No. of Recommendations: 9
A lot of Americans embrace Trump’s authoritarianismhttps://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/11/10...Call it authoritarianism if you prefer. A difference without much of a distinction.
Which side are you on? Ready to toss democracy because it's just to hard? Just too messy? If so, you are insane and lost to the cult of a corrupt demagogue. I never thought so many of my fellow citizens could be so easily led into fascism.
To many observers, there’s an incongruity to this. After all, recent days have also brought new awareness of Trump’s plans should he be inaugurated on that day, plans that are often unvarnished embraces of an authoritarian use of power. Trump plans to root out disloyal bureaucrats and install ideologically sympathetic ones. He’s speaking openly of using the Justice Department to target his opponents, including to hobble possible political opponents. And that’s just to name two recent examples.More and more Trump feels no need at all to be coy about his fascist desires. He can see that it plays well with the MAGA crowd. Sad days for the American Republic.
No. of Recommendations: 3
There was an article a few years ago about the rise of authoritarianism. Trump was mentioned, of course. And his admiration for strongmen like Putin and Duterte.
Duterte was mentioned (though he has since timed-out of office), Putin, Xi...I don't remember them all now. I do remember there was concern about hard-right people in Germany and France.
Russia had a democracy for a bit, but lost it. Duterte was all in favor of extra-judicial killings, and didn't like criticism. Putin kills his critics. Trump tried to silence the media (unsuccessfully), but managed to get a lot of people to believe only what he says. And now South Korea is joining in the fun, with their leader taking a page from Trump's playbook and pushing the meme "fake news" whenever he's criticized.
Democracy is hard. And fragile. It may take another 100 years, but I suspect that with the occasional embrace of authoritarians, combined with modern technology, that we will end up with a 1984 society. And -again, with technology- once that is in place, there will be no hope of dislodging it.
No. of Recommendations: 1
Forcing anything from daily lunch choices and having kids bypass parents on things like eating a donut or deciding what gender they are is real every day liberal authoritarianism.
And for that reason I am so pleased Climate Change is exploding.
Surf's up.
Well deserved.
Now if only the damn S/P 500 would go to 12.
No. of Recommendations: 4
"Trump tried to silence the media (unsuccessfully), but managed to get a lot of people to believe only what he says." A guest essay in today's NYT by Nina Burleigh on the Ivanka's relationship with the family brings up the Trump family's efforts to exploit public gullibility using that tactic..
It recalls a quote from the book Ivanka wrote, a thing she learned from FatDon:
“Perception is more important than reality. If someone perceives something to be true, it is more important than if it is in fact true.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/11/opinion/ivanka-...
No. of Recommendations: 5
There is a similiar piece in Salon by Amanda Marcotte that also discusses the overarching family dynamic.
https://www.salon.com/2023/11/10/i-am-not-a-misogy...The whole performance relies heavily on gender stereotypes. It's the common trope of the loud-mouthed man kept in check by a stable and honest woman. Typically, the combo is a literal married couple, especially in the world of sitcoms: Archie and Edith, Fred and Wilma, Homer and Marge, etc.
(snip)
In reality, Ivanka was in on the con, as the Forbes journalists figured out by checking her claims next to the real world numbers. The sitcom couple routine seems to have worked, however, on investors who were snookered by the Trumps. It also works to dupe Trump supporters, who frequently point to Ivanka's alleged level-headed sincerity as proof that her father ain't so bad. It doesn't matter that she's a bad actress. These stereotypes are so ingrained in people that they don't need good fakery to believe.The piece continues by identifying continuity between Trump's sudden fixation upon the judge's clerk and Elise Stefanik's willingness to perpetuate what Trump and his lawyers were formally forbidden by a gag order from continuing, by instead harrasing the judge himeself in the form of bogus ethics complaints.
As I just texted a friend...
If you step back and observe all of what is going on in the world from the perspective of a combined zoologist and psychiatrist, it is very easy to see how easily "humanity" in humans can be warped by a sick environment and literally breed generation after generation of psychopathy and misery. For bored billionaries and kids raised in a perpetual war zone, alike.
WTH
