The former president and his backers aim to strengthen the power of the White House and limit the independence of federal agencies.
No system of government can withstand 50% of its participants being bad actors.
I honestly don’t know how we get out of this situation without aggressively litigating politicians that have committed crimes. That requires overwhelming political will, though, and it’s obvious now how important Fox News and Right Wing radio has been to creating an atmosphere where that will doesn’t exist.
I want to say maybe 20% to 30%.
It’s very scary. As an ethnic minority I am only as safe as my government lets me be.
You can go from democratic Weimar Republic to Nazi Germany in a space of a few years.
The way to bring Republicans to heel is for them to keep losing until they give up and try something else.
Between 1860 and 1912 exactly one Democrat - Grover Cleveland - managed to be elected president; Woodrow Wilson ended that streak in 1912 in no small part by breaking with his party to embrace progressive reforms (though the intra-party GOP split between TR and Taft also helped), and while Wilson was one of the worst racists to ever inhabit the White House, that embrace of progressivism nevertheless set the stage for the era of Democratic dominance under/after FDR.
I honestly don’t know how we get out of this situation without aggressively litigating politicians that have committed crimes.
I think this would actually make the situation worse. Donald Trump has successfully made a mockery of our entire justice system, by convincing half the people in this country that the cases against him are a big conspiracy theory/witch hunt while also trumping up (no pun intended) charges against his own political enemies and getting the GOP to support him.
Now take the fact that the overwhelming majority of people accused of crimes in government right now are Republican – Trump and all of his lackeys, the multiple judges on the SC accepting bribes, George Santos being George Santos (or whoever the fuck he is), Gaetz sleeping with underage girls, etc. etc. etc., and there’s absolutely no way you’d be able to aggressively litigate politicians without adding metric fucktons of fuel to the belief of those on the right that such charges are little more than political witch hunts.
And while the obvious reply to that is “Their opinions don’t matter, we should be pursuing justice”, you are correct. But you’d also be ignoring the reality that there are a whole hell of a lot of them and they are willing to turn violent if they truly believe that an ongoing series of charges against GOP government officials are politically motivated.
Then what are our options? Just lay there and take it? Because I swear if I have to keep eating fucking dirt just to get by while these pigs treat our society like their personal body pillow I’m going to lose my god damn mind. If such blatant disrespect for our society and judicial system continue stability will begin to collapse.
The biggest lesson they learned from the Trump administration is that if you don’t act ashamed, you must not have done anything wrong. This has opened the floodgates on blatantly unethical and/or illegal behavior.
Fascists will do fascist things.
And it’s so blatant too.
Mr. Trump intends to bring independent agencies — like the Federal Communications Commission, which makes and enforces rules for television and internet companies, and the Federal Trade Commission, which enforces various antitrust and other consumer protection rules against businesses — under direct presidential control.
First thing listed in the article is control the message, which is done by controlling the media. Straight out of the fascist playbook.
That’s really worrisome and a major backslide for American democracy.
Imagine if Trump fired Dr. Fauci and ended all pandemic restrictions in 2020 like he wanted.
Why does that sound like what Ceasar did as he aimed to create the Roman Empire.
If he could just go ahead and have the heart attack he’s obviously overdue for, the world would be a better place.
