I can’t afford this Trump economy

[The Thriller]

How does that compare realistically to the French revolution and the beheadings of all the heads of state in the country, or Stalin and his death camps as precursors to the subsequent world wars, or nuclear bombs in Japan, or the complete rewriting of the government and hundreds of thousands of deaths under chairman Mao? No, our civil war counts as, at most, a correction and adjustment. It did not represent the complete overhaul of our entire political system, something that damn near every other developed nation experienced in the course of the same 250 years. Yes it was horrifying, but realistically paled in comparison to the others and represented nowhere near the same level of change overall. Maybe we are due for something more dramatic, but if we are lucky maybe we get by with something just on par with the changes made during the civil war, maybe this gets put down and corrected through further amendments. But maybe it will take a full-on upheaval to eradicate the fascists so pervasive in our society today.

Maybe?

I just how that we don’t have to go through a nuclear holocaust or a bloody civil war to restore a normal functioning democracy again. Although I believe peace and prosperity have lulled a lot of Americans to sleep and have led many more to focus on petty cultural disagreements, I hope we don’t need a Stalin era to remind our country how precious freedom is. How much of our current plight can be blamed on a black man entering the White House in 2009? We all saw the rise of the tea party which devolved over the years into maga start because these folks lost their minds over a black man rising to the top of political power. Can we seriously just not accept that black people can succeed, women are equal, and gay people exist? Or do we need a few decades of totalitarian hell to understand that squabbling over the racial, gender, and sexual hierarchy is stupid?

 

[The Thriller]

Protecting America!


View: https://bsky.app/profile/jonathancohn.bsky.social/post/3lqubamgegs2w



View: https://bsky.app/profile/davidjbier.bsky.social/post/3lqn2kiqiy22o

Im shocked that the same leadership that accused Haitians of eating pets is now hitting up the birthday parties of children accusing them of being gang members or hitting up gas stations to round up brown people. This is what maga always meant; “Demographic change makes me angry so now I’m going to step on all the icky brown people to restore true white America!” That’s what Trump’s immigration policy is about. It’s why they’re importing whites from South Africa while deporting the browns. They want to whiten America and tell the rest of the (brown) world to stay out of here.

I’ve always liked David French and find his writing to be genuine and thought provoking. I don’t always agree with him, in fact, I disagree with him a lot on many social issues including abortion. But I do think he’s a good principled Christian and conservative. I enjoyed this:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/05/opinion/ernst-apology-christianity-evangelicals.html

America has always been a country with lots of Christian citizens, but it has not always behaved like a Christian country, and for reasons that resonate again today. An old error is new. Too many Christians are transforming Christianity into a vertical faith, one that focuses on your personal relationship with God at the expense of the horizontal relationship you have with your neighbors.

 

[Red]

How does that compare realistically to the French revolution and the beheadings of all the heads of state in the country, or Stalin and his death camps as precursors to the subsequent world wars, or nuclear bombs in Japan, or the complete rewriting of the government and hundreds of thousands of deaths under chairman Mao? No, our civil war counts as, at most, a correction and adjustment. It did not represent the complete overhaul of our entire political system, something that damn near every other developed nation experienced in the course of the same 250 years. Yes it was horrifying, but realistically paled in comparison to the others and represented nowhere near the same level of change overall. Maybe we are due for something more dramatic, but if we are lucky maybe we get by with something just on par with the changes made during the civil war, maybe this gets put down and corrected through further amendments. But maybe it will take a full-on upheaval to eradicate the fascists so pervasive in our society today.

A part of me thinks Republicans that support Trump, are learning very well from him. And that, in the long run, we will trend toward actual totalitarianism. So much of what Trump is attacking is related to our culture wars, and related to the nature of his Big Lies. If Trump and MAGA could read minds, and control what people think, they would. In the long run, unless Project 2025 is stopped, this won’t stop if Trump dies tomorrow. Also, developments in AI will also likely enable better control in some sort of totalitarian system. Not sure it will be the Russian model of a mafia state. I think we stand a chance of being totalitarian a la the Chinese model.

Been concerned from the day he descended Trump Tower, in 2015, that this was an obvious cynical, power hungry demagogue. And he was, and is. But, it might also be a preface to the development of a totalitarian control system similar to what the Chinese are doing in their society. And if that’s where Republicans are hoping we’re headed, I imagine we have not seen anything yet, as far as the battle that will ensue in preventing such a dystopian outcome.

They are attacking any attitude that emphasizes empathy over hate. Which is astonishingly wrong, and will lead toward more control, more erasure of attitudes not suitably rooted in anger and hatred of the “enemy within”. We’ll walk right into totalitarianism before we know what hit us….

 

[The Thriller]

A part of me thinks Republicans that support Trump, are learning very well from him. And that, in the long run, we will trend toward actual totalitarianism. So much of what Trump is attacking is related to our culture wars, and related to the nature of his Big Lies. If Trump and MAGA could read minds, and control what people think, they would. In the long run, unless Project 2025 is stopped, this won’t stop if Trump dies tomorrow. Also, developments in AI will also likely enable better control in some sort of totalitarian system. Not sure it will be the Russian model of a mafia state. I think we stand a chance of being totalitarian a la the Chinese model.

Been concerned from the day he descended Trump Tower, in 2015, that this was an obvious cynical, power hungry demagogue. And he was, and is. But, it might also be a preface to the development of a totalitarian control system similar to what the Chinese are doing in their society. And if that’s where Republicans are hoping we’re headed, I imagine we have not seen anything yet, as far as the battle that will ensue in preventing such a dystopian outcome.

They are attacking any attitude that emphasizes empathy over hate. Which is astonishingly wrong, and will lead toward more control, more erasure of attitudes not suitably rooted in anger and hatred of the “enemy within”. Well walk right into totalitarianism before we know what hit us….

Good post. It’s really alarming how effective the right wing propaganda apparatus has been during the Trump era. The combo of Sinclair, Fox News, and social media have completely created an alternate reality for republicans. I don’t know how competing messages poke through anymore. This apparatus is so well funded and sadly has gotten a large percentage of our population hooked on their toxic (political) meth.

Republicans know that after the “big beautiful bill” is passed and millions of their constituents are hurt, the propaganda apparatus will kick into high gear and prevent them from knowing about the cuts. Just like with vaccines, right wing propaganda and social media algorithms will spin an alternative reality to where Medicaid cuts weren’t done. Or they were done, by demoncrats. And anyway, Medicaid was gay and demonic and caused autism anyway so by accepting Medicaid cuts you’re actually masculine and conservative and loyal to Trump and owning the libs because now some brown people are crying.

Just look at how the right has warped the Russian intervention on behalf of Trump in 2016, vaccines, and Jan 6.

 

[Red]

How the US is turning into a mass techno-surveillance state

President Trump and his former star advisor, Elon Musk, have accelerated the deployment of a vast technological infrastructure that monitors the lives of millions of people. The system is focusing on immigrants — for now

english.elpais.com

Massive unauthorized scanning of social media. Analysis of biometric, income, health, and Social Security data. Interception of telephone communications. Geolocation via mobile devices. Tracking of car journeys using license plate readers. Since Donald Trump returned to the White House, the U.S. government has been using these and other tools based on artificial intelligence (AI) to monitor and persecute thousands of people without judicial authorization — mostly immigrants, foreigners passing through, or students. In the last four months, Trump and his former star advisor, the tech tycoon Elon Musk, have, along with the private sector, accelerated the deployment of a massive techno-surveillance state. And for the first time in history, Washington is boasting about it rather than denying its existence.

“Surveillance in the U.S. didn’t begin with Trump, nor will it end when he leaves the White House. The foundations for the current state of techno-surveillance were laid over decades, with bipartisan support for policies that normalized invasive practices in law enforcement, the military, and border control,” says the Bahraini civil rights activist Esra’a Al Shafei, who has been studying this issue for years, in a conversation with EL PAÍS. “This system is fueled by large budgets allocated to intelligence agencies, as well as private providers, all under the pretext of national security and crime prevention.” Companies like Palantir, Anduril, and GEO Group are providing Washington with digital tools to build this entire surveillance infrastructure.

Trump continues to add layers to this system. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) confirmed in April that it is using a tool called Babel X to collect social media information about travelers who may be subject to increased surveillance, according to the agency itself. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), for its part, has acknowledged using another program, SocialNet, which aggregates data from more than 200 sources, including Facebook, Twitter/X, Instagram, LinkedIn, and dating apps.

 

[LogGrad98]

Protecting America!


View: https://bsky.app/profile/jonathancohn.bsky.social/post/3lqubamgegs2w



View: https://bsky.app/profile/davidjbier.bsky.social/post/3lqn2kiqiy22o

Im shocked that the same leadership that accused Haitians of eating pets is now hitting up the birthday parties of children accusing them of being gang members or hitting up gas stations to round up brown people. This is what maga always meant; “Demographic change makes me angry so now I’m going to step on all the icky brown people to restore true white America!” That’s what Trump’s immigration policy is about. It’s why they’re importing whites from South Africa while deporting the browns. They want to whiten America and tell the rest of the (brown) world to stay out of here.

I’ve always liked David French and find his writing to be genuine and thought provoking. I don’t always agree with him, in fact, I disagree with him a lot on many social issues including abortion. But I do think he’s a good principled Christian and conservative. I enjoyed this:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/05/opinion/ernst-apology-christianity-evangelicals.html

America has always been a country with lots of Christian citizens, but it has not always behaved like a Christian country, and for reasons that resonate again today. An old error is new. Too many Christians are transforming Christianity into a vertical faith, one that focuses on your personal relationship with God at the expense of the horizontal relationship you have with your neighbors.

...your personal "imaginary" relationship with "your very specific God, who is obviously not the God of 90% of the world"...