As a European, it’s wild to see 2016 just kinda happening all over again. At least that time I too wasn’t too worried since, well, how bad could it be?
We should all know a lot better than that by now. Glad to be on this side of the great pond for the time being.
It’s a good thing Europe has never had any of these right-wing populist leaders, or you’d look be pretty hypocritical.
Didn’t know Europe has a president…
Are you admitting refugees?
Yup, lots of 'em. I expect my country to adhere to EU law & regulation when it comes to it.
What about the political refugees about to flee America if Trump gets elected? I’m non-binary and not a Christian, if the fascists win I don’t think I’m welcome here anymore.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
“The serious scholars of fascism are now saying that the ‘F-word’ is merited,” Jeff Sharlet, a Dartmouth professor and author of The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War, told me in an interview on Wednesday.
Sharlet suggests that media leaders bring in scholars – for example, Yale’s Timothy Snyder, who wrote On Tyranny – to lead newsroom discussions, based on clear historical precedent.
After the New York Times wrote that Trump’s New Hampshire win “raises questions” about Nikki Haley’s path forward, Sharlet scoffed, noting that such questions have been settled for some time “but a press built for the horse race keeps touting a path that never existed when it should be retooling itself to cover a rapidly mutating fascism”.
Weary of the relentless flow of bad news, the dire warnings, the anxiety, we retreat into our personal lives or our political bubbles.
More advice from Sharlet for citizens: form a “boring book club” and read – for example – Project 2025 from the Heritage Foundation, the shocking (and nearly 1,000-page) rightwing plan to dismantle the federal government and install political allies after a Trump election.
As the Associated Press wrote: “Trump-era conservatives want to gut the ‘administrative state’ from within, by ousting federal employees they believe are standing in the way of the president’s agenda and replacing them with like-minded officials more eager to fulfill a new executive’s approach to governing.”
The original article contains 799 words, the summary contains 233 words. Saved 71%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Kinda. I mean, it is important to make the danger crystal clear. Problem is, the people with a platform to be heard from are the people who will take the opportunity to sneer at the poor people they imagine put Trump in office (it wasn’t). They do the job of the fascists for them and there’s no point trying to tell them; they are entirely incapable of learning anything because they are so absolutely certain that they know everything already.
Bruh, we should have started last year when he started paraphrasing Hitler. We should have started when it became known that he had a defacto 30% of the Republican vote as a starting point.
We should be talking about this now, but we need to be treating it like we’re now witnessing a replay of Hitler’s rise to power. We don’t just need to talk about a second presidency, we need to talk about the very likely second coup attempt, his flirtation with dictatorship, and the fight for democracy we’re going to have for the next decade at least.
Historically, the expiration date for a country, before a major revolt or dictatorial uprising, is usually 250 years or so after its founding… That’s 2026 for us.
I’ve heard that before. I wonder how much of our current state of affairs is organic vs some fascist history-bros who think we’re on a schedule.
On one side we have religious zealots that think their brain damaged candidate is the second coming of Christ- and on the other side we have brain damaged kids throwing temper tantrums over issues in countries they couldn’t have pointed to on an map six months ago.
What I don’t get is why the Israel situation affects Biden, yet Trump is so far up Netanyahu’s ass, yet it doesn’t seem to affect him
Well, I think that’s because the idiot MAGA clowns don’t care what he does because in their warped minds, he’s above us petty mortals- and the idiot tankies aren’t voting for either.
So basically, you have MAGA- voting for trump and not voting for Biden, and tankies not voting for trimp and not voting for Biden. So there’s that.
Also, it’ll seem as if trump is off the hook because the blowhard tankies won’t stop circlejerking themselves over who can say gEnoCiDe jOe the most times- so they’re just ignoring the fact that no matter how hard they cry- they’re getting one of these two choices.
Lastly… both of these groups are the loudest and most obnoxious, so it will seem as though they make up the whole of everyone.
I read the same headline since months. So nothing will change.
The people who need to hear it, won’t.
The people with the power to do anything about it, don’t care.
The rest of us are just screaming at each other. What the hell will more of that solve?
The people who need to hear it are voters. The only people with the power to stop it are voters.
Until the voter turnout for Democrats is close to 100%, any effort to inform the public of what is at stake is warranted.
We can whine about it being hopeless after the election, because if Trump wins it actually will be hopeless.
It’s a feature, the people pulling the strings behind trump think a dictatorship would be good for business. It’s not trump I’m worried about, it’s whomever comes after him, or is pulling the strings that I worry about. Trump is very old, and clearly suffering from some kind of dementia. He’s not pulling the strings in what’s going on. Behind the scenes there’s a coalition of people who want a one party state, that’s what should scare people. Trump is a distraction.
Trump is not a distraction, he’s their battering ram, and he very much is capable of destroying our checks in balances within a very short amount of time.
Redirecting attention to unarmed untouchable boogeymen who aren’t on the ballot is the distraction. Deal with what’s in front of your face first.
How is it liberals view Trump as all powerful that can destroy checks and balances on a whim, yet Biden is powerless to do anything? If the President has the power to do all the things liberals have claimed Trump will do why hasnt Biden used that same power? He couldnt even repeal the ACA with a GOP lead Congress.
Because Biden isn’t Trump.
Same reason you don’t go around robbing people even though for the right type of person it is an easy way to make quick money.
Biden is more like Trump than BlueMAGA is willing to admit. He’s kept his worst policies and expanded on many of them.
Why wouldn’t I pick the less shitty option, given only 2 choices?
I think our system needs an overhaul regardless, but another Trump dumpster fire isn’t gonna get us there.
There are only two options because voters only want two options, they have comfort in maintaining a status quo that’s allowed them to live the privileged lives that they lead. The status quo is what keeps the marginalized forced to live In the margins of society
Don’t disagree, I was a fervent Bernie supporter, and I didn’t vote for Hillary. But you still have to acknowledge reality and make sure democracy doesn’t get destroyed by fascists while you’re waiting for your perfect candidate to come along.
Do you just make things up and pretend they’re true?
“BlueMAGA”
Pretending that there’s a left wing equivalent to the rampant retardation of the right is the most bad faith comparison I’ve seen. This week.
Biden is left of the right but is still to the right of many progressives. We can’t expect him to be a Bernie Sanders. Biden is the compromise. The “Good enough I guess” vote. The “Not fucking Trump” vote. The safe choice to minimize damage, not the radical changes we actually need.
Imagine being happy with compromises all your life, because you feel desolate and powerless… voters wouldn’t feel that way if they didn’t compromise
Imagine getting force fucked and taking massive losses over and over again because rather than mitigate some of the damage you just shrug because you couldn’t mitigate all of it.
Imagine if we stopped sending food to starving people because “well we can’t feed all of them so why try?” or stopped fighting climate change because “well we can’t stop all the pollution from fossil fuels so may as well let them rape the planet.” Jesus fuck I can’t imagine what warped your mind that badly.
Biden doesn’t overstep the bounds of his authority. He technically could if he wanted to.
Or, maybe all the clams of what Trump will do is hyperbole
We already have a one party state with capital pulling all the strings.
If we had a one party state there wouldn’t be democrats and Republicans. It would be one party control in all elections, and that’s not what we have, yet.
We have good cop/bad cop. 2 right wing factions vying for power and both controlled by capital. Thats a one party state
You really like to boil down nuanced stuff to simplified black and white points don’t you? Have fun with that.
It is black and white. Neither of them represent the working class or the poor in this country. Politicians loyalties are grounded with corporations and banks.
There’s just too many stupid people in america. that countries main chance is all the old retards dying off so younger people who have some semblance of a working brain will have a higher percentage of the vote
“retards”, really? The fuck is this, 2001?
The word is offensive, but likening them to fascists is even more so. The terminology he should’ve used is something more like “evil motherfucking pieces of shit.”
I mean, what the Hell have we been doing for the last 3 years? Journalists, historians, and other folks have really been ringing this bell since 2016, and started ringing it louder on January 6, 2021. You can only scream the truth so loudly, and hand-wringing that people “aren’t talking about it enough” when it has been said publicly by high-profile folks for years seems disingenuous and written to generate clicks.
Yeah, we know. We keep saying it. Stop trying to make it seem like you’re the only one who has the chutzpah to say it out loud.