This petty, vindictive, little man and his evil band of misfit assholes are plotting their revenge. Everyone involved in this should have a big ole MAGA tattoo on their face so they don’t try to pass off as normal if Biden wins.
I can't believe that we are discussing this as a REAL POSSIBILITY!
If this Darkness descends on America in November, then all those who voted for 3rd party candidates (none of whom have a chance of winning, only helping Trump win) or worse, didn't bother voting, well guess what, whatever purpose you had will be defeated, and America will be lost to the fascism described above by Rick.
This election is a binary choice between Democracy or Tyranny.
Tim Snyder wrote: any election can be the last.
Third party voters, wake up - you're handing your country over to a vengeful psychopath and his sadistic self-serving acolytes.
Every vote counts, so think again about your choices. Whatever you hope for from your 3rd party candidate, you sure won't get it under Trump.
If, Rick, we meet in the Dachau or whichever camp they stick us in, or even if we don't, thank you for sounding the tocsin. Not that it's doing a goddamn bit of good. The tides of history, like the tides and tsunamis of the oceans, do not turn aside in consequence of the pitiful efforts of humans.
The only defect in your analysis and prognostication is that it is overly optimistic as to the consequences.
Trump and his cohort's plans will, if commenced, trigger an uncontrollable runaway human catastrophe that, unless history takes a sudden and improbable alteration of momentum, or there is a miraculous transformation of human nature, will make history's Sullas, Caligulas, and Robespierres resemble Mr. Rogers and Winnie the Pooh by comparison. What only a handful of people today seem to realize -- and the ones that do are the very worst of us -- that "The Ultimate Tyrant's Database" -- the total, perfect compendium of Enemies and Possible Enemies and present and future Thought Criminals that every Big Brother and Stalin and Beria and Stasi apparatchik only dreamt of -- ALREADY EXISTS, nascent, as thousands and tens of thousands of various separate but overlapping government, banking, social media, and commercial databases-- and like Yeats' unimaginable Beast slouching toward Bethlehem to be born -- it stirs, nascent but ready for imminent partuition, requiring only an AI midwife to stitch all the pieces together and loose it out into the world.
From that monster there will be no escape. It will be like the invention of agriculture or money or writing ... once introduced into human affairs, no individual or group will be able to oppose it, evade it, control it, or hide from it. Even those who think to gain from it will be devoured by it. Everyone will be lashed to its implacable treadmill of fear, hatred, and despair, and driven ineluctably faster, faster, and faster in its cruel, endless, and accelerating circuit to nowhere. The only escape will be the final surcease and blessing of death. A blessing open only to each of us individually, but denied to humanity collectively.
I don't see how this can be stopped. We, the third chimpanzee -- the evil triplet of the three species -- have never failed, once having innovated some technology, to deploy it to maximize cruelty and suffering. This one, though, differs from the others, in that it has the power, and is in fact formed and designed, to re-invent itself. We are the third chimpanzee -- and now comes the fourth, and fifth, and sixth, and so on to infinity until industrial civilization collapses. Faustian doesn't even begin to touch how to describe it.
Trumpism will just be the start, the first and local manifestation of a metastatic worldwide disaster. This isn't merely as bad as it can get, it's even worse.
Raised the hairs on my neck. Sadly, I agree with you. As a retired psych. I see Trump as extremely pathological. Narcissism is the least of his negative personality/character issues. Furthermore, there are folks in his orbit who are just 'standing by' waiting for the ongoing deterioration so that they can control the mechanisms of power behind the scenes.
Reading this makes me think you have never read anything about Hoover's FBI and how it was used to target, intimidate, and harass political activists for decades.
Everything you're describing, from insane ideological persecution (like the DoJ charging the Texas whistleblower doctor, or sentencing that ancient anti-abortion protestor lady to two years in jail) to pressure on media companies, to internal purges of law enforcement and intelligence (like the recent Lee Fang story that suggests the FBI was trying to root out Trump supporters) is already happening. You just appear to be concerned that it might happen to people like you instead of the bad people.
The only way back out of this is rolling back executive power - the butt sitting behind the desk in the oval office should not matter this much, and would not matter this much if we had a Congress with any sense of responsibility for the country or any desire to do their Constitutional job. But they're too busy hitting up national donors to worry about their local constituents.
Trump is awful, and Biden is also awful. If our nation is going to thrive we need to roll back the omnipresent awfulness in DC and limit the reckless autocracy of the Executive branch, not pin our hopes on hating the right enemies hard enough.
That's pretty bothsiderist, there, Randolph. And you argue for a boilerplate Libertarian solution that's not a solution at all; it's like Ron Paul wanting abolish the Fed. It's also very amusing to hear you make pro-Trump points about a weaponized DoJ in the name of reining in Executive branch power when Trump would use the DoJ the way the Kremlin uses the KGB.
Get rid of anyone that has criticized you, then on election, your opponents fall out of windows, or they somehow have gotten poisoned. This would be Trumps America!
Rick, you have been so right on about everything Trump. I think media and others are suffering from a failure of imagination. But we cannot give up hope that we can defeat MAGA. We need to keep fighting.
My mom's family lived through Castro. Yeah, they came for "their stuff." ALL of their stuff. My grandfather, who was on the side of trying to get rid of Batista, Castro's enemy, was jailed, and tortured. The family was separated. Some got to come to Miami, others, not so lucky. My mom left with 2 dresses on. They weren't allowed to pack a suitcase. Before that generation, the reason my grandfather was sent to Cuba in the first place, was because of Franco. So, yeah, I'm pretty pissed if we are now going on 3 generations straight of having to run from a fascist. Fucking vote, goddamnit, and get everyone you know to vote.
Firstly, I don’t think this is in the least paranoid. Secondly, the Jacobean tragedy is an excellent lens through which to study Trump. If he is not stopped, you’re correct in saying that a lot of supine media types, going along to keep what few jobs there are, will earn the henchman’s fate. The Bannon quote is spine chilling, and no matter how this plays out, at least he’ll get a taste of jail. The good news: Trump’s decline is becoming unignorable even by the castrated press. Betcha $5 he says the n-word into a hot Mike by Aug 1.
There is one thing missing in the article (although I am reading this at 4 a.m. so perhaps I missed it). Every single one of us is at risk, not just his "enemies" real or imagined. What do these types do as history has proven? They pillage. Your retirement account, your land, your belongings, they will all be purloined by him and his minions. This is a MUCH bigger threat that people may not be able to imagine, but can relate to when they PERSONALLY feel threatened. As much as we agree with the critics, we still feel too much safety. The drumbeat of "they are coming for your STUFF" would be much more potent. The right has done this with guns forever. Pound into people's heads that their stuff is up for grabs. Billionaires are backing him because they get the tax breaks, cronyism, and yet, they go and buy up citizenship in others countries where they believe they will have personal comfort and not have to live in what he makes the USA. (but remember that invading other land i.e. Greenland is also on the agenda and he will have zero problem "extracting" someone from another country and bringing them back to USA. Plus, of course, Putin will own Ukraine and beyond.
…yep, i was born in soviet union in 1956 and i know totalitarian regimes when i see it, and another very important point you touched: REGIME IS NOT GOOD FOR ANYBODY, oppression doesn’t discriminate and there’s NO PRIVATE GUN OWNERSHIP in russia, NAZIS WILL GO FOR YOUR GUNS and suppress ANY resistance with a deadly force, america had a good run, nothing’s forever and it gets way worse before people will realize they been caught in a trap
I wonder if anyone in Germany in the 30's was writing similar unequivocally clear warnings as you have laid out here, Rick. I've always heard the German people, even most Jews, heard "rumors" but just couldn't believe them. That's why more Jews didn't flee.
But we heeded the warnings, and got the hell out last year. I'm not a big enough threat for them to come after me, but I didn't want to live in a country where it was possible that all the things he says he wants might come to pass, and all the people who agree with him would be my fellow country(wo)men. It won't be any less heartbreaking to watch from this distance, but it will be safer.
Portugal. We started in 2022 and spent 2 months scouting the country, hired an immigration attorney, opened a bank account and established the fact we wanted to emigrate. In 2023 we found a 1 year rental, and signed a lease (one of the main rules for getting a visa) sold our home, and in June went to the emigration office (VSF) in San Francisco for our appointment to turn in all our documents. We finally got our visas the end of Nov. and arrived Dec. 10th. Was it easy, not very, but doable. Was it cheap? No, but the biggest expense was the lease and we could have chosen something way cheaper. Was it exciting and thrilling, worth it and do we love it? Absolutely. The people, the politics, the weather, the beauty, the ocean, the equality and diversity, the food, the prices. People ask me what I like and I say it's easier to tell you what I don't like: the long waits for bureaucracy to do things, the way drivers come up behind you on the highway and ride your bumper. That's it. Otherwise, it's heaven. We're living for about 1/3 the cost of California, driving an EV for about $20k less than it would have cost to buy in the US (plus we saved the 23% tax due to it being totally tax exempt as an EV) and charging in our garage quite cheaply. There are huge solar and wind farms every few miles, interracial marriage is common and doesn't raise an eyebrow let alone anyone's ire. It's very much a live and let live culture which I greatly appreciate.
This petty, vindictive, little man and his evil band of misfit assholes are plotting their revenge. Everyone involved in this should have a big ole MAGA tattoo on their face so they don’t try to pass off as normal if Biden wins.
It’s got to be true, my “Like” leveled up to 666!
F I N A L L Y!
The internet is 95% fake, let me explain in this podcast:
https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/QTFd9AJlnKb
I can't believe that we are discussing this as a REAL POSSIBILITY!
If this Darkness descends on America in November, then all those who voted for 3rd party candidates (none of whom have a chance of winning, only helping Trump win) or worse, didn't bother voting, well guess what, whatever purpose you had will be defeated, and America will be lost to the fascism described above by Rick.
This election is a binary choice between Democracy or Tyranny.
Tim Snyder wrote: any election can be the last.
Third party voters, wake up - you're handing your country over to a vengeful psychopath and his sadistic self-serving acolytes.
Every vote counts, so think again about your choices. Whatever you hope for from your 3rd party candidate, you sure won't get it under Trump.
If, Rick, we meet in the Dachau or whichever camp they stick us in, or even if we don't, thank you for sounding the tocsin. Not that it's doing a goddamn bit of good. The tides of history, like the tides and tsunamis of the oceans, do not turn aside in consequence of the pitiful efforts of humans.
The only defect in your analysis and prognostication is that it is overly optimistic as to the consequences.
Trump and his cohort's plans will, if commenced, trigger an uncontrollable runaway human catastrophe that, unless history takes a sudden and improbable alteration of momentum, or there is a miraculous transformation of human nature, will make history's Sullas, Caligulas, and Robespierres resemble Mr. Rogers and Winnie the Pooh by comparison. What only a handful of people today seem to realize -- and the ones that do are the very worst of us -- that "The Ultimate Tyrant's Database" -- the total, perfect compendium of Enemies and Possible Enemies and present and future Thought Criminals that every Big Brother and Stalin and Beria and Stasi apparatchik only dreamt of -- ALREADY EXISTS, nascent, as thousands and tens of thousands of various separate but overlapping government, banking, social media, and commercial databases-- and like Yeats' unimaginable Beast slouching toward Bethlehem to be born -- it stirs, nascent but ready for imminent partuition, requiring only an AI midwife to stitch all the pieces together and loose it out into the world.
From that monster there will be no escape. It will be like the invention of agriculture or money or writing ... once introduced into human affairs, no individual or group will be able to oppose it, evade it, control it, or hide from it. Even those who think to gain from it will be devoured by it. Everyone will be lashed to its implacable treadmill of fear, hatred, and despair, and driven ineluctably faster, faster, and faster in its cruel, endless, and accelerating circuit to nowhere. The only escape will be the final surcease and blessing of death. A blessing open only to each of us individually, but denied to humanity collectively.
I don't see how this can be stopped. We, the third chimpanzee -- the evil triplet of the three species -- have never failed, once having innovated some technology, to deploy it to maximize cruelty and suffering. This one, though, differs from the others, in that it has the power, and is in fact formed and designed, to re-invent itself. We are the third chimpanzee -- and now comes the fourth, and fifth, and sixth, and so on to infinity until industrial civilization collapses. Faustian doesn't even begin to touch how to describe it.
Trumpism will just be the start, the first and local manifestation of a metastatic worldwide disaster. This isn't merely as bad as it can get, it's even worse.
Have a great day!
Raised the hairs on my neck. Sadly, I agree with you. As a retired psych. I see Trump as extremely pathological. Narcissism is the least of his negative personality/character issues. Furthermore, there are folks in his orbit who are just 'standing by' waiting for the ongoing deterioration so that they can control the mechanisms of power behind the scenes.
Reading this makes me think you have never read anything about Hoover's FBI and how it was used to target, intimidate, and harass political activists for decades.
Everything you're describing, from insane ideological persecution (like the DoJ charging the Texas whistleblower doctor, or sentencing that ancient anti-abortion protestor lady to two years in jail) to pressure on media companies, to internal purges of law enforcement and intelligence (like the recent Lee Fang story that suggests the FBI was trying to root out Trump supporters) is already happening. You just appear to be concerned that it might happen to people like you instead of the bad people.
The only way back out of this is rolling back executive power - the butt sitting behind the desk in the oval office should not matter this much, and would not matter this much if we had a Congress with any sense of responsibility for the country or any desire to do their Constitutional job. But they're too busy hitting up national donors to worry about their local constituents.
Trump is awful, and Biden is also awful. If our nation is going to thrive we need to roll back the omnipresent awfulness in DC and limit the reckless autocracy of the Executive branch, not pin our hopes on hating the right enemies hard enough.
That's pretty bothsiderist, there, Randolph. And you argue for a boilerplate Libertarian solution that's not a solution at all; it's like Ron Paul wanting abolish the Fed. It's also very amusing to hear you make pro-Trump points about a weaponized DoJ in the name of reining in Executive branch power when Trump would use the DoJ the way the Kremlin uses the KGB.
He learned it from putin,
Get rid of anyone that has criticized you, then on election, your opponents fall out of windows, or they somehow have gotten poisoned. This would be Trumps America!
Rick, you have been so right on about everything Trump. I think media and others are suffering from a failure of imagination. But we cannot give up hope that we can defeat MAGA. We need to keep fighting.
My mom's family lived through Castro. Yeah, they came for "their stuff." ALL of their stuff. My grandfather, who was on the side of trying to get rid of Batista, Castro's enemy, was jailed, and tortured. The family was separated. Some got to come to Miami, others, not so lucky. My mom left with 2 dresses on. They weren't allowed to pack a suitcase. Before that generation, the reason my grandfather was sent to Cuba in the first place, was because of Franco. So, yeah, I'm pretty pissed if we are now going on 3 generations straight of having to run from a fascist. Fucking vote, goddamnit, and get everyone you know to vote.
Firstly, I don’t think this is in the least paranoid. Secondly, the Jacobean tragedy is an excellent lens through which to study Trump. If he is not stopped, you’re correct in saying that a lot of supine media types, going along to keep what few jobs there are, will earn the henchman’s fate. The Bannon quote is spine chilling, and no matter how this plays out, at least he’ll get a taste of jail. The good news: Trump’s decline is becoming unignorable even by the castrated press. Betcha $5 he says the n-word into a hot Mike by Aug 1.
Bannon has 4 months to serve starting July 1 so he’ll be out November 1. Hopefully that will dilute him .
It’s where he belongs, and hopefully where he’ll stay after his next trial. It may be that he’s too greasy a weapon for Trump’s soft little hands.
Hopefully, by getting busted, Bannon will suffer the aforementioned hench’s fate. “This is the price of failure.”—Blofeld
Vote for Joe, not the psycho.
Vota por Joe, no el loco.
Spend your own money and make labels and/or postcards made and proliferate.
And anyone who calls him Genocide Joe…that’s a blockin’
There is one thing missing in the article (although I am reading this at 4 a.m. so perhaps I missed it). Every single one of us is at risk, not just his "enemies" real or imagined. What do these types do as history has proven? They pillage. Your retirement account, your land, your belongings, they will all be purloined by him and his minions. This is a MUCH bigger threat that people may not be able to imagine, but can relate to when they PERSONALLY feel threatened. As much as we agree with the critics, we still feel too much safety. The drumbeat of "they are coming for your STUFF" would be much more potent. The right has done this with guns forever. Pound into people's heads that their stuff is up for grabs. Billionaires are backing him because they get the tax breaks, cronyism, and yet, they go and buy up citizenship in others countries where they believe they will have personal comfort and not have to live in what he makes the USA. (but remember that invading other land i.e. Greenland is also on the agenda and he will have zero problem "extracting" someone from another country and bringing them back to USA. Plus, of course, Putin will own Ukraine and beyond.
…yep, i was born in soviet union in 1956 and i know totalitarian regimes when i see it, and another very important point you touched: REGIME IS NOT GOOD FOR ANYBODY, oppression doesn’t discriminate and there’s NO PRIVATE GUN OWNERSHIP in russia, NAZIS WILL GO FOR YOUR GUNS and suppress ANY resistance with a deadly force, america had a good run, nothing’s forever and it gets way worse before people will realize they been caught in a trap
I wonder if anyone in Germany in the 30's was writing similar unequivocally clear warnings as you have laid out here, Rick. I've always heard the German people, even most Jews, heard "rumors" but just couldn't believe them. That's why more Jews didn't flee.
But we heeded the warnings, and got the hell out last year. I'm not a big enough threat for them to come after me, but I didn't want to live in a country where it was possible that all the things he says he wants might come to pass, and all the people who agree with him would be my fellow country(wo)men. It won't be any less heartbreaking to watch from this distance, but it will be safer.
Dotty, where did you go? And how difficult was it to do? Any ideas for those of us who also want to get out?
Portugal. We started in 2022 and spent 2 months scouting the country, hired an immigration attorney, opened a bank account and established the fact we wanted to emigrate. In 2023 we found a 1 year rental, and signed a lease (one of the main rules for getting a visa) sold our home, and in June went to the emigration office (VSF) in San Francisco for our appointment to turn in all our documents. We finally got our visas the end of Nov. and arrived Dec. 10th. Was it easy, not very, but doable. Was it cheap? No, but the biggest expense was the lease and we could have chosen something way cheaper. Was it exciting and thrilling, worth it and do we love it? Absolutely. The people, the politics, the weather, the beauty, the ocean, the equality and diversity, the food, the prices. People ask me what I like and I say it's easier to tell you what I don't like: the long waits for bureaucracy to do things, the way drivers come up behind you on the highway and ride your bumper. That's it. Otherwise, it's heaven. We're living for about 1/3 the cost of California, driving an EV for about $20k less than it would have cost to buy in the US (plus we saved the 23% tax due to it being totally tax exempt as an EV) and charging in our garage quite cheaply. There are huge solar and wind farms every few miles, interracial marriage is common and doesn't raise an eyebrow let alone anyone's ire. It's very much a live and let live culture which I greatly appreciate.
Wow! Thank you so much for all your information, Dotty! Lots to think about.
You're welcome. A lot of people have asked, and I post on FB periodically with photos if you're interested in following. Dotty Hopkins.