Cause has times, instructions, connections. Other organizations may also have resources, though some are connected to Common Cause.
—Poor Peoples’ Campaign is doing intensive actions all week and will have actions thereafter around the country.
—Check out your local Indivisible or the national. They have todo’s all the time. They’re also hooking up with Common Cause’s phone banking and Poor People’s Campaign.
Other ideas?
Bill Arnold
@Starfish:
Sure, but be aware that examined broadly, non-violent movements often (or even usually) have better results:
Why Civil Resistance Works The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Confict by Maria J. Stephan and Erica Chenoweth (2008)
(Non-violent does not mean non-vigorous/non-aggressive.)
(Off to look to see what the authors are saying now.)
James E Powell
@Kay:
My favorite Tapper moment from the post-election period was when he jumped all over Dana Bash for declaring the 74th “new tone” from Trump. He said something like, “we’re past that, no new tones, no more pivots!”
Ksmiami
@WaterGirl: can’t help it. History/English double major. This feels existential
James E Powell
Perhaps we are getting to the time when we have to start marching in the streets. For voting rights, against gerrymandering, for democracy. We need to move the public opinion needle in our direction and we need to stop ceding the cable news minutes to the right wing outrage of the moment.
WaterGirl
@James E Powell:
Absolutely! How do we make it happen?
Winston
@StringOnAStick: We are probably a reserve army destined to be sacrificed in a galactic war that has been going on for billions of years.
Matt McIrvin
So, every black and brown person in the South simultaneously comes North?
I promise you, the good liberal whites of the North with their Black Lives Matter signs would start trying to come up with ways to kick them out super fast, and would likely become fascist themselves. This is not a solution.
Brachiator
Nobody took Trump seriously. The brightest minds figured he was running for president for a joke and would drop out. Oh those early days.
I also recall some GOP biggie, maybe Ryan, insisting that constitutional checks and balances would prevent Trump from ever abusing his presidential authority.
Turns out that Trump was a bumbling autocrat, and that there were a number of key people along the way who stood up to Trump where necessary.
But it also turned out that a sizeable chunk of the citizenry are happy to dispense with democracy if angry white people cannot be in charge.
And the Republican Party revealed that there are no limits to their ability to be complicit in the destruction of democracy.
The best of America came out to vote for Biden and to choose a better future for all.
There are people who think that Trump was a one off, that you need to be a TV show celebrity to attract enough dopes to make you into a suitable populist autocrat.
The angry mob is still there. The craven are still there. I don’t think they will succeed. But they are not giving up.
To be continued.
Bill Arnold
@Cermet:
I could quibble about some details, but that’s the average bottom line (across possible futures) IMO as well.
For an optimistic view, read KSR’s “Ministry for the Future” (if you haven’t already). A kill of 20M Indians in a large black flag weather event at the beginning of the novel sobers humanity up a bit.
(There are a few “tech”-driven crises that will hit in that time frame as well. Just saying.)
I’m an optimist, and believe that humanity can find and stay on a path to keeping the deaths below 2 billion. (Fascism will not help, so everyone should fight it.)
Madeleine
@WaterGirl: Check out the Poor People’s Campaign. They’re protesting for the voting rights bills. It’s a start. And they’re growing.
@WaterGirl:
Ksmiami
@James E Powell: yes. And start boycotting companies that support Republicans- we have the economic might…
Bill Arnold
@Winston:
We are wildlife that is in the process of Becoming interesting.
Any alien sleepers camped out in the solar system or nearby have awoken – it’s crunch time.
(Or, as many yoots prefer, the aliens are Machine Elves, or maybe busybodies from some distant long-ago timeline.)
MontyTheClipArtMongoose
@Zzyzx: always projection with the gqp
i still remember helen chenoweth shrieking about the unmarked helicopters
MontyTheClipArtMongoose
@germy: thank you for excising the biden/dementia quippage in the fuller thread
MontyTheClipArtMongoose
@Kay: those kids just ended up on a list at the national front disco
MontyTheClipArtMongoose
@debbie: in that goulash slurping hellhole?
nah
Ken
Long time lurker here. It always bothers me the people think that national review or fox new represents the right wing. Look at american greatness or go to unz.com for the real right wing cesspools. Your mouth will drop.
JaySinWa
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Here’s some analysis on why Flynn might not be up for court martial Steve Vladeck. He is involved in litigating one such case for another client.
twitter.com/steve_vladeck/status/1400423450238459907?s=20
twitter.com/steve_vladeck/status/1399134692364935168?s=20
Brachiator
@Ken:
Fox News is a right wing cesspool and fairly influential. Nobody said that it was the only one or even the worst.
Gvg
@CaseyL: The divide is not geographic so we can’t divide. The GOP “areas are mostly just over 50% and the Democratic dominated areas are the same. The cities not the states tend democratic. People have been migrating for the whole existence of this country and before but it is very very easy in the last few decades compared to the past. This means we can’t split the country, even if we wanted to. Just forget it, it’s a waste of time to plan it.
I also don’t think extreme gerrymanders can hold for more than one election, and maybe not even then with the GOP screwing up management this bad.
Chief Oshkosh
@Omnes Omnibus: Yes, and didn’t we just see how badly the fascists can take over in…Vermont? C’mon, if you’ve lost Vermont, you’ve lost.
But that’s not what’s happening. Red states vs blue states misses entirely what’s happening. It’s cities versus …not cities. It may well be that at some point the city dwellers get fed up enough with the country boys (who, even in the countryside, are not the huge majority). But seems more likely to me will be an interim step of realizing that the laws are already on the books and the time for timidity is well past.
Uncle Cosmo
@Mike in NC: I’ve been there. The most impressive exhibit is nearly the first thing the visitor sees, through large ground-floor windows almost immediately upon entry: a Soviet tank squatting right in the middle of the courtyard barely big enough to contain it. How they got it in there is a mystery to me (which can probably be answered in a few minutes on the Internet).
FTR, just a few doors back toward the city center from the Terrorhaz at Andrássy út 70 is the Lukács Cukrászda (tea house) which is worth a visit for the ornate decor and the historical ambiance (this is where the Hungarian secret police ate their rétes and sipped their tea). I walked in some years back, shortly after it had changed hands and met Mr Lukács, the new owner, who was surveying his domain in blue jeans.
Uncle Cosmo
@hrprogressive: You need to be shunned, and banned, and thrown to the wolves you strive to gin up fear of, you fucking doomporn imbecile.
Ken
I take the chomsky view that you are easily seeing it, then it really isn’t that much of a deviation from the mean. @Brachiator:
Morton Martinez
This site is aptly named.