Mar a Tacky asked: Indeed, cutting social security in an election year is counter-intuitive. The wealthy GOP oligarchs (and would-be oligarchs) hate social security because it helps get rid of income inequality and oligarchy requires income inequality. That’s why oligarchs create policies that harm their supporters. For more on that, see this post. For why …
Today, USA today reported that: When we say that the institutions are holding out, that’s what we mean. Oh, dear me. Federal judges have a lot of power. What I meant was that one of the democratic institutions, or safeguards, baked into the constitution system is that we have an independent judiciary. Federal judges are …
I’ve been informed by numerous people that it’s time for us all to panic: I’ve also been informed that I don’t know what I’m talking about because I have never lived under a dictatorship. (1) My husband’s family experienced the Pinochet dictatorship, so I have first hand accounts. (2) panic never helps. Panic didn’t get …
Judith asked: The reason Judith and others have lost perspective and feel at sea is because we’re in the grip of a nation being governed by crisis and spectacle. We can expect a dizzying round of crises and spectacles between now and November. If the Democrats and those opposed to Trump pull together, Trump will …
Alternate title: And the battle is never completely won. Tim asked: I explained that regime change they are tipping us toward is what Hungarian scholar Balint Magyar calls a “mafia state,” and linked to Monday’s post on mafia states . Born in Brooklyn then said: which is exactly right. The question is how much pain …
Someone posted this as a comment on one of my Twitter threads: Let’s take stock of where we are, and why we need to stay out of what-if rabbit holes. From Levitsky and Ziblatt, authors of How Democracies Die, 20th century dictators often came to power through military overthrows. Twenty first century autocrats use less …
Each of Trump’s outrageous actions push us one step closer to what Hungarian scholar Balint Magyar calls a “mafia state,” — the term he uses to describe the kind of autocracies we see springing up in the former Soviet Union. Trump equates himself with America. What’s good for him, is good for the country. That …
There is confusion about this so called “ideological role reversal:” Ideological role reversal continues in Congress as conservative GOP lawmakers savaged FBI Director Chris Wray for being inadequately outraged about #FISA abuses, while Democrats extolled the FBI’s virtues & called for granting it even more powers The “conservative” party was the “law and order” party …
The biggest problems we are are facing now is that the president of the US is using highly effective fascist-style propaganda on US citizens. First I’ll discuss the problem. Then solutions. Propaganda techniques being weaponized by Trump include “bothsidesism” and what one study calls the Firehose of Falsehoods. After Trump’s speech last night, you might …
“It’s clear he wants to kill us,” said Rosanna Arquette after reading about Trump’s love affair with asbestos, a love affair in line with his penchant for policies that cause suffering. It’s time to talk about Sadopopulism again (term coined by Yale Professor Timothy Snyder). You can hear his mini lecture on sadopopulism here. 20th …
