Thinking twice about criticizing the administration

ChapelHillSooner said:
Do you think twice before criticizing the upcoming administration?

I do. I won’t stop sharing my thoughts but I am more careful than I would normally be.

Might be out in paranoid left field but I just don’t know how bad this will get.
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Oh I can't criticize publicly but that has always been true since Trump came down the escalator. My industry is dominated by Republican voters and they absolutely adore you until you breathe a word against Dear Leader.
 
My parents were lifetime Federal employees (~1939-1983) and because of that never placed a political bumper sticker on their car or a sign in their yard. They comported themselves that way because they believed in a degree of respect for nonpartisanship in government service. In their jobs they served the people (Post Office) and no party. Just the same though they attended political rallies and other partisan events and were known Democrats.

I wonder if moving forward if employees like them should stifle public personal life if it involves partisanship of a pro-Democratic Party (or other center, center-left, or left cause or movement) or anti-trump nature?

That might include public school teachers K-12, community college, and university level — Social Services — and that list goes on.

And of course as @wmheel1287 suggests - pro-trump employers and the public will likely be emboldened to punish in unforeseen ways anyone they have power over in the days ahead.
 
HeelYeah2012 said:
When “they” start coming after the people on the ZZLP, they might come after you first for being the first one to be on to their whole plan!
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IMHO, this is a good example of why we could use more modern conservatives like HY12 here: we may not agree on much at all but at least his default mode isn't that of being a belligerent, antagonistic prick.

This is similar to the reason why I'd hoped @douglas would also stick around and participate. We need more "Trump Boom & The ZZL Cries" and "I Told You" types of threads ;)
 
On thinking more about this, I think the danger if it exists would come from local groups who feel empowered by the administration. I know there are people who would love to target liberals although they would probably concentrate on Facebook where it’s easy to trace a profile to a person.

We could get to a point where the administration puts pressure on local law enforcement to look the other way.

I say this because I am absolutely convinced that Trump wants to be a combination of Putin and Kim. He idolizes them. He wants what they have.
 
Icky Mettle said:
In all seriousness, though, I do have concerns for prominent critics and political opponents of Trump.
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My hope is that if Trump tries to quickly and aggressively go after journalists and political opponents, public opinion will shift quickly and decisively against him. The hyper-online folks in his MAGA base will love it but the normie swing voters who aren't that politically engaged will not. I think there's a chance Trump will overplay his hand, either because he's reading the room wrong or just because he is being goaded into aggressive action by the Stephen Miller types who are trying to hasten the Fourth Reich or whatever. If he really tries giant concentration camps for immigrants and mass deportations through military force and prosecuting journalists and political enemies on spurious charges, I think the people who are annoyed by liberal word policing and nany state-ism will quickly remember what the lesser of two evils is.

My fear is that I'm overestimating the American people here, and that due to either the complete degradation of objective truth or just general apathy, fear, and lack of historical education, people will just shrug their shoulders, the free press will be chilled and marginalized, and we'll slip closer to authoritarianism.
 
rodoheel said:
My hope is that if Trump tries to quickly and aggressively go after journalists and political opponents, public opinion will shift quickly and decisively against him. The hyper-online folks in his MAGA base will love it but the normie swing voters who aren't that politically engaged will not. I think there's a chance Trump will overplay his hand, either because he's reading the room wrong or just because he is being goaded into aggressive action by the Stephen Miller types who are trying to hasten the Fourth Reich or whatever. If he really tries giant concentration camps for immigrants and mass deportations through military force and prosecuting journalists and political enemies on spurious charges, I think the people who are annoyed by liberal word policing and nany state-ism will quickly remember what the lesser of two evils is.

My fear is that I'm overestimating the American people here, and that due to either the complete degradation of objective truth or just general apathy, fear, and lack of historical education, people will just shrug their shoulders, the free press will be chilled and marginalized, and we'll slip closer to authoritarianism.
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I have two other scenarios where things could end badly for Trump.

1. The military will go along with the deportation plan if the courts say that it is legal, which they will. However, Trump could overplay his hand by doing too much too quickly. If that happens the whole thing will turn Into a humanitarian nightmare. Generals aren't interested in being part of a large scale crime against humanity. At that point they would either refuse orders or take more drastic steps. In either case it would be clear that Trump lost his own military.

2. If the tariffs and deportation cause huge economic problems, as I believe they will, Trump will quickly lose public support, especially among the low information Joe Rogan listener types who got him elected. Fox News can't hide major economic issues from the public. Republican senators, many of whom hate Trump, will reach a point where supporting Trump causes them more harm than good. It doesn't make sense to protect yourself from a primary challenge if things are so bad that you would lose the general election. At that point, they may be open to impeachment and removal of Trump. If this came to pass, it would be a tipping point which would happen very quickly.

I am not expecting them to gain a moral compass. It would be self preserving. But for this scenario to play out, things have to get really bad first.
 
ChapelHillSooner said:
On thinking more about this, I think the danger if it exists would come from local groups who feel empowered by the administration. I know there are people who would love to target liberals although they would probably concentrate on Facebook where it’s easy to trace a profile to a person.

We could get to a point where the administration puts pressure on local law enforcement to look the other way.

I say this because I am absolutely convinced that Trump wants to be a combination of Putin and Kim. He idolizes them. He wants what they have.
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He wants to be Viktor Orbán. He’ll start with deportation but his goal is a state run media. This country will be unrecognizable in four years.
 
Icky Mettle said:
In all seriousness, though, I do have concerns for prominent critics and political opponents of Trump.
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I had yet to think of Trump in this way, but I’ll say when posting on Reddit I have been cautious in how much negative I will say about Russia or Putin. The thought has crossed my mind they might decide to make life a little difficult for those calling too much attention to themselves. I know that’s paranoid and yet I also feel itnis wise.
 
sringwal said:
Here, no, but I'm careful about what I post on social media, for a variety of reasons.
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I have facebook and instagram and twitter accounts, but I never post anything political on any of them, largely because I got sick and tired many years ago of having relatives and friends pop up to disagree and/or try to argue if I posted anything politically-related. It's not worth it. And besides, I get my fill of posting my political views on here, and since I'm anonymous here it's safer.
 
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