Recent searches
Search options
Administered by:
"Yes. It’s horrible. Everything is horrible. But this Gaetz nomination (along with the other two) may finally convince people that Trump really is the menace to America that Democrats and never-Trumpers have been warning he was. There may be no better person than Gaetz to convince the Republicans who hate him how poor Trump’s judgment is."
~ Marcy Wheeler
Let's hope. Let's hope that the chaos Trump is inducing, his attempt to break the government and expose it to ridicule — serving Putin's wildest dreams — shows many of us including some Republicans who a clown show he runs.
I have my doubts, though, that his supporters will see any of this anytime soon. I doubt, frankly, that the chaos they've willingly helped set in motion, which will immiserate them along with their "enemies," will open their eyes.
@wdlindsy@toad.socialHelping to usher in a fascist regime, as many Germans did in the Nazi period, inevitably leads to chaos, rubble, destruction — including for the very people who made the decision to help the process.
But getting people to see the folly of their very stupid, blind choices even when everything is in rubble around them: that's not easy.
I have German friends who were children during WWII.
Several of them tell me that getting their parents, other elders, friends of that generation, to acknowledge that they made a colossal mistake in colluding with the Nazis was never possible. Their parents and elders could not and would not admit that they had made horrible choices even when the error of their ways was glaringly obvious in the destroyed nation all around them.
"Trump's choice of Matt Gaetz and Tulsi Gabbard for top roles signals darkness and chaos ahead. … This shows right off the bat that MAGA chaos is going to reign."
~ Greg Sargent
#Trump #Gaetz #MattGaetz #chaos
/5
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-daily-blast-with-greg-sargent/id1728152109
"All the cabinet picks and staffing announcements this week prove that the Jeremiahs among us were right in advance — and what might be left will be lament in the coming rubble."
~ Diana Butler Bass
"There will be a reversal of human rights, an erosion of safety for millions of people (and, sadly, including the nations we influence around the world), the rejection of basic principles of the law, and an increasing enslavement of democracy to oligarchs and billionaires.
That’s what Christian nationalists want. That’s Project 2025."
#Trump #fascism #cruelty #chaos #WhiteChristianNationalists
/7
"There is no conceivable argument from US national interests to propose Tulsi Gabbard for that most critical position. She has zero relevant experience. The only thing for which she is known is her support of Putin (and Assad). Her candidacy is, quite literally, a proposal that can only have emerged in Moscow, where she is known as a "Russian agent" or as 'our girlfriend.'"
~ Timothy Snyder
"These choices aren’t just shocking. They’re sending the message that Donald Trump cares about loyalty over basic competence. And perhaps more importantly, they’re setting a norm from the beginning: that no matter what Trump does, he expects Republicans to comply."
~ Jill Filipovic
"Trump is giving his middle finger to America.
Nominating the alleged sexual trafficker Matt Gaetz to be Attorney General, Fox News host Pete Hegseth to be Secretary of Defense, and bizarro Tulsi Gabbard to be Director of National Intelligence, are acts of nihilistic disruption."
~ Robert Reich
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/trump-wants-robert-f-kennedy-jr-to
@wdlindsy we also cannot forget that people just don't feel connected to democratic leadership and that this is a failure, they feel left out probably because in some shape or fashion major to the individual, they have. I'm with Bernie on this one.
@stevensanderson People feel left out, and the white working classes delibeerately chose to exit the Democratic party after it supported civil rights for racial minorities — so the being left out can obviously be a choice people make, too.
I'm sure it will be the same in the US. Many families and friendships will be destroyed, as they should be if one person is a horrible human.
"getting their parents, other elders, friends of that generation, to acknowledge that they made a colossal mistake in colluding with the Nazis was never possible. Their parents and elders could not and would not admit that they had made horrible choices even when the error of their ways was glaringly obvious in the destroyed nation..."
@Greengordon It's interesting how many stories we're now reading of parents disinviting children — sons seem to predominate — from holiday dinners because they voted for Trump, isn't it?
It is interesting, and sad. Many of those disinvited will never understand, or at least will pretend not to. A civil war divides a nation....
@Greengordon Yes, and there can be wars not even fought with guns and bombs, too.
@wdlindsy
It's easier to con someone than to convince them they are being conned.
@clintruin Well-stated, and very correct.
I don't think I'll ever wrap my head around how it is that these criminal conmen grifting Mob-style Robber Barons so successfully duped 75M voters...
I know they did.
Just not sure I'll ever be able to achieve the mental gymnastics to fully understand voters embracing it.
Especially for a 2nd time.
@lupus_blackfur I ask that question, too, but because I grew up in the US South during the Civil Rights period and saw first-hand the bitter determination of many of my fellow white Southerners to resist rights for people of color and to believe all kinds of nonsense to justify that resistance, I have long seen how factors like racism get many of us to vote, over and over, against our self-interest. Racism (and other -isms) is a powerful drug, and a powerfully stupefying one.
Yes.
My circumstances very similar.
Was as stupefied by it then as I am now.
As a young-un, I remember the juxtaposition between "who I think I am" and "is what they are what they want me to be... What I'm supposed to be"...
Very confusing until I was old enough that "who I think I am" took over.
@lupus_blackfur I hear you. Your journey sounds much like mine. Glad to meet a kindred soul.
@wdlindsy
Here in Australia we will have some Right Wing hijacking to contend with in our General Election next year.
@Godfrey642 I keep reading about that and am sorry it's happening.
@wdlindsy
In our homeland (UK) friends and relatives are hugely worried by #nigelfarage - last seen at the Trump election party instead of working, as hes paid to do, in Clacton (his electorate).
He's being groomed by US RWing to pull off a similar stunt in our next election. There will be backing from #tommyrobinson (our own particularly nasty version of #andrewtate X #stevebannon)
Who knows where this will all end?
The #UKToriesUnfitForOffice have run our #NHS so far into the ground it makes cheap pickings for #USinsurance companies and billionaire pharma types to snap up as a bargain.
EVERYWHERE will suffer bc of what #maga_morons have done.
@Godfrey642 Yes, it's been clear to me for some time now that the odious Farage and the odious Bannon are joined at the hip, both joined to Trump, too. If anyone thinks that the horrific situation now about to unfold in the US will be confined to that nation, they don't understand how interconnected the world is, and how active a global right-wing network is in engineering what's unfolding now.
@wdlindsy
Spot on.
Im finding atm EVERYTHING is making me anxious.
I empathise with your feelings of being exhausted and depleted. I feel duty bound to keep up to date and informed bc that's what my husb + I do.
But then again what a Dark Time we are living through. It feels like the early days of a war in everything except arms and ammunition.
Today my worry is the raft of Trumps appointments. Not least of all Kennedy who will stop all vax research in USA (and therefore abroad).
So what will happen when a pathogen mutates again as it will one day and there are no labs conducting research. Does Trump ever care.
These appointments are all about fawning to him.
@Godfrey642 Like you, though I feel exhausted and anxious, I find it difficult to avoid the news. I keep telling myself that all too soon, we may find total blackout of news. Trump's appointments are clearly shock-and-awe appointments designed to troll the "libs," but also to show utter contempt for government and the rule of law — to break those precious things, in fact.
@wdlindsy
The thing that concerns me now would be if Trump sets up a MAGA Youth Movement like the 1930s Hitler-esque Hitlerjugend (for boys) or Bund Deutscher Mädl (for girls) to indoctrinate the next generation and provide spies inside the home.
@Godfrey642 A good question. In a way, that's already in existence with different clothes and symbols now, isn't it?
@wdlindsy
Im not sure I know what you mean ?
Are there groups in USA already?
Are they compulsory as Hitlerjugend was?
@Godfrey642 I don't mean organized groups akin to the Brownshirts or Hitler Youth. Just that the MAGA cult now extends to younger men who are behaving in cultic ways — often, including dressing in ways that identify them as Trump supporters when they gather together — which puts some folks in mind of what happened in Germany.
@wdlindsy if H5N1 bird flu gets loose in the population while vaccine skeptics run health services, 50% of Americans will die. I can't see that ending well.
@Oldfartrant You're absolutely right.
@wdlindsy Good analysis! Truly horrifying!
@Doreen32128 I agree, totally horrifying.
Gaetz is certainly a chaos agent; Gabbard seems more of a russian agent. Those of us who followed the failed but noble syrian rose revolution, know that Gabbard's moral compass always points towards a dictator, either Assad or Putin.
@JeffreySmith I think in choosing a Russian agent for that position, Trump is deliberately inducing chaos.
I was thinking of how much frenetic activity will be taking place amongst our allies' intelligence agencies, shutting down agents, and programs which may now be compromised. What a windfall of benefits for Putin.
@JeffreySmith What a windfall of benefits for Putin, for sure.
@wdlindsy
Where do 70 million Democrats find shelter in a 4 year storm ?
@Godfrey642 I ask myself that as someone who feels definitely vulnerable, an aging openly gay man married to another man, living in a deep-red bible-belt state. I feel precarious.
This is an aspect of human behavior that is extremely destructive, and unfortunately very common. People in groups have a powerful urge to deny their colossal mistakes, and those of their ancestors.
At the moment, it's very visible in the "anti-Wokeness" movement.
@oldclumsy_nowmad That's right. History definitely shows us this over and over.
Salvador Dali's classic, The Persistence of Memory, seems ever more poignant (and relevant!) at times like these. It's established and fairly well known that when looking back over what were, in retrospect, terrible decisions, many of us will attempt to rationalize them, to come up with post-hoc reasons why they were the right thing to do. So amongst the people who are suddenly looking up tariffs and the cost of food and accepting that they made a bad choice, there are all the more people who will cling to their decision, coming up with all manner of excuse after excuse.
(Back in 2016, many such voters finally settled on 'but at least he's not Hillary', because all their other excuses were voided out.)
And this kind of post-decision rationalization is addictive: it can be found in all sorts of decisions where cognitive dissonance hits. Buyer's remorse? Sour grapes? These and more are a backbone giving some people the seeming right to make bad decisions.
@theogrin Thank you for this excellent commentary and for introducing me to a source I don't know, Dali's Persistence of Memory.