On my far less frequent peeks into twitter, whenever the accusation flies that Trump wants to be king, Elon’s blue checks are welcoming the possibility instead of denying it.
Social media is trying to condition us into acceptance of the inevitability. I’m worried that too many Americans are just gonna shrug, “What can you do?”
He doesn’t need majority support for his 2028 power grab. He just needs apathy.
Great article…?! This article by Hamilton Nolan shows a naive wishful thinking, the way people react when there is no way out any more, they just daydream like children to comfort themselves after a hard blow.
We are the majority?! Trump supporters might be the minority in numbers but they are enthusiastic and ready to fight. A majority which doesn’t fight doesn’t help at all. Trump doesn’t have the majority of the US population behind him? Neither does Putin. A fascist doesn’t care about majority they care about power and to stay in it. So no, not all ends well, the hard times have just begun and they are getting much harder.
The central conceit of conservatism is they have freedom to choose what they want, and freedom to force that choice on everyone else.
So if you somehow believe that MAGA is going to simply choose self-destruction and dispose of themselves while everyone else watches as bystanders, I’ve got a bridge to sell you. We are all going to drink from the poisoned cup, one way or another.
I’ve been taking a few sips myself lately.
Facts don’t matter if people’s information schema prevents them from drawing the right conclusion from new information. If you’re a COVID denier who came near death but survived, well, that means COVID isn’t that bad, plus you’re a strong special boy, plus you were helped by Ivermectin (or harmed by not having Ivermectin).
It’s irrelevant for the people who died, because by definition they won’t be processing any other information. Herman Cain is not around to tell us he made a mistake. There are plenty of other people around to tell us that Herman Cain actually died for some other reason than he actually did.
What you consider “facts” are just the construction of a durable social consensus derived from logic and measurements of the material world. This is IMO the best way to construct consensus knowledge but it is by far not the only one, nor the dominant one.
There is always collateral damage when a cult self-destructs. The degree of damage is in proportion to the numbers of people in the cult and the systems the cult touched/affected, so yes, the damage inflicted by this one will be immense. I never meant to imply otherwise.
Good grief. 
I give credit to @ASanders who first linked to the article (at my request). Well done. 
To everyone who dissed the article in its entirety.… consider this part:
…
Notably, though, Trump has, in less than a month, pissed off some significant sources of institutional support—groups that may in fact have preferred him in the election, but who are now finding that they themselves are targets of his agenda, rather than beneficiaries. These groups include, but are not limited to:
- Millions of government workers and their families, who may have voted Republican but now find their own livelihoods threatened;
- Veterans who will see the VA decimated;
- Members of the military, who will see austerity imposed upon them;
- Clean cut law and order types at the FBI and the Justice Department who are finding that Trump is actually lawless, and is attacking them;
- Law enforcement types disillusioned by Trump’s pardoning of January 6 protesters who attacked cops;
- Parents of schoolchildren who will find their public schools getting worse and worse;
- Latinos who voted for Trump who will find themselves and their families targeted by his anti-immigration agenda;
- Black people who voted for Trump who will be unhappy with the wave of officially condoned racism he has unleashed;
- Women who voted for Trump who will at some point find themselves or their family personally harmed by the restrictions on reproductive rights;
- Sober small business types who will find that they are, to their surprise, on the losing side of the oligarchy;
It is easy to say “these people deserve what they get!” and it is easy to say “nah, these people are blind dead-ender racists who will ride the Trump Train to hell no matter what!” but both of those sentiments miss what is consequential here. Sure, within all of these groups, it may be the case that most of the people who suffer material harm will grit their teeth and ignore it and continue to back Trump because of unshakeable party affiliation or racism or cultural mores or failure to pay attention or whatever. But I guarantee you that some portion of all of those groups is going to be so pissed or disappointed or disillusioned with what Trump and Musk are doing that they will lose their enthusiasm for Trump. They will lose their will to affirmatively support him.
…
The leopards are coming for their faces. Trump et al. will not be able to bluff their way out of everything.
For example:
(My last gift link this month… 
)
We will be seeing more of this backlash when the effects of slash-and-burn governing work their way down to the deplorables. Cut Medicaid-- are you freaking kidding me? Who does the Musk/Trump administration think uses Medicaid the most? Not bicoastal, woke liberals, that’s for sure.
Thank you for that article.
It’s stunning that these idiots are calling for more aggression in the scam waste reduction efforts.
Medicaid?
Really?
That will create some huge ripples everywhere.
And no guarantees that Social Security won’t be messed with.
And that dear leader has only just begun.
Just heartbreaking.
I think the best thing we can do is remember that Trump is a Mussolini not a Hitler. He’s a wannabee dictator but he’s not looking to commit genocide or conquer the world.
The most dangerous possibility with Trump is if Putin decides that he can be a Hitler with Trump as his Mussolini.
Well that appears to be what Putin and Trump are planning.
Putin would ilke that, of course. Trump has no qualms about helping Putin and screwing Ukraine. But Ukraine also gets to have a say. Clearly at this point they’re not going to reclaim their 2014 territory, but they ought to be well able to prevent Russia from maneuvering west of the Dnipro.
Of course all this changes if somehow Ukraine is forced into sham elections that put a Russian puppet back in power. Or if Trump outright starts arming and equipping Russia, then it’s game over. We can assume Putin will push for this, though honestly I couldn’t even guess how likely it is.
They do indeed, but the combined weight of the USA and USSR may be impossible for them to hold out against. Whether just by military conquest or, as you suggest, removing Zelenskyy’s administration and installing quislings to create Belarus South.
You need one more edit up there. One of those entities isn’t an entity anymore, and is much less powerful than it used to be. Otherwise, agreed.
My guess is that this is exactly what Putin is aiming at. Being armed by Trump he has Ukraine. Next step then is the Baltic States and Poland. NATO minus the US will fight with the Baltic allies, Germany will be one theater of war and economically debilitated. Putin will force Germany to buy his gas for a high price and if they resisted he will threaten to attack. He is as revengeful as Trump and this will be his revenge for the fall of the Berlin wall. Trump shrugs…he is looking in the direction of the Pacific, he already said that Putin can deal with Europe as he likes.
The collapse of the USSR (Union of the Soviet Socialist Republic) happened on December 26, 1991.
What was left of this Union is now called Russian Federation. It is a much smaller territory than the Soviet Union was. According to Putin the collapse of the Soviet Union was the biggest catastrophe of the 20th century.
Not to nitpick, but I brought this essay to the board unsolicited. See post #42 above. I found on Substack where I read a lot of writers. I’m glad it’s resonating with others as it has done with me!
You might want to turn up the knob on your sarcasm/insult detector.
Where do you see sarcasm? Insult??
I gave an information, nothing else.
In MY post.