The usual sequence for these kinds of takeovers is, so far as I can tell: come into power -> engineer legitimacy fig-leaf (enabling acts, constitutional reform, royal assent, etc) -> dismantle opposing groups -> attack the courts.
Here, they have jumped pretty directly to the end. 2/
Here, they have jumped pretty directly to the end. 2/
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Like, seriously, to understand this you need to understand that USAPATRIOT was the enabling act.
"they'll get angry and vote harder"
Yoda: That is why you fail
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BS_gLFOrjMw
They are burning through all their political capital, all their good will and benefit of the doubt. It’s highly unsustainable. I give it months, not 4 years, before it collapses.
And right now, it seems like MAGA is spending that currency down. /end
These efforts to criminalize Democrats LARGELY use Russian disinformation as the founding myth.
Is it?
I'm not trying to be smart--Trump has a known history of playing court losses to his advantage. Not in traditional politics or in the law--but in the culture. Riling up his supporters, spreading his influence.
Triggering the libs, except "the libs" is the rule of law
but somehow I never caused myself to believe my ideological opponents were figments of my imagination
And abusing tax law and breaking Biglaw so no one can challenge the Trump administration in court is a huge factor to making it happen.
Donald Trump's GOP is not in many fairly obvious ways.
The (lowercase L) liberal values of the electorate may not be synthetic but it's becoming obvious to everyone that the Democratic Party's liberal values are 100% synthetic. Voting for Libs, if it's even allowed or legit, is not going to fix this!
If you can't see the country clearly you have little hope of making it good.
Midterms are irrelevant if the plan is to ignore congress and Article I. Likewise in 2029 Trump can only stay in power through undemocratic and unconstitutional means.
The courts are mostly all that matters from this viewpoint.
They're hurting Republicans just as much if not more with this and tariffs. It really doesn't seem like they believe votes will matter.
This view on the "pro" side would also prevent liberal reform of said institutions, which has been a hallmark of 21st century US
Sadly they've missed the reality that humans are both a competitive and cooperative species, and that the cooperative elements have the upper hand long run.
Or, you know, why a queer person doesn't want to be discriminated against. Lmao
They think liberalism must work the same way.
And they don't have the cognitive capacity to imagine that other people are more complex than they are.
1. Trump - mob-king rule thru tariff wars, targeting personal enemies, TV spectacles, etc
2. Musk - techno-neoconservativism in slashing big gov and distrib wealth to the rich
3. Vought - Project 2025
The result is not random, but also is uncertain and not predictable in the details.
These aholes would not have made half as much progress If we had half-way decent leadership.
The Bannon camp and the Musk/Thiel/Yarvin camp.
Bannon absolutely understands bread and circuses. While the other crew is playing out a techno libertarian fever dream. Their ascendance explains the sequencing.
And (to a scary degree) they’re all just winging it, like a bunch of populist chaos monkeys hurling feces to see what sticks.
They can't have their slave cities if the federal government exists because the federal government is above them, essentially.