I’d like to add a bit of recent historical context to this one, too:
Trump does so many Godawful things that obliterate norms, conventions, ethics, and customs that I like to differentiate between those and what – so far – this looks like to me: a markedly worse and more dramatic version of something that’s historically fairly normal.
A loyalty oath is a statement. The Constitution does prescribe an Oath of Office for the President, but it offers no penalty or recompense for the violation of that or any oath – this is left entirely up to the discretion of the parties tasked with enforcing its terms. As such, there is no prescribed sanction for any person breaking their word, and it is not clear (to me) what manner of punishment is legally supported when an oath is violated for just cause (e.g., if an administration official witnesses a grave crime within the administration, their loyalty oath should not prevent them from speaking out on it).
ShitGibbon feasts on the fear of others and becomes angry when those he needs to sate his appetite for fear fail to cower.
So instead of the Big Lie we get the Constant Lie. The goal is the same, but the latter is probably more effective if you don’t have a single propaganda outlet. Yet.
I believe it was Goebbels who said, repeat the lie over and over and eventually people will accept it as the truth. That is not significantly different from innundating people with a vast horde of lies until they are overwhelmed and give up fighting them. Of course, we have more people than they have lies, so we could still prevail.
“The fundamental principle of all propaganda was the repetition of effective arguments; but those arguments must not be too refined – there was no point in seeking to convert the intellectuals. For intellectuals would never be converted and would anyway always yield to the stronger, and this will always be the man in the street. Arguments must therefore be crude, clear and forcible, and appeal to emotions and instincts, not to the intellect. Truth was unimportant, and entirely subordinate to the tactics and psychology, but convenient lies (“poetic truth”, as he once called them) must always be made credible.”
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."
–Hugh Trevor-Roper, English historian, paraphrasing Joseph Goebbels, WWII German Propaganda Minister
Related: the Lincoln Project posted:
The image:
The screenshot is from Jesse Watters’ show, so apparently he thinks it’s pretty cool.
So this is how I found out about the funding freeze.
We got an email from MDHHS, a funder that contributes to approximately 40% of our operating budget through federal pass-through spending, that said, “Yeah, about that funding freeze, we have no idea if this affects us or not. We’ve received no clarification. We’ll keep you posted.”
We also got an email from Office on Violence Against Women (WOKE GENDER IDEOLOGY) suspending drawdown for our transitional housing program.
These are for grants that have already been awarded.
While the freeze has been rescinded, I am fully confident that Trump will either eliminate OVW or remake it in his own image, and that most of the people I’ve come to know through the Division of Victim Services will be on the chopping block, since they put diversity questions in their grant applications. All federal employees who have anything to do with the grants process are now Schedule 4F.
It’s the fucking wild west, man. Today my boss asked me to review our agency website to identify places where we talk about DEI and marginalized communities. I initially refused to do it but she assured me she doesn’t want to take it down, she just wants to know what’s up there so when Trump inevitably refuses to provide federal funding to any agency that cares about equality, we can strip it out pretty quickly. I want to vomit just writing that. This is exacerbated by the fact that conservatives have slowly been taking over my once stolid grass-roots progressive agency from the top-down. They don’t give a shit about DEI. This is not a leadership team that is going to go down swinging.
I am a fucking social worker. I’m pretty sure his next executive order will be to make us illegal. I’m pretty sure domestic violence and sexual assault services, which disproportionately serve women, will be considered too woke to fund. Is my career in this field soon to be over? Who the hell knows.
Things are already bad even without the funding freeze – we’re expecting a VOCA cut of 75% nationwide, and honestly I’ll be shocked if VOCA survives Trump’s cronies at all. What that will look like practically is that nationwide, about 50% of staff positions serving survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence will be eliminated. And let me tell you, we’re not even fully staffed now. We are swamped.
Before the funding freeze, it felt like trying to save a sinking ship with a bucket. I have been trying so hard to find meaning in my work again, and I was almost there until this shit. But that’s what the fucker wants. He wants to hurt us so much we stop trying. Well, I’m not gonna fucking stop trying. If I have no other source of meaning left, let it be spiting this asshole.
Look on the bright side! The new office of ‘Teaching REAL Women how to take a punch and not cry about it’ will be hiring!
This website got started during Trump’s first maladministration, and I’m sure it will be roaring into high gear for the second, so I’m reposting the link.
Trump sued Facebook in 2021 for banning him after the insurrection. Zuckerberg has settled for $25 million, most of which will go to the Trump “library”. Is there a law that says Trump can’t personally sue people or corporations while he is president? It could be a new revenue stream for him. Though TPTB probably realize that it’s just easier to directly give Trump money rather than worry about nuisance lawsuits he might throw at you.
Meta agrees to pay Trump $25 million to settle lawsuit over Facebook and Instagram suspensions : NPR
Wow, thank you. That looks really good.
When trump’s teenaged ‘press secretary’ was asked about the price of eggs, she blamed Biden for killing 125 million chickens. Yeah, that’s the reason, all right. Snotty little shit.
It’s stuff like that that should make the press corps throw up their hands tell her she is outright lying, and tell her that no one can trust a word she says. AND LEAVE.
Maybe that is their goal. It started with the inaction on COVID, but that was taking too long or something.
Yup, and global warming has made using ice floes kinda difficult.
They were too busy banging their heads on the floor.
It’s very sad that facts are ignored, by the very people that need to see them.
His press conference ( parts I have personally seen ) : He has cursed, blamed Obama, blamed Pete Buttigieg, blamed “DEI Hires” and complained about a study completed six years ago showing that the FAA is “too white”.
When called out on an obvious lie, he interrupted the reporter and said, “Who says so? You…?”
Donald Trump: Lying No-Account Son-of-a-Bitch
Illegal, hell. You’ll be termed a traitor for propping up the weak and undeserving and deported along with them, at best.
While knowing that if they did that they would immediately be replaced and forgotten, and their very jobs rely on them being there and getting first-hand information. Things that posters see as “the right thing to do” don’t always turn out for the best in real life. Sometimes there is no satisfying solution that doesn’t suck.