Michael, All this is in "Project 2025" We've known this for 2 1/2 years. It's in there. Why are we treating this as a surprise? Read it. I suggest Looking up the last Executive Order and find it in the manual and read it. It's there. Really! It's in there! While you're there you find out what's coming next. Or find a particular issue you are concerned about and look that up. It's there!
And now he wants to investigage the pollsters while Republicans in Congress block Democrats from forcing votes on the Signal scandal and Musk conflicts of interest. Gee, I wonder which examination might reveal more scandal and cheating.
As another total outsider, I am surprised how so many authoritative people are tiptoeing around the D-word. I watched the section of Dr. Natasha Ezrow's excellent 2014 presentation on “How dictators fall” and the measures she describes as characteristic of Personalist Dictators are the exact same ones carried out by the current administration in its first 100 days. In my reckoning, Trump with his chainsaw is not only on the doorstop, he's already got his feet under the kitchen table.
The analysis is correct. The Trumpists are unique in their departure from what has been "normal" in American politics. What are Trumpism's opponents--that's you, me, and us--going to do about it? So far, our opposition has been 99% along conventional lines. What more can we do?
Great question and I wish I had a good answer. What I'm trying to do is fight to make sure that none of this is normalized. You can feel that happening and it's alarming. All the voices raised against it become kind of like background static while he just bulldozes forward. The most important immediate thing I can see is to make double damn sure that the repubs lose their majority in the house That will put the dems in charge of all committees and restore osme measure of accountability--they can launch investigations,etc, and will have a bully pulpit that they don't seem to have now. But beyond that -- I'm not sure. Welcome ideas from any of our readers.
What record is there of instances in which the government has ACQUIESCED in court rulings? You seem to know all about their recalcitrance, but in how far are they cooperating?
You're on the spot, I'm not, but I'll wager a guess: not at all.
They say he's a king. HE says he's a king. When something like this happened in England once, when courts were of no use in reining in excessive power, and the king would not back down, the only solution was armed conflict and an execution.
So, let's talk armed conflict. Armed conflict, but who against whom? A question: do you think that if the authorities ordered the US Army to shoot on its own citizens, they would do that? What about the National Guard units in each state? Focus out a bit: do you think that the President of the US would even order his own army to shoot on his own citizens?
Are legal rights of recourse even relevant in a country that knows no rule of law? (Come, now, do you think, having arrested one judge, he would baulk at arresting another? Even Mr Roberts, come to it?) Will "a rule of law, please" be on people's wish-lists up the chimney to Santa come Christmas?
I'll tell you what makes me ask these questions. I have no doubt that he would issue such an order. He feels confident that it's an order he can issue. If he has no authority to do so, he will find it, in some obscure, long-forgotten, 18th century piece of legislation. I have a little more doubt whether the army would comply. But no certainty. It was the National Guard, tear gas and batons they used at Columbia University to break up the dorm protests, I believe?
Do I hear echoes of "Not in a million years"? "Don't be ludicrous"? "Unconscionable and inconceivable"? "This is not El Salvador"? The last one is a point worth dwelling on: in how far has El Salvador become more like the US, and in how far has the US approximated to El Salvador since 20 January? Ironically, it means "The Saviour".
I see pictures of immigration officials with the word "POLICE" emblazoned on their backs, along with the acronym "ICE", but who apparently don't carry so much as a card identifying themselves. Bundling people into unmarked vehicles and spiriting them away to who knows where. Which is in Louisiana, I think.
They say that imitation is the best form of flattery. So, I suggest for a start that flattering these "POLICE" officers who seem to be flattering police might be a ... start. Because, short of getting every last judge in America arrested and sent to El Salvador, a start is what very soon is going to need to be made.
Mr Trump got started straight away, wasted no time. Time to regroup and waste no time, lest one be wasted.
I am an outsider, but I am afraid. Before the election I commented that the US was likely to face another civil war, because of Trump. The orange man would have no compunction in ordering troops to fire on the country’s own citizens. I can hope that they remember the Nuremberg trials, where it was established that “I was only following orders!”, is not a valid defence. This, of course, would not deter King Donald, who appears determined to have a fascist government. I am concerned for my American friends.
I first heard the idea that the words “civil war” were being contemplated around 2017. It has not been fun to observe the laying of jigsaw pieces that seems systematically to have ensued. I share your concerns. But: a civil war between whom?
Secessionist against unionist states? Well, this is different to the 1860s: the geography is less distinct. Red against Blue? Even red is less red than it was six months ago in some parts. How about this one: rich against poor? That’s a civil war you have had since the foundation, but of which you’re only now coming to realise the truth. What makes that interesting is, of course, the rule that the rich always get the poor to fight their wars. But that never stopped a “revolution” before. A revolution is a kind of civil war. It’s what you’re having right now, make no mistake. What you’d be wanting is a counter-revolution.
Liberté guidant le peuple is the common visual encapsulation of what revolution means: naked ladies, youthful musket-bearers and, of course, the dead trodden underfoot. But you may not notice the dead in the US’s case, for they have always been trodden underfoot by the American capitalist, be they Indian, poor or simply expendable.
I fear, however, that, by the time the word “revolution” comes to being used, no one who has even a spark of hope that they might thereby frame the eventual peace will be hedging their bets as to what orders they follow.
Michael, All this is in "Project 2025" We've known this for 2 1/2 years. It's in there. Why are we treating this as a surprise? Read it. I suggest Looking up the last Executive Order and find it in the manual and read it. It's there. Really! It's in there! While you're there you find out what's coming next. Or find a particular issue you are concerned about and look that up. It's there!
Unfortunately, most people either didn’t know about Project 2025 or they dismissed it as it ‘can’t be that bad.’
And now he wants to investigage the pollsters while Republicans in Congress block Democrats from forcing votes on the Signal scandal and Musk conflicts of interest. Gee, I wonder which examination might reveal more scandal and cheating.
As another total outsider, I am surprised how so many authoritative people are tiptoeing around the D-word. I watched the section of Dr. Natasha Ezrow's excellent 2014 presentation on “How dictators fall” and the measures she describes as characteristic of Personalist Dictators are the exact same ones carried out by the current administration in its first 100 days. In my reckoning, Trump with his chainsaw is not only on the doorstop, he's already got his feet under the kitchen table.
The analysis is correct. The Trumpists are unique in their departure from what has been "normal" in American politics. What are Trumpism's opponents--that's you, me, and us--going to do about it? So far, our opposition has been 99% along conventional lines. What more can we do?
Great question and I wish I had a good answer. What I'm trying to do is fight to make sure that none of this is normalized. You can feel that happening and it's alarming. All the voices raised against it become kind of like background static while he just bulldozes forward. The most important immediate thing I can see is to make double damn sure that the repubs lose their majority in the house That will put the dems in charge of all committees and restore osme measure of accountability--they can launch investigations,etc, and will have a bully pulpit that they don't seem to have now. But beyond that -- I'm not sure. Welcome ideas from any of our readers.
What record is there of instances in which the government has ACQUIESCED in court rulings? You seem to know all about their recalcitrance, but in how far are they cooperating?
You're on the spot, I'm not, but I'll wager a guess: not at all.
They say he's a king. HE says he's a king. When something like this happened in England once, when courts were of no use in reining in excessive power, and the king would not back down, the only solution was armed conflict and an execution.
So, let's talk armed conflict. Armed conflict, but who against whom? A question: do you think that if the authorities ordered the US Army to shoot on its own citizens, they would do that? What about the National Guard units in each state? Focus out a bit: do you think that the President of the US would even order his own army to shoot on his own citizens?
Are legal rights of recourse even relevant in a country that knows no rule of law? (Come, now, do you think, having arrested one judge, he would baulk at arresting another? Even Mr Roberts, come to it?) Will "a rule of law, please" be on people's wish-lists up the chimney to Santa come Christmas?
I'll tell you what makes me ask these questions. I have no doubt that he would issue such an order. He feels confident that it's an order he can issue. If he has no authority to do so, he will find it, in some obscure, long-forgotten, 18th century piece of legislation. I have a little more doubt whether the army would comply. But no certainty. It was the National Guard, tear gas and batons they used at Columbia University to break up the dorm protests, I believe?
Do I hear echoes of "Not in a million years"? "Don't be ludicrous"? "Unconscionable and inconceivable"? "This is not El Salvador"? The last one is a point worth dwelling on: in how far has El Salvador become more like the US, and in how far has the US approximated to El Salvador since 20 January? Ironically, it means "The Saviour".
I see pictures of immigration officials with the word "POLICE" emblazoned on their backs, along with the acronym "ICE", but who apparently don't carry so much as a card identifying themselves. Bundling people into unmarked vehicles and spiriting them away to who knows where. Which is in Louisiana, I think.
They say that imitation is the best form of flattery. So, I suggest for a start that flattering these "POLICE" officers who seem to be flattering police might be a ... start. Because, short of getting every last judge in America arrested and sent to El Salvador, a start is what very soon is going to need to be made.
Mr Trump got started straight away, wasted no time. Time to regroup and waste no time, lest one be wasted.
I am an outsider, but I am afraid. Before the election I commented that the US was likely to face another civil war, because of Trump. The orange man would have no compunction in ordering troops to fire on the country’s own citizens. I can hope that they remember the Nuremberg trials, where it was established that “I was only following orders!”, is not a valid defence. This, of course, would not deter King Donald, who appears determined to have a fascist government. I am concerned for my American friends.
I first heard the idea that the words “civil war” were being contemplated around 2017. It has not been fun to observe the laying of jigsaw pieces that seems systematically to have ensued. I share your concerns. But: a civil war between whom?
Secessionist against unionist states? Well, this is different to the 1860s: the geography is less distinct. Red against Blue? Even red is less red than it was six months ago in some parts. How about this one: rich against poor? That’s a civil war you have had since the foundation, but of which you’re only now coming to realise the truth. What makes that interesting is, of course, the rule that the rich always get the poor to fight their wars. But that never stopped a “revolution” before. A revolution is a kind of civil war. It’s what you’re having right now, make no mistake. What you’d be wanting is a counter-revolution.
Liberté guidant le peuple is the common visual encapsulation of what revolution means: naked ladies, youthful musket-bearers and, of course, the dead trodden underfoot. But you may not notice the dead in the US’s case, for they have always been trodden underfoot by the American capitalist, be they Indian, poor or simply expendable.
I fear, however, that, by the time the word “revolution” comes to being used, no one who has even a spark of hope that they might thereby frame the eventual peace will be hedging their bets as to what orders they follow.