Trump Declares War on U.S. Cities

nycfan said:


[Can’t the Governor of Louisiana do this for Louisiana National Guard without making a request to the Feds or DoD?]
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I suspect sending in the State NG would lack the required theatre that MAGA requires. The show must go on. Queue 'The Ride of Valkyries.'
 
rodoheel said:
There's no point in hoping for a Republican Congress to do anything. Manu in the judiciary (with the notable exception of the Supreme Court) are doing their part. As are many in the media. But we can't count on those institutions to save us; it will take the firm, unequivocal, mass rejection of Trump's administration, policies, and rhetoric.
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I agree but a mass rejection of Trump's policies largely depends upon the media sounding the alarm and educating the public that we are in a dire crisis.

The majority of Americans have the attention span of a fruit fly. Trump and right wing media understand this which is why they pound their disinformation propaganda 24/7 365 days/year.

Legit earth 1 media need to remind the public 24/7 365 days/year that we are in crisis.

The Judiciary is doing their part with its rulings but needs to be even more explicit in its decisions to alert and remind Americans how and why Trump related cases brought before court pose a threat to our Constitutional democratic republic.

Regarding the GQP Congress, I guess the only way to get it on board is having a red wave in the midterms.
 
heelinhell said:
I agree but a mass rejection of Trump's policies largely depends upon the media sounding the alarm and educating the public that we are in a dire crisis.
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The media can't do what you want it to do. We live in an age of unlimited, freely available bullshit. If people hear something on TV they don't like, they tend not to think, "hmm, maybe I was wrong and this guy Trump is actually a piece of shit." They just change the channel or start reading the chain emails even more.
 
heelinhell said:
I agree but a mass rejection of Trump's policies largely depends upon the media sounding the alarm and educating the public that we are in a dire crisis.

The majority of Americans have the attention span of a fruit fly. Trump and right wing media understand this which is why they pound their disinformation propaganda 24/7 365 days/year.

Legit earth 1 media need to remind the public 24/7 365 days/year that we are in crisis.

The Judiciary is doing their part with its rulings but needs to be even more explicit in its decisions to alert and remind Americans how and why Trump related cases brought before court pose a threat to our Constitutional democratic republic.

Regarding the GQP Congress, I guess the only way to get it on board is having a red wave in the midterms.
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You might need a blue wave.
 
superrific said:
Textbook authoritarianism at least. Communists do the same thing. Mao and Chiang Kai-Shek, for instance.
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It's canon fascism. See the Unberto Eco essay on Ur-fascism.


specifically point #8:

8. The followers must feel humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies. When I was a boy I was taught to think of Englishmen as the five-meal people. They ate more frequently than the poor but sober Italians. Jews are rich and help each other through a secret web of mutual assistance. However, the followers must be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak. Fascist governments are condemned to lose wars because they are constitutionally incapable of objectively evaluating the force of the enemy.
 
Ddseddse said:
It's canon fascism. See the Unberto Eco essay on Ur-fascism.


specifically point #8:

8. The followers must feel humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies. When I was a boy I was taught to think of Englishmen as the five-meal people. They ate more frequently than the poor but sober Italians. Jews are rich and help each other through a secret web of mutual assistance. However, the followers must be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak. Fascist governments are condemned to lose wars because they are constitutionally incapable of objectively evaluating the force of the enemy.
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I'm aware of that. But just because fascists invariably do something doesn't mean that thing is necessarily fascist.

All of that is also vintage Maoism.

And while the rhetoric and chosen means are far different, it's also a feature of liberal politics to cast one's opponents as decadent -- which is really the same thing as too strong/too weak.
 
superrific said:
I'm aware of that. But just because fascists invariably do something doesn't mean that thing is necessarily fascist.

All of that is also vintage Maoism.

And while the rhetoric and chosen means are far different, it's also a feature of liberal politics to cast one's opponents as decadent -- which is really the same thing as too strong/too weak.
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I don't think you read Eco's essay, because you're too smart (and too good a reader) to have missed what is his exact main point.

Fascism became an all-purpose term because one can eliminate from a fascist regime one or more features, and it will still be recognizable as fascist. Take away imperialism from fascism and you still have Franco and Salazar. Take away colonialism and you still have the Balkan fascism of the Ustashes. Add to the Italian fascism a radical anti-capitalism (which never much fascinated Mussolini) and you have Ezra Pound. Add a cult of Celtic mythology and the Grail mysticism (completely alien to official fascism) and you have one of the most respected fascist gurus, Julius Evola.

But in spite of this fuzziness, I think it is possible to outline a list of features that are typical of what I would like to call Ur-Fascism, or Eternal Fascism. These features cannot be organized into a system; many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism.
 
BTW, Eco name checking Evola here is interesting, because Steve Bannon is just a Scooby Doo mask villain with Julius Evola hiding inside.
 
Gotta hand it to Stephen Miller -- it's pretty clever to have Trump give perhaps the most fascist speech ever given by an American president, and certainly the most fascist since Trump's first inaugural, after spending the past couple of weeks whining incessantly about Pubs being called fascists. That one-two punch is about as fascist as it gets. Goebbels would be seriously impressed.
 
nrsair said:
I like how they apparently can’t decide if liberals are ineffective, effete cowards or antifa super soldiers requiring the military to deal with.
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jennifer lawrence microphone GIF
They're whatever MAGA needs them to be at any given moment. Cognitive dissonance was excommunicated by the right long ago.
 
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