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It's always so easy to blame women, isn't it? And Black women in particular. That's what's going on right now, of course, in the orgy of recrimination mounted by those blaming Democrats, and a Black woman, Kamala Harris, for the triumph of fascism in the recent election. Blaming Democrats for the free choice of nearly half of our citizens to usher in fascism by electing Trump president….
#Trump #fascism #cruelty #future
/1
https://www.wonkette.com/p/democratic-state-leaders-prepare?
A large percentage of those gleefully playing this blame game right now, including here on my feed, are white men, young white men at that.
Here's the response of a young Black leader, Baltimore mayor Brandon Scott, to these folks:
"It is really on my heart this morning to say that as a man, but more importantly as a Black man, that this country does not deserve Black women or Black people, but specifically Black women."
"The unfortunate reality is that this country is still steeped in racism, sexism and misogyny. I am personally proud of her, and I know that so many others are the same. We appreciate her tenacity, her focus, her decency and how she handled herself throughout this campaign. And I don’t want to hear anybody saying that they should have done something different, she should have been running longer."
"The fact is, is that they did everything that a campaign can do and more. But we as a country really have a lot of soul searching to do.”
But what Black people have to say isn't really important to a lot of us, right? Never has been. Never has been taken as seriously in the opinion pages of our major media outlets as the verbiage of any white person anywhere. Right? And it's never about racism or misogyny even when it's always about them.
Another piece of eloquent testimony from a brilliant Black man that won't be taken seriously by lots of us as we engage in the futile game-playing of the circular firing squad:
"America deserves everything it is about to get. ...
The conversations about who is to blame, the hand-wringing about who showed up and who failed the moment are largely academic and pointless."
~ Elie Mystal
#Trump #fascism #cruelty #future
/5
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/trump-is-america-not-a-fluke/
"America did this. America, through the process of a free and fair election, demanded this. America, as an idea, concept, and institution, wanted this. And America, as a collective, deserves to get what it wants. ...
Now that he is here, we deserve our fate, because the most fundamental truth about Trump’s reelection is that Trump was right about us."
"He will be president again because he, and perhaps he alone, saw us for how truly base, depraved, and uninformed we are as a country. Trump is not a root cause of our ills. He did not create the conditions that allowed him to rise. He is, and always has been, a mirror. He is how America sees itself."
And from Black historian Jemar Tisby:
"I find most of the postmortem pontificating about why Democrats lost the presidential election unpersuasive.
The reason, not the only one but a major one, Democrats lost the presidential election is disinformation and misinformation super-charged by billionaires and Russia through a network of right-wing media outlets and institutions."
#Trump #fascism #cruelty #future
/8
https://jemartisby.substack.com/p/why-democrats-lost-the-2024-presidential
From Wajahat Ali, son of Pakistani immigrants:
"We knew exactly what we were getting. And despite everything he’s done, millions of Americans would rather have a cruel, aging vulgarian than a competent Black woman become President. This is more a revelation of their lack of character than anything else. They chose to vote for him. No one forced them to do it."
#Trump #fascism #cruelty #future
/9
https://thelefthook.substack.com/p/america-shit-in-its-milk-but-the
"This includes a majority of white men and white women. Without that bloc, Trump never comes close to being President. This bloc also includes margins of Latino, Black and Asian men. The two groups that understood the assignment were 90% of Black and Jewish women who voted for Harris. A majority of Black men also came through. The two religious groups that voted for Harris were Jews and Muslims, although many defected from Muslim and Arab communities due to the Gaza war."
And a Jewish American voice, Steven Beschloss:
"Now we have more evidence that the appeal of authoritarianism is on the rise, in America as well as globally."
He cites a poll last year by Open Society Foundations polling 36,000 people in 30 countries, which finds commitment to democracy strong but waning globally.
Two key findings that bode ominously for the future of democracy in America:
#Trump #fascism #cruelty #future
/11
https://www.americaamerica.news/p/what-i-wont-get-over-and-some-of
@wdlindsy@toad.social"An average of 86 percent of the global respondents said it is important to them to live in a country that is democratically governed, yet only 80 percent of Americans did. That put America in the bottom five of thirty countries, below Turkey, China, India, Egypt and Mexico, to name just a few.
Just 57 percent of 18- to 35-year-olds said democracy is preferable to any other form of government; 71 percent of older respondents said the same."
Another Jewish American voice:
"I don’t expect normal times ahead. I believe Trump when he tells us who he is. I believe MAGA when they tell us who they are. This wasn’t just a campaign where the winner takes office and we all move on happily together, shoring up our disappointment. We have to be prepared for that reality, and not get sucked into a 'business as usual' version of what Trump’s time in office will look like."
Another Jewish American voice warning of how disinformation not only corrupts our minds, but also erodes our hearts, the center of our moral awareness:
"As a matter of truth and morality, the idea that immigration hurts Americans, or that immigration is immoral, is just a lie. …
It is simply a lie to say that anything that trans people are doing in America is harming other Americans...."
~ Peter Beinart
#Trump #fascism #cruelty #future
/15
https://peterbeinart.substack.com/p/dont-confuse-popularity-and-truth
And on the white male side of the ledger, there's Elon Musk — though remember that the Democrats are the problem, as lots of white male commentators (and fellow travelers who are white women) want to tell us now:
"Elon Musk's influence with Donald Trump is one of the biggest stories in media, tech and politics right now."
~ Brian Stelter
#Trump #fascism #cruelty #future
/16
https://view.newsletters.cnn.com/messages/17313334122092dcc361a5d62/raw
"Musk has 'loomed over' all the action at Trump's Mar-a-Lago club since Trump's election night victory, CNN's Kaitlan Collins reported last night. Musk has been dining with Trump on the patio, hanging out on the golf course, and, more importantly, 'weighing in on staffing decisions, making clear his preference for certain roles.'"
"Much of Musk's immense wealth comes directly from the federal government, which has handed billions of dollars in contracts and subsidies to Tesla and SpaceX, raising the potential for enormous conflicts of interest as Musk helps Trump create winners and losers of his new administration."
"His ownership and clear support for Trump on X also raises concerns he will use the social platform to push political narratives that further his business interests…."
But don't forget as you read this that the real problem is Democrats, and "wokeness," and "identity politics" centering people of color and women who have long been shoved to the margins. The real problem is Black women like Kamala Harris. /s (!)
"Trump broke American journalism; and it is likely to get worse as power and influence shifts toward platforms that honor algorithms more than truth. …
When we are done flagellating other institutions, we need to admit the possibility that something is profoundly broken in the American psyche and character. …
We found out last week that we are a profoundly unserious country."
~ Charlie Sykes
#Trump #fascism #cruelty #future
/19
https://charliesykes.substack.com/p/are-we-sanewashing-the-voters-now
"Fascism is now in the algorithms, the neural pathways, the social interactions. How did we fail to see all this?"
~ Timothy Snyder
#Trump #fascism #cruelty #future
/20
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/dispatches/what-does-it-mean-that-donald-trump-is-a-fascist
Trump proved proved "that the most vicious campaign of lies, misogyny, racism, and xenophobia ever waged—and yes, I am including his previous two campaigns—was not enough to stop nearly half the country from supporting him. …
It is a disastrous revelation about what the United States really is, as opposed to the country that so many hoped that it could be."
~ Susan Glasser
Second statement quoted by Charlie Sykes, /19 above.
"This election was a CAT scan on the American people, and as difficult as it is to say, as hard as it is to name, what it revealed, at least in part, is a frightening affinity for a man of borderless corruption. Donald Trump is no longer an aberration; he is normative.”
~ Peter Wehner
#Trump #fascism #cruelty #future
/22
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/06/us/politics/trump-america-election-victory.html
And sometimes I can even find myself agreeing with Bill Kristol:
"It wasn’t the Democratic party that nominated Trump three times. It wasn’t Democrats who shied away from the fight against Trump. It’s the Republican party that has deeply, catastrophically, perhaps decisively failed America this past decade."
#Trump #fascism #cruelty #future
/23
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/stop-handwringing-start-fighting
"No Dem can change the fact that millions of ungettable GOP votes are set in stone not because of economic conditions - which were the best any candidate could have hoped for - but because even relatively affluent voters have spent years marinating in complete craziness."
~ Tom Nichols
Far-right leaders are winning across the globe. Blaming ‘the economy’ or ‘the left-behinds’ won’t cut it. …
Trump warns of 'communist' takeover and amplifies the 'great replacement' conspiracy theory. His supporters rail against 'white genocide' and satanic child-molesting elites. Instead of opposing injustice, they vilify those who threaten social hierarchies like class, race and gender."
~ Richard Seymour
#Trump #fascism #cruelty #future
/25
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/11/far-right-leaders-economy-voters
Mike Luckovich's commentary on what we've just seen millions of US voters choose.
#Trump #fascism #cruelty #future
/27
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/11/10/2284581/-Cartoon-Shattered-glass
"In hindsight, 2016 was the beginning of the beginning. And 2024 is the end of that beginning and the start of something much, much worse.
It began as a tear in the information space, a dawning realisation that the world as we knew it – stable, fixed by facts, balustraded by evidence – was now a rip in the fabric of reality."
~ Carole Cadwalladr
'"And the turbulence that Trump is about to unleash – alongside pain and cruelty and hardship – is possible because that’s where we already live: in information chaos. …
The medium now is Musk. The world’s richest man bought a global communication platform and is now the shadow head of state of what was the world’s greatest superpower. That’s the message. Have you got it yet?"
"Mark Zuckerberg has ditched his suit, grown out his Caesar haircut and bought a rapper-style gold chain. He’s said one of his biggest regrets is apologising too much. Because he – like others in Silicon Valley – has read the runes. PayPal’s co-founder Peter Thiel, creeping around in the shadows, ensured his man, JD Vance, got on the presidential ticket. Musk wagered a Silicon Valley-style bet by going all in on Trump."
"Jeff Bezos, late to the party, jumped on the bandwagon with just days to go, ensuringhis Washington Post didn’t endorse any candidate.
These bros know. They don’t fear journalists any more. Journalists will now learn to fear them. Because this is oligarchy now. This is the fusion of state and commercial power in a ruling elite."
But the #GOP has succeeded for the wealthy, and those are the only ones who count in today's America.
https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/finally-the-elites-have-been-defeated-by-the-billionaires
@KathyLK That's the bottom line, for sure. That's who's pulling the strings.
@KathyLK Yes, for sure.
@wdlindsy
Like to know after the rapist comes to power in the U.S. how there ever going back to there so called democracy. 
Not going to happen
@wdlindsy
A disgusting country that will end up destroying a lot of the world. But all countries are facing the same billionaire funded takeover. The mistake was ever allowing billionaires to exist. I guess the crumbs they got were too good.
@lin11c Yes, sadly.
@wdlindsy We didn't miss it. We saw it and called it out, loudly and consistently for 60+ years.
For our trouble, we were marginalized, made fun of, called alarmist and abused both by the fascists and by the people who were ostensibly our allies.
Don't pretend this was a lack of awareness. America *wanted* this and stubbornly did everything to silence dissent, kill education and otherwise set the stage for fascists.
@wdlindsy America didn't blunder into fascism. A large portion of it actively wanted fascism since at least the Business Plot and even then we did nothing to defeat the leadership and backers because we were so beholden to the mesmerizing effect of their wealth and celebrity.
Where in the mainstream did we ever truly reckon with Henry Ford's contributions to the Nazi party generally and to Hitler personally? And to the treasonous Business Plot?
@gooba42 Yes, that's right. And I'd say that at least one reason this has happened to us is that we've refused to listen to the testimony of minority communities who could offer us a realistic and at the same time hopeful perspective on our society and what ails it.
@wdlindsy
One of T****'s nominees for "#Border Czar" said over the weekend that we can avoid "Family Separation" when we #deport "illegals" with citizen family members by simply deporting the entire family.
This will require ignoring the #14thAmendment.
And THEN… once they do that & get away with it… they'll just start ignoring EVERY inconvenient Constitutional Amendment and get away with it b/c you'll no longer be able to #impeach or even INVESTIGATE a sitting president. #Fascism
@MugsysRapSheet Thank you for these valuable comments.
@wdlindsy
HERE'S ANOTHER (disturbing) THOUGHT:
If a sitting Potus can't be #impeached for ANY reason (including violating the #Constitution), what's to stop #OrangeHitler from dumping #Vance (before Vance "25th's" him) and appoint NON-citizen #Musk to the Vice Presidency?
@MugsysRapSheet With no guardrails, above all at the level of the Supreme Court, I think all kinds of heinous things are now possible.
@wdlindsy
I am seriously considering thinking up ways to have myself deported.
@MugsysRapSheet I can totally understand.
@wdlindsy @mastodonmigration Many, perhaps even most, of us did see it. We just didn’t vote.
#FBPE 
@wdlindsy We didn't! Millions of us have been warning about it *for years* We saw it for what it was when he first opened his mouth. And all we got was told to calm down and stop overreacting with a smug "both sides are calling each other fascists so whachyagonnado?!"
I don't get these ... "It's all broken" ... laments. 68M people obviously feel that Trump & what he represents was the wrong direction. If we are profoundly unserious no one would have supported a message of hope, progress, and democracy. A vast number of us still see a better path despite broken journalism & algorithms that feed the darker side of the human psyche.
When Trump fails to deliver relief to the working class & causes a recession with tariffs opinions will shift.
@NJWookie "68M people obviously feel that Trump & what he represents was the wrong direction."
But the rest of us chose to place all power in the hands of Trump and MAGA.
I don't think most know the potential harm of their vote for Trump. I speak to many Trump voters that have no idea how the government works & simply voted for him based on the promise of lower taxes & higher 401K returns.
The real problem isn't that power was handed to Trump, it's that government doesn't work for so many. They don't care if it blows up. hey don't want an authoritarian they want government that focuses on them or they just want their 401ks to last until they die.
@NJWookie You're assessment of Trump voters is more generous than mine. I definitely think many of them are low-information voters and they may not fully comprehend how their votes will result in harm to others — and themselves. At the same time, it's clear to me that authoritarian movements rise by pitting group against group and that many Trump voters are moved by the desire to hurt others.
I don't think you're wrong but the Trump voters I speak too fall into a couple of categories:
1 Seniors that are money in their pocket voters. At their age they don't care anymore.
2 Forgotten white men: They don't even know what an authoritarian is & don't care. Government doesn't work for them & they want to blow it up.
3 Life long Republicans that would vote for Monkey in a red tie. They see Trump as just another politician that will serve his time & be replaced.
@NJWookie No matter what group they fall into, I think we have to do them the justice of holding them responsible for their (bad) choices and (bad) actions.
That just perpetuates the "US vs THEM" divisions that got us to where we are today.
@NJWookie So say all the journalists who want to maintain that ONLY the Democrats are guilty of engaging in identity politics while the Trump campaign just flooded airwaves with ads attacking trans Americans.
If a Trump voter becomes dissatisfied with the actions of the Trump administration and seeks to amend their thinking they should not be penalized for their past decisions before they can become part of a better way forward. The notion that justice must be paid before we can be allies (or at least fellow countrymen) again will get us no where. An eye for an eye just leads to blindness not redemption.
@wdlindsy @SykesCharlie Algorithms of engagement and social media broke journalism a long time ago by sucking all the attention and all the money away from journalism. We moved from a healthy intellectual diet to junk food for our brains. Trump is a consequence not the cause of that.
@patrickco @SykesCharlie Yes. I don't think Charlie Sykes is saying Trump is the cause of all of that, either.
@wdlindsy @SykesCharlie sorry about that, I was just reacting to the “Trump broke American journalism” quote, without having read the attached piece 
I reacted too fast in part because I am passionately convinced that we are not focusing enough on these damn algorithms that are the modern “opium” that is destroying our society. We should IMO just classify them as dangerous drugs and regulate them accordingly…
@patrickco @SykesCharlie Thanks for your good response. A good term to use, I think, when it comes to how algorithms affect us: opium.
@wdlindsy American journalism broke itself in service to fascism.
They don't get a pass anymore where we pretend they just couldn't help themselves.
@gooba42 Yes, I agree. I doubt Charlie Sykes wants to give corporate journalism a pass.
@wdlindsy I think we need to be more careful and precise in the language we use. Particularly now when the writing is probably of more use to some future archaeologist than to the traumatized and disempowered people reading it now.
@gooba42 I'm all for precision in our use of language.
Scott Dworkin is making it his mission to somehow to try to "take back" the media by supporting independent news organizations. I think the only way to do this is by avoiding corporate news organizations. (I hate to use the word "boycott," because apparently that's asking to be sued in Musk's America.) #journalists #journalism #media
https://www.dworkinsubstack.com/p/time-for-us-to-take-back-the-news
@wdlindsy American journalism was broken with the revocation of the fairness doctrine, arguably, and the current election cycle is an effect rather than a cause of the decline of journalism in the post-Reagan age.
@wdlindsy so. Much. This.
@Danetteb I agree — good commentary.