The Growing Thirst for Cruelty
- Thread starter The Thriller
- Start date
Zombie
Well-Known Member
I did, and I stand by my statement. Rubio made it abundantly clear that she was abducted due to practicing her freedom of speech in a way that this administration didn't like.
Al-O-Meter
Well-Known Member
"The people that we're getting rid of in our country are vandalizing, they're not protesters. They're taking over college campuses. They're harassing fellow students... They're not demonstrating, they're going beyond demonstration." The causes cited for revoking student visas aren't covered by freedom of speech. More to the point, Rubio specifically exempted writing Op/Eds from the things that would get a visa revoked.
There was another story up this morning on CNN of a different student whose visa was revoke, and it is the same story. She was party to a gathering where laws were broken. The local authorities dismissed the charges against her, but the Feds still used it to revoke her student visa.
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www.cnn.com
The moral of the story is they can say whatever they want on the internet or in student papers. We aren't the UK and the government won't come after them for "hate speech", but the civil disobedience we tolerate from US citizens is not tolerated from holders of student visas. They have no right to be here. They are guests, and if they engage in vandalizing, trespassing, or harassing fellow students then they shouldn't be here. My biggest complaint with the one you are obsessed with is that we are probably having to pay for her deportation. At least with the one on CNN, she deported herself.
Red
Well-Known Member
Example of how cruelty is an endemic quality in MAGA Republicans. Didn’t this tweet, as seen, suggest the fired HHS employee was asking the senator what the senator could do to get his job back? That’s how I would interpret it. So, let’s laugh at the Karen, at the snowflake…
But, if you listen to the fired HHS employee, he was not asking for help to get his job back at all. The Senator, and the people who posted the tweets are all about cruelty to their fellow human beings. And this endemic cruelty is a chief characteristic of MAGA and its denizens…..
The fired employee was asking the senator about the effects of the cuts on vulnerable Americans. He was not asking for his job back. Doesn’t matter what he was asking. The cruelty has always been the point. Trump’s great contribution to our body politic is to encourage Americans to be as cruel as possible to any American not onboard with Trump and MAGA.
www.alternet.org
Former US Department of Health and Human Services employee Mack Schroeder got his chance to snap at Sen. Jim Banks’ (R-Ind.) support of spending cuts affecting roughly 10,000 full-time federal employees.
Schroeder, who was fired in February, confronted Banks in the halls of Congress, but found an unsympathetic ear from the Indiana senator.
“I was fired illegally ... There are many people who are not getting social service programs, especially people with disabilities," Schroeder asked as Banks entered an elevator. "Are you going to do anything to stop what's happening?”
But, if you listen to the fired HHS employee, he was not asking for help to get his job back at all. The Senator, and the people who posted the tweets are all about cruelty to their fellow human beings. And this endemic cruelty is a chief characteristic of MAGA and its denizens…..
The fired employee was asking the senator about the effects of the cuts on vulnerable Americans. He was not asking for his job back. Doesn’t matter what he was asking. The cruelty has always been the point. Trump’s great contribution to our body politic is to encourage Americans to be as cruel as possible to any American not onboard with Trump and MAGA.
'What are you doing?' Fired federal worker responds to GOP senator who called him a 'clown'
Former US Department of Health and Human Services employee Mack Schroeder got his chance to snap at Sen. Jim Banks’ (R-Ind.) support of spending cuts affecting roughly 10,000 full-time federal employees. Schroeder, who was fired in February, confronted Banks in the halls of Congress, but found...
www.alternet.org
Former US Department of Health and Human Services employee Mack Schroeder got his chance to snap at Sen. Jim Banks’ (R-Ind.) support of spending cuts affecting roughly 10,000 full-time federal employees.
Schroeder, who was fired in February, confronted Banks in the halls of Congress, but found an unsympathetic ear from the Indiana senator.
“I was fired illegally ... There are many people who are not getting social service programs, especially people with disabilities," Schroeder asked as Banks entered an elevator. "Are you going to do anything to stop what's happening?”
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Red
Well-Known Member
No class. No way to treat civil servants.
federalnewsnetwork.com
Several HHS employees shared photos of staff waiting in long lines to get into their buildings. Employees targeted by the RIF learned their Personal Identity Verification (PIV) cards were deactivated.
“The way people are finding out whether they are RIF’d this morning is to go through this very long process to get to the building and to go through security, and then badge-in at the main atrium. If their badge doesn’t work, they are corralled in front of everyone to wait for an escort to their office to pick up their things. It is so humiliating and degrading in the face of something so terrible,” an employee said.
A Food and Drug Administration employee said the department added security measures, including wanding employees before entering the building.
‘Humiliating and degrading’: HHS employees learn of layoffs when their ID badges stop working
CMS employees who got RIF notices were directed to send employment discrimination complaints to an official who died last November.
federalnewsnetwork.com
Several HHS employees shared photos of staff waiting in long lines to get into their buildings. Employees targeted by the RIF learned their Personal Identity Verification (PIV) cards were deactivated.
“The way people are finding out whether they are RIF’d this morning is to go through this very long process to get to the building and to go through security, and then badge-in at the main atrium. If their badge doesn’t work, they are corralled in front of everyone to wait for an escort to their office to pick up their things. It is so humiliating and degrading in the face of something so terrible,” an employee said.
A Food and Drug Administration employee said the department added security measures, including wanding employees before entering the building.
The Thriller
Well-Known Member
The growing thirst for cruelty
Check out this article from USA TODAY:
Democratic AGs sue RFK Jr. over canceled health research
Check out this article from USA TODAY:
Democratic AGs sue RFK Jr. over canceled health research
Democratic AGs sue RFK Jr. over canceled health research
States are suing the National Institutes of Health over ending life-saving medical research grants that Trump officials say were "DEI studies."
www.usatoday.com
Red
Well-Known Member
Cruelty on steroids…we are becoming the pariah of the world. How Trump devotees cannot understand why these decisions would cause compassionate Americans to say “is this what we have become?” is one of the most puzzling aspects of our present moment. To me, that is. The cruelty, and the glee expressed toward that cruelty, is inexcusable to me, and to many of my fellow citizens.
abcnews.go.com
WASHINGTON -- The Trump administration has ended funding to U.N. World Food Program emergency programs helping keep millions alive in Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen and 11 other impoverished countries, many of them struggling with conflict, according to the organization and officials who spoke to The Associated Press.
The World Food Program, the largest provider of food aid, appealed to the U.S. to roll back the new cuts in a social media post Monday. The unexpected round of contract cancellations has targeted some of the last remaining humanitarian programs run by the U.S. Agency for International Development, according to two U.S. officials, a United Nations official and documents obtained by the AP.
“This could amount to a death sentence for millions of people facing extreme hunger and starvation,” WFP said on X.
The agency said it was in contact with the Trump administration “to urge for continued support” for lifesaving programs and thanked the United States and other donors for past contributions.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other administration officials had pledged to spare emergency food programs and other life-and-death aid from deep cuts to U.S. foreign assistance. There was no immediate comment Monday from the State Department.
The projects were being canceled “for the convenience of the U.S. Government” at the direction of Jeremy Lewin, a top lieutenant at Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency who was appointed to oversee the elimination of USAID programs, according to termination notices sent to partners and viewed by the AP.
In Syria, a country battling poverty, hunger and insecurity after a 13-year civil war and an insurgency by the Islamic State group, some $230 million in contracts with WFP and humanitarian groups was terminated in recent days, according to a State Department document detailing the cuts that was obtained by the AP.
The single biggest of the targeted Syria programs, at $111 million, provided bread and other daily food to 1.5 million people, the document says.
The US ends lifesaving food aid for millions. The World Food Program calls it a 'death sentence'
The Trump administration has ended funding to U.N. World Food Program emergency programs helping keep millions alive in Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen and 11 other impoverished countries, many of them struggling with conflict
abcnews.go.com
WASHINGTON -- The Trump administration has ended funding to U.N. World Food Program emergency programs helping keep millions alive in Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen and 11 other impoverished countries, many of them struggling with conflict, according to the organization and officials who spoke to The Associated Press.
The World Food Program, the largest provider of food aid, appealed to the U.S. to roll back the new cuts in a social media post Monday. The unexpected round of contract cancellations has targeted some of the last remaining humanitarian programs run by the U.S. Agency for International Development, according to two U.S. officials, a United Nations official and documents obtained by the AP.
“This could amount to a death sentence for millions of people facing extreme hunger and starvation,” WFP said on X.
The agency said it was in contact with the Trump administration “to urge for continued support” for lifesaving programs and thanked the United States and other donors for past contributions.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other administration officials had pledged to spare emergency food programs and other life-and-death aid from deep cuts to U.S. foreign assistance. There was no immediate comment Monday from the State Department.
The projects were being canceled “for the convenience of the U.S. Government” at the direction of Jeremy Lewin, a top lieutenant at Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency who was appointed to oversee the elimination of USAID programs, according to termination notices sent to partners and viewed by the AP.
In Syria, a country battling poverty, hunger and insecurity after a 13-year civil war and an insurgency by the Islamic State group, some $230 million in contracts with WFP and humanitarian groups was terminated in recent days, according to a State Department document detailing the cuts that was obtained by the AP.
The single biggest of the targeted Syria programs, at $111 million, provided bread and other daily food to 1.5 million people, the document says.
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Red
Well-Known Member
Sort of a combo cruelty/stupidity. Emphasis on stupidity. Much of the “MAHA movement” elevates the misinformation long associated with RFK Jr., to the point they will even attack their leading spokesman if he dares to promote good science over their own extreme ignorance. Among so many ways of describing our nation, in this present moment, the elevation of stupidity and appalling ignorance to a model of behavior for Americans in 2025 is one really sad, regrettable fact!
An endorsement of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has provoked an angry outcry from anti-vaccine activists.
"The most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine," Kennedy said in the third paragraph of a lengthy post on the social media platform X. Kennedy made the post following meetings on Sunday in Gaines County, Texas with the families of two children who have died of measles during a recent outbreak in the state. He also said he had instructed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to "supply pharmacies and Texas run clinics with needed MMR vaccines," along with other medical supplies.
Kennedy's endorsement is in line with all available scientific evidence on the MMR vaccine. "A single dose is roughly 93% effective at preventing illness, and the second dose gets that up to 97%," says Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children's Hospital in Philadelphia. According to the Texas Department of State Health Services, just 10 of the 481 measles cases recorded as of April 4 were in partially or fully vaccinated individuals — that's around 2% of all overall cases. So far three unvaccinated people, the two children in Texas and an adult in New Mexico, have died from the disease.
"I'm delighted to hear what Secretary Kennedy has said about giving the vaccination," says Dr. Kathryn Edwards, a retired professor of pediatric infectious disease. Edwards said she'd hoped for an explicit endorsement of the vaccine much earlier in January but that "it's better late than never."
But Kennedy's suggestion that the vaccine was effective infuriated several members of the anti-vaccine community who responded on X to the statement.
View: https://x.com/MdBreathe/status/1909059321326973356
An endorsement of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has provoked an angry outcry from anti-vaccine activists.
"The most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine," Kennedy said in the third paragraph of a lengthy post on the social media platform X. Kennedy made the post following meetings on Sunday in Gaines County, Texas with the families of two children who have died of measles during a recent outbreak in the state. He also said he had instructed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to "supply pharmacies and Texas run clinics with needed MMR vaccines," along with other medical supplies.
Kennedy's endorsement is in line with all available scientific evidence on the MMR vaccine. "A single dose is roughly 93% effective at preventing illness, and the second dose gets that up to 97%," says Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children's Hospital in Philadelphia. According to the Texas Department of State Health Services, just 10 of the 481 measles cases recorded as of April 4 were in partially or fully vaccinated individuals — that's around 2% of all overall cases. So far three unvaccinated people, the two children in Texas and an adult in New Mexico, have died from the disease.
"I'm delighted to hear what Secretary Kennedy has said about giving the vaccination," says Dr. Kathryn Edwards, a retired professor of pediatric infectious disease. Edwards said she'd hoped for an explicit endorsement of the vaccine much earlier in January but that "it's better late than never."
But Kennedy's suggestion that the vaccine was effective infuriated several members of the anti-vaccine community who responded on X to the statement.
View: https://x.com/MdBreathe/status/1909059321326973356
Red
Well-Known Member
Somewhat different type of cruelty, but I think very real. I know how he feels, and it is painful. This is what’s dying in our nation, I think, and it’s a great loss if you grew up feeling as the author did.
www.theatlantic.com
Charles de gaulle began his war memoirs with this sentence: “All my life I have had a certain idea about France.” Well, all my life I have had a certain idea about America. I have thought of America as a deeply flawed nation that is nonetheless a force for tremendous good in the world. From Abraham Lincoln to Franklin D. Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan and beyond, Americans fought for freedom and human dignity and against tyranny; we promoted democracy, funded the Marshall Plan, and saved millions of people across Africa from HIV and AIDS. When we caused harm—Vietnam, Iraq—it was because of our overconfidence and naivete, not evil intentions.
Until January 20, 2025, I didn’t realize how much of my very identity was built on this faith in my country’s goodness—on the idea that we Americans are partners in a grand and heroic enterprise, that our daily lives are ennobled by service to that cause. Since January 20, as I have watched America behave vilely—toward our friends in Canada and Mexico, toward our friends in Europe, toward the heroes in Ukraine and President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office—I’ve had trouble describing the anguish I’ve experienced. Grief? Shock? Like I’m living through some sort of hallucination? Maybe the best description for what I’m feeling is moral shame: To watch the loss of your nation’s honor is embarrassing and painful.
George Orwell is a useful guide to what we’re witnessing. He understood that it is possible for people to seek power without having any vision of the good. “The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake,” an apparatchik says in 1984. “We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power.” How is power demonstrated? By making others suffer. Orwell’s character continues: “Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation.”
Russell Vought, Donald Trump’s budget director, sounds like he walked straight out of 1984. “When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work, because they are increasingly viewed as the villains,” he said of federal workers, speaking at an event in 2023. “We want to put them in trauma.”
Since coming back to the White House, Trump has caused suffering among Ukrainians, suffering among immigrants who have lived here for decades, suffering among some of the best people I know. Many of my friends in Washington are evangelical Christians who found their vocation in public service—fighting sex trafficking, serving the world’s poor, protecting America from foreign threats, doing biomedical research to cure disease. They are trying to live lives consistent with the gospel of mercy and love. Trump has devastated their work. He isn’t just declaring war on “wokeness”; he’s declaring war on Christian service—on any kind of service, really.
If there is an underlying philosophy driving Trump, it is this: Morality is for suckers. The strong do what they want and the weak suffer what they must. This is the logic of bullies everywhere. And if there is a consistent strategy, it is this: Day after day, the administration works to create a world where ruthless people can thrive. That means destroying any institution or arrangement that might check the strongman’s power. The rule of law, domestic or international, restrains power, so it must be eviscerated. Inspectors general, judge advocate general officers, oversight mechanisms, and watchdog agencies are a potential restraint on power, so they must be fired or neutered. The truth itself is a restraint on power, so it must be abandoned. Lying becomes the language of the state.
Trump’s first term was a precondition for his second. His first term gradually eroded norms and acclimatized America to a new sort of regime. This laid the groundwork for his second term, in which he’s making the globe a playground for gangsters.
We used to live in a world where ideologies clashed, but ideologies don’t seem to matter anymore. The strongman understanding of power is on the march. Power is like money: the more the better. Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and the rest of the world’s authoritarians are forming an axis of ruthlessness before our eyes. Trumpism has become a form of nihilism that is devouring everything in its path.
The pathetic thing is that I didn’t see this coming even though I’ve been living around these people my whole adult life. I joined the conservative movement in the 1980s, when I worked in turn at National Review, The Washington Times, and The Wall Street Journal editorial page. There were two kinds of people in our movement back then, the conservatives and the reactionaries. We conservatives earnestly read Milton Friedman, James Burnham, Whittaker Chambers, and Edmund Burke. The reactionaries just wanted to shock the left. We conservatives oriented our lives around writing for intellectual magazines; the reactionaries were attracted to TV and radio. We were on the political right but had many liberal friends; they had contempt for anyone not on the anti-establishment right. They were not pro-conservative—they were anti-left. I have come to appreciate that this is an important difference.
(Cont…no paywall, great piece)
I Should Have Seen This Coming
When I joined the conservative movement in the 1980s, there were two types of people: those who cared earnestly about ideas, and those who wanted only to shock the left. The reactionary fringe has won.
www.theatlantic.com
Charles de gaulle began his war memoirs with this sentence: “All my life I have had a certain idea about France.” Well, all my life I have had a certain idea about America. I have thought of America as a deeply flawed nation that is nonetheless a force for tremendous good in the world. From Abraham Lincoln to Franklin D. Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan and beyond, Americans fought for freedom and human dignity and against tyranny; we promoted democracy, funded the Marshall Plan, and saved millions of people across Africa from HIV and AIDS. When we caused harm—Vietnam, Iraq—it was because of our overconfidence and naivete, not evil intentions.
Until January 20, 2025, I didn’t realize how much of my very identity was built on this faith in my country’s goodness—on the idea that we Americans are partners in a grand and heroic enterprise, that our daily lives are ennobled by service to that cause. Since January 20, as I have watched America behave vilely—toward our friends in Canada and Mexico, toward our friends in Europe, toward the heroes in Ukraine and President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office—I’ve had trouble describing the anguish I’ve experienced. Grief? Shock? Like I’m living through some sort of hallucination? Maybe the best description for what I’m feeling is moral shame: To watch the loss of your nation’s honor is embarrassing and painful.
George Orwell is a useful guide to what we’re witnessing. He understood that it is possible for people to seek power without having any vision of the good. “The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake,” an apparatchik says in 1984. “We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power.” How is power demonstrated? By making others suffer. Orwell’s character continues: “Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation.”
Russell Vought, Donald Trump’s budget director, sounds like he walked straight out of 1984. “When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work, because they are increasingly viewed as the villains,” he said of federal workers, speaking at an event in 2023. “We want to put them in trauma.”
Since coming back to the White House, Trump has caused suffering among Ukrainians, suffering among immigrants who have lived here for decades, suffering among some of the best people I know. Many of my friends in Washington are evangelical Christians who found their vocation in public service—fighting sex trafficking, serving the world’s poor, protecting America from foreign threats, doing biomedical research to cure disease. They are trying to live lives consistent with the gospel of mercy and love. Trump has devastated their work. He isn’t just declaring war on “wokeness”; he’s declaring war on Christian service—on any kind of service, really.
If there is an underlying philosophy driving Trump, it is this: Morality is for suckers. The strong do what they want and the weak suffer what they must. This is the logic of bullies everywhere. And if there is a consistent strategy, it is this: Day after day, the administration works to create a world where ruthless people can thrive. That means destroying any institution or arrangement that might check the strongman’s power. The rule of law, domestic or international, restrains power, so it must be eviscerated. Inspectors general, judge advocate general officers, oversight mechanisms, and watchdog agencies are a potential restraint on power, so they must be fired or neutered. The truth itself is a restraint on power, so it must be abandoned. Lying becomes the language of the state.
Trump’s first term was a precondition for his second. His first term gradually eroded norms and acclimatized America to a new sort of regime. This laid the groundwork for his second term, in which he’s making the globe a playground for gangsters.
We used to live in a world where ideologies clashed, but ideologies don’t seem to matter anymore. The strongman understanding of power is on the march. Power is like money: the more the better. Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and the rest of the world’s authoritarians are forming an axis of ruthlessness before our eyes. Trumpism has become a form of nihilism that is devouring everything in its path.
The pathetic thing is that I didn’t see this coming even though I’ve been living around these people my whole adult life. I joined the conservative movement in the 1980s, when I worked in turn at National Review, The Washington Times, and The Wall Street Journal editorial page. There were two kinds of people in our movement back then, the conservatives and the reactionaries. We conservatives earnestly read Milton Friedman, James Burnham, Whittaker Chambers, and Edmund Burke. The reactionaries just wanted to shock the left. We conservatives oriented our lives around writing for intellectual magazines; the reactionaries were attracted to TV and radio. We were on the political right but had many liberal friends; they had contempt for anyone not on the anti-establishment right. They were not pro-conservative—they were anti-left. I have come to appreciate that this is an important difference.
(Cont…no paywall, great piece)
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Step-Back Lauri
Well-Known Member
I took a mental break from world politics, and now I come back reading stuff... And I see the official White House account bragging "We will find you, we will kill you"
What the actual ****?! Those people are a waste of fresh air.
What the actual ****?! Those people are a waste of fresh air.
Zombie
Well-Known Member
David Brooks is a hack. Of course he found a way to put some of the blame on the exact group of people who have been warning about this for decades:Somewhat different type of cruelty, but I think very real. I know how he feels, and it is painful. This is what’s dying in our nation, I think, and it’s a great loss if you grew up feeling as the author did.
I Should Have Seen This Coming
When I joined the conservative movement in the 1980s, there were two types of people: those who cared earnestly about ideas, and those who wanted only to shock the left. The reactionary fringe has won.
Charles de gaulle began his war memoirs with this sentence: “All my life I have had a certain idea about France.” Well, all my life I have had a certain idea about America. I have thought of America as a deeply flawed nation that is nonetheless a force for tremendous good in the world. From Abraham Lincoln to Franklin D. Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan and beyond, Americans fought for freedom and human dignity and against tyranny; we promoted democracy, funded the Marshall Plan, and saved millions of people across Africa from HIV and AIDS. When we caused harm—Vietnam, Iraq—it was because of our overconfidence and naivete, not evil intentions.
Until January 20, 2025, I didn’t realize how much of my very identity was built on this faith in my country’s goodness—on the idea that we Americans are partners in a grand and heroic enterprise, that our daily lives are ennobled by service to that cause. Since January 20, as I have watched America behave vilely—toward our friends in Canada and Mexico, toward our friends in Europe, toward the heroes in Ukraine and President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office—I’ve had trouble describing the anguish I’ve experienced. Grief? Shock? Like I’m living through some sort of hallucination? Maybe the best description for what I’m feeling is moral shame: To watch the loss of your nation’s honor is embarrassing and painful.
George Orwell is a useful guide to what we’re witnessing. He understood that it is possible for people to seek power without having any vision of the good. “The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake,” an apparatchik says in 1984. “We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power.” How is power demonstrated? By making others suffer. Orwell’s character continues: “Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation.”
Russell Vought, Donald Trump’s budget director, sounds like he walked straight out of 1984. “When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work, because they are increasingly viewed as the villains,” he said of federal workers, speaking at an event in 2023. “We want to put them in trauma.”
Since coming back to the White House, Trump has caused suffering among Ukrainians, suffering among immigrants who have lived here for decades, suffering among some of the best people I know. Many of my friends in Washington are evangelical Christians who found their vocation in public service—fighting sex trafficking, serving the world’s poor, protecting America from foreign threats, doing biomedical research to cure disease. They are trying to live lives consistent with the gospel of mercy and love. Trump has devastated their work. He isn’t just declaring war on “wokeness”; he’s declaring war on Christian service—on any kind of service, really.
If there is an underlying philosophy driving Trump, it is this: Morality is for suckers. The strong do what they want and the weak suffer what they must. This is the logic of bullies everywhere. And if there is a consistent strategy, it is this: Day after day, the administration works to create a world where ruthless people can thrive. That means destroying any institution or arrangement that might check the strongman’s power. The rule of law, domestic or international, restrains power, so it must be eviscerated. Inspectors general, judge advocate general officers, oversight mechanisms, and watchdog agencies are a potential restraint on power, so they must be fired or neutered. The truth itself is a restraint on power, so it must be abandoned. Lying becomes the language of the state.
Trump’s first term was a precondition for his second. His first term gradually eroded norms and acclimatized America to a new sort of regime. This laid the groundwork for his second term, in which he’s making the globe a playground for gangsters.
We used to live in a world where ideologies clashed, but ideologies don’t seem to matter anymore. The strongman understanding of power is on the march. Power is like money: the more the better. Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and the rest of the world’s authoritarians are forming an axis of ruthlessness before our eyes. Trumpism has become a form of nihilism that is devouring everything in its path.
The pathetic thing is that I didn’t see this coming even though I’ve been living around these people my whole adult life. I joined the conservative movement in the 1980s, when I worked in turn at National Review, The Washington Times, and The Wall Street Journal editorial page. There were two kinds of people in our movement back then, the conservatives and the reactionaries. We conservatives earnestly read Milton Friedman, James Burnham, Whittaker Chambers, and Edmund Burke. The reactionaries just wanted to shock the left. We conservatives oriented our lives around writing for intellectual magazines; the reactionaries were attracted to TV and radio. We were on the political right but had many liberal friends; they had contempt for anyone not on the anti-establishment right. They were not pro-conservative—they were anti-left. I have come to appreciate that this is an important difference.
(Cont…no paywall, great piece)
Of course, the left made it easy for them. The left really did purge conservatives from universities and other cultural power centers. The left really did valorize a “meritocratic” caste system that privileged the children of the affluent and screwed the working class. The left really did pontificate to their unenlightened moral inferiors on everything from gender to the environment. The left really did create a stifling orthodoxy that stamped out dissent. If you tell half the country that their voices don’t matter, then the voiceless are going to flip over the table.
What a load of ********.
"Taking over college campuses and harassing fellow students?" What specific law was broken? Wouldn't the university police have arrested her if she committed a crime? In America even visitors have the right to protest. As a matter of fact our country was founded upon it, which you may not know since as you said both you and your parents are immigrants. Saudi Arabia, right? Too bad that you show such disdain for the freedoms earned and protected by great Americans over the last 250 years. I bet most Saudi's, the women especially, would love to have our freedoms. BTW, is it because you're from Saudi Arabia you think women like AOC are only worthy of support based upon their looks? Maybe your dad treated your mom like that? Just trying to figure out how your views came about.
The Thriller
Well-Known Member
Remember when people got big angry cuz Kamala wasn’t perfect and had a weird laugh? Good times
View: https://bsky.app/profile/onestpress.bsky.social/post/3lmd2n77ko22g
View: https://bsky.app/profile/onestpress.bsky.social/post/3lmd2n77ko22g
The Thriller
Well-Known Member
I’ve learned 2 big lessons in the last 25 years.
1. Most voters are clueless and will merely vote on vibes. That’s why the media is so powerful. They desired a horse race so they exaggerated Biden’s and Harris’s weaknesses while ignored Trump’s very obvious cruelty and sociopathy. How many times did we hear complaints about eggs? I still haven’t seen near the emphasis on Trump disappearing people as egg costs under Biden.
2. Republicans get to be The Joker. They can’t ever be held accountable and most people want them to win despite knowing they’re going to be horrible for the country. They’re just far more entertaining because there’s no basement for their deprsvity. Bored with invading the Middle East? Time to threaten Greenland and Canada. Bored with just sending brown people to Martha’s Vineyard? Time to send them to gulags in El Salvador. Bored of the prosperous economy? Tank it by leveling 100 percent tariffs on China. The GOP is joker and it’s not entertaining! They get to constantly belittle their own followers and we all watch in amazement as their followers continue eat their ****. No one has more contempt for their own constituents than republicans.
Sardines
Well-Known Member
We knew this when Kennedy beat Nixon. Kennedy was a pretty face and Nixon was the battle tested politician. It was the first time Presidential debates were televised and Kennedy won the election, despite being significantly less qualified.
The taller candidate has won almost every election since.
Red
Well-Known Member
OK, but this paragraph spoke volumes for myself. I’m a baby boomer, if that means anything re how I feel, which he captures perfectly in this paragraph:
“Until January 20, 2025, I didn’t realize how much of my very identity was built on this faith in my country’s goodness—on the idea that we Americans are partners in a grand and heroic enterprise, that our daily lives are ennobled by service to that cause. Since January 20, as I have watched America behave vilely—toward our friends in Canada and Mexico, toward our friends in Europe, toward the heroes in Ukraine and President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office—I’ve had trouble describing the anguish I’ve experienced. Grief? Shock? Like I’m living through some sort of hallucination? Maybe the best description for what I’m feeling is moral shame: To watch the loss of your nation’s honor is embarrassing and painful”.
That paragraph matches my own feelings. 100%. Some, in my generation, feel that everything changed in the United States on 11/22/63, when JFK was killed. I can understand that. The “death of Camelot” did seem like a an inflection point that ended idealism in the American experiment. Still does for many who were alive at that time. Vietnam and Watergate drove me away from being an engaged citizen. For decades. But, Trump’s appearance resulted in the feelings and attitude described in the above paragraph by Brooks.
He may be a hack, but his feelings match my own, perfectly, in what he’s saying, and I appreciate him for that truth. What he is saying is the very loss I feel, and millions of other Americans, of that I am certain. Trump made me realize I still cared. I didn’t realize how much I still gave a damn. And what I care about is the loss of what Brooks nails in the above paragraph. I know what that feels like. And, for any American who does know these feelings, it’s a tremendous loss. Call him what you want, he nailed how all this affected myself.
Zombie
Well-Known Member
View: https://bsky.app/profile/marisakabas.bsky.social/post/3lmf32p7rwc2m
This is absolutely sickening
fishonjazz
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Just heard on KSL this morning that there are a bunch of U of U foreign students who just had their visa revoked.
Probably some of the smartest people at the U too.