Here, @jilldlawrence.bsky.social has exactly the right word: Stalinesque. So much of what comes out in these WH edicts sounds like it was written in the Soviet Union in the 1970s. - ThreadSky

radiofreetom.bsky.social • 7 days ago

Here, @jilldlawrence.bsky.social has exactly the right word: Stalinesque. So much of what comes out in these WH edicts sounds like it was written in the Soviet Union in the 1970s.

Reposted from Jill Lawrence

"This one short document hyperfocused on the Smithsonian is just 1,150 words, but it is towering in its Stalinesque ambition to walk back history and whitewash America’s past." My latest at @thebulwark.bsky.social, on butchering truth in an edict to abandon it. www.thebulwark.com/p/trump-late...

Comments

sminchicago.bsky.social•5 days ago

Again … we saw this coming. Republicans going after black history. Gaslighting about the Jan 6 “tourist event.”

A concerted effort by the entire GOP, years in the making.

shewmaker.bsky.social•6 days ago

The 1970s were Brezhnevian.

Stalin was from 1924-1953.

djvagirl.bsky.social•7 days ago

😡😡😡😡 You can’t rewrite history or push it on the road.

boboinparadise.bsky.social•7 days ago

40s-50s

forsettix.bsky.social•7 days ago

Many on the left have been warning about this hard lean towards totalitarianism and neo-fascism, only to be lectured about being hyperbolic. Nevertheless, here we are.

radiofreetom.bsky.social•7 days ago

When you've made the same warning every year for 30 or 40 years, yes

forsettix.bsky.social•7 days ago

It is almost as if there aren't historical examples or an arc to these behaviors. Oh, wait. There are. Once Reagan aligned with Christian fundamentalists, we knew where we were headed.

sixnein.bsky.social•7 days ago

I disagree. The arc happened when Lincoln was shot. This is something as old as America itself.

forsettix.bsky.social•7 days ago

The failure of Reconstruction certainly is one of America's great sins. That arc was somewhat corrected with the Civil Rights Act, which has been the focal point of attack on the rights since it was enacted.

sixnein.bsky.social•7 days ago

The only thing that changed what was they called themselves. The segregationist became the pro life movement. They called themselves the tea party than become MAGA. Same people and ideas.

tenneynaumer.bsky.social•6 days ago

Frank Zappa had it right, long ago

ekane98.bsky.social•7 days ago

I was at an orientation for new diplomats in 1994 with a VP at the Heritage Society. The longer we listened, the more alarmed us centrists became. Upon return to FSI, one classmate said "when do conservative alternative ideas cross over into ideology?" The train tracks were laid out yrs ago.

sixnein.bsky.social•7 days ago

Do countries just wake up overnight to become like this or does it happen over time? I think liberals simply pointed at that element much in the same way that conservatives like yourself point to those on the far left. Not necessarily right or wrong per say.

sixnein.bsky.social•7 days ago

Anyone sane would worry about that far right. *But its existence doesn't necessarily translate to acquiring power.

monkeypeter.bsky.social•7 days ago

Many on the left also run the same playbook by erasing all Communism's jarring flaws and happily embrace their own brand of totalitarianism.

alagai.bsky.social•7 days ago

Problem with that has been, to point to any *policy* that the left doesn't like, as fascism. Which has diluted the word "fascism" more than the frequency of use of the word.

Similar with the right on "communism", but that doesn't dilute the point.

mikewilsoninoz.bsky.social•7 days ago

well, maybe like the Soviet Union in the 1950s when Stalin's bullshit was happening. Anything else is just Brezhnevian.

misquareds.bsky.social•7 days ago

my family is heading there is a few weeks. My son has been asking for years. Now i’m worried what will be there when we get there.

lisafarrar.bsky.social•7 days ago

I hope it's still the same. Let us know.

johngage1.bsky.social•7 days ago

ptayloredwards.bsky.social•7 days ago

Having just finished @anneapplebaum.bsky.social 's GULAG, your words resonate loudly for me.

nickybluewater.bsky.social•7 days ago

So it would seem the Smithsonian will soon resemble the Oklahoma history classes I was required to take in the late 60’s. Indians? What Indians???

thewhiteribbit.bsky.social•7 days ago

don't forget about MAO'S CULTURAL REVOLUTION and subsequent purges.
https://youtu.be/LqJ9IpWOYQA?si=bFkUEjr_16kXXYhk

bluefrommagioh.bsky.social•7 days ago

“By the power vested in me, blah blah blah.”

donnayoungdc.bsky.social•7 days ago

Trump DOESN'T have the authority to take the actions he asserts in his #Smithsonian EO. Congress/Smithsonian Board control the federal funds it gets.
But Trump's/DOGE's/ #Project2025 strategy is bulldoze now & wait for lawsuits/courts to catch up. In the meantime, he'll try to gut/trash the #NMAAHC.

donnayoungdc.bsky.social•7 days ago

Not having the authority hasn't stopped Trump & Elon from destroying as much as they can for as long as they can. They & their helpers - DOGE white supremacist hacker boys & Heritage #Project2025 Nazis - know courts are slow.
WE MUST do ALL we can to protect our #history!
https://bsky.app/profile/donnayoungdc.bsky.social/post/3llgltsg7ok2l

thisuserisdumb.bsky.social•7 days ago

During my first semester of grad school, we studied historiography. One book was on how governments use museum exhibits to show the national story they want to tell. As soon as I saw Trump's EO about the Smithsonian, I immediately thought of that book. I want to reread it-I wonder if I still own it?

jshannon55.bsky.social•7 days ago

I keep waiting for the shoe production numbers on the current Five Year Plan.

genebensinger.bsky.social•7 days ago

Stalinesque edicts predictably come with a body count.

picci0909.bsky.social•7 days ago

betsybel.bsky.social•7 days ago

Rigid, unable to tolerate nuance, and completely without humor or humanness

g-s-d.bsky.social•7 days ago

Actually, more like the early 1930s, as Stalin was picking up speed towards the "Great Purge" that cost millions their lives. It was largely interrupted by the war but then picked up again and lasted until he died in 1953.

tlbklaus.bsky.social•7 days ago

...Al Stewart: the guys Stalin purged waiting for him in Hell. 😁

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqOmQZ63oCw

historian1661.bsky.social•7 days ago

It's Trump's version of Stalin's letter to Proletarian Revolution in 1931.

mleity.bsky.social•7 days ago

Except they sounded a lot better written in the original Russian.

tobysmypup.bsky.social•7 days ago

The actions seem a lot more like 1930's Germany.

sixnein.bsky.social•7 days ago

I just don't think there is any need at all to look overseas for an explanation. There are relationships there, but this is 101 confederate politics.

tobysmypup.bsky.social•7 days ago

True on the domestic front but I happen to think the Greenland threat is much more dangerous.

aggiewill666.bsky.social•7 days ago

Totalitarian playbook. Very Stalin

uofagrad97.bsky.social•7 days ago

A lot of MAGA would be perfectly happy with Trump as dictator.
The libs would so owned.

mtdave.bsky.social•7 days ago

RFK is the second coming of Lysenko. “Science is what I say it is and your data is a crime against the state.”

mikeilikemike.bsky.social•7 days ago

It would be entertaining parody to see someone write a 5 year plan for this administration. @therickwilson.bsky.social maybe?

wistfulwitness.bsky.social•7 days ago

Grimly entertaining, maybe. Sort of like a migraine.

sab588.bsky.social•7 days ago

https://images.app.goo.gl/iWn5BZTtrgmaY8wz9

onewheeldoin200.bsky.social•7 days ago

The United Soviet States of America!

riotbrrd.bsky.social•7 days ago

Wasn't Stalin dead by the 1970's?

dplaflamme.bsky.social•7 days ago

Picky, picky, picky.

keegsmpls.bsky.social•7 days ago

Diabolical.

alias-alexmundy.bsky.social•7 days ago

Because there is only one way to be a dictator...

joshdsw.bsky.social•7 days ago

Yes. Absolutely. Mao's cultural revolution as well.

https://bsky.app/profile/joshdsw.bsky.social/post/3llmtbbegss2m

shuckabeeblutarsky.bsky.social•7 days ago

He is an angry, extremely abused, deeply unwell 10 year old boy, all growed up to 78, and finally getting his revenge on the world, with the most powerful government in the history of the world backing him. And to make it even worse, he has terrible fake hair.🤦‍♂️

thontaddeo.bsky.social•7 days ago

The Trump version of Socialist Realism.

dasquires1.bsky.social•7 days ago

Reading this is nauseating, appalling and infuriating. My reaction to all of his insane, and often illegal, 'orders.'

doublechinner.bsky.social•7 days ago

Thank you!

jamesroberts.bsky.social•7 days ago

Yes, Stalinesque is what the regime sounds like. Meanwhile my brother-in-law now calls America ReTrumpistan. Both seem appropriate.

lukerussell.bsky.social•7 days ago

Wouldn't that make it Brezhnev-ish?

I'll just gather my things and show myself out...

simonwookey.bsky.social•7 days ago

Brezhnev’s ghost nods in approval

katillogical.bsky.social•7 days ago

I was thinking Chairman Mao and the Cultural Revolution, but OK.

ravenna321.bsky.social•7 days ago

I hope someone's documenting and saving everything so it can all be restored once these clowns are gone. History will look on this time as just a hiccup, a last gasp before progress rolls over the ugly.

plcarroll.bsky.social•7 days ago

50.7% of Americans are under 40 years old. They don’t viscerally understand the reference. They also don’t appreciate The Completion Backwards Principle.

ternfortheworse.bsky.social•7 days ago

Stalin died 72 years ago. Practically no one remembers first hand. Americans don’t know because their education is appalling.

uterpia.bsky.social•7 days ago

I assume that any written details that have not been digitized will also fade away as AI specifically scans the digital record in the future.

myself11.bsky.social•7 days ago

Of course it does, all those chats with Putin when he wasn't POTUS gave him his talking points. I mean just as was on 60 Minutes tonight, hearing trump talk about VOA it is from the viewpoint of Putin or Xi.

sixnein.bsky.social•7 days ago

I can understand why people would make the association within their own background. But honestly, the south has been doing this since before I was born.

realnuttyqueen.bsky.social•7 days ago

Lost Cause Mythology. It permeated everything: school textbooks, yearbooks, society pages, parks and monuments, pulpits and political
rallies. The desire to return to a mythic past fits hand in glove with the Trump regime’s brand of hooey. DEI is the new “race-mixing.”

brooklovesbunnies.bsky.social•7 days ago

maybe someone should really compare a couple of selections

might be a trolly “joke” one in there that really was written in 70s era Soviet Union

traubwest.bsky.social•7 days ago

As federal websites are being scrubbed, I think back to how Stalin sent libraries and schools new pages to glue over Great Soviet Encyclopedia articles on the military and political leaders he had purged (executed or imprisoned).

redlishka9.bsky.social•7 days ago

It is Jim Crow in action. Calling it Stalinesque is frankly giving it more credit than I think any of them have. Trump wants to redo the 1970s so that he can have the success he so deeply craves.

pjack01.bsky.social•7 days ago

During this evil One’s first term, I thought some were making copies of the archives for this very reason. It makes me sick to see these evil people do this.

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