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Lou Rinaldi's avatar

Because close to half, if not fully half of this Country, is inhabited by Adult American Citizens who are enamored of "Christian" White-Nationalist Fascism. As outlined in Project 2025. And they hate democracy. I mean Hate democracy. Because democracy means their eventual loss of political power, even at the State and local level. And they know it. They've seen the writing on the wall. And the only way they know to remain in power is to subvert the results of free and fair small "d" democratic elections, by cheating and changing the rules. In my opinion, that is the short, and unpleasant reality that answers your question and the very real threat that all Constitution-loving citizens face.

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Alexandra Barcus's avatar

The normalization of Trump’s behavior has at least four elements. First, he may be a loon, but he is a rich, white, male Republican loon. Second. I fear we no longer give kids a sense of the perils of authoritarianism. The relatives and friends who remembered the Holocaust or Stalinism are fast dying out. Even thinking about our troops no longer is as vivid in people’s thoughts. I remember wearing a POW bracelet in school. That made me think of Vietnam on a regular basis. The protests at the universities occurred when I was a child in NY. They made an impact too. But the students weren’t protesting just the treatment of civilians, they were concerned about the draft, and about the deaths of young soldiers. (Not that old soldiers do not deserve equal worry.)

Third, there is a sense in the country that it will blow over if you ignore it. Trump is just a thug with lots of thugs around him. Sadly Hitler was only a thug with his rough and uncouth savage brown shirts around him. Like Trump, he disposed of followers who were no longer of use. He killed his officers in the Night of the Ling Knives. So when Trump is talking about retribution we should be very concerned. Even if he only means imprisonment. His thugs, of course, may decide more is indicated. How much will Vance think his ruffled feathers are worth? If you read The Rise of the Third Reich, you will find remarkable parallels between the Nazis and MAGA. I am not catastrophizing. Look for yourselves. Remember that the best way for an authoritarian to stay in power is to kill all their enemies. Second best is to kill or imprison a random selection (see Stalin and the Great Terror), and put the fear of God in everyone else. Russian citizens turned one another in at an astonishing rate because they thought they could earn Brownie points that way. They were wrong. Or you could starve millions as Stalin did to the Ukrainians in the Xolodomer.

Have you noticed how Trump’s minions, including LaCivita, have all become openly aggressive? They were both physically and verbally confrontational at Arlington. And there was a lot of that about in DC during Trump’s photo op amid a Black Lives Matter protest. It doesn’t change. It gets worse. Sad thing is that it works. The Arlington worker should and could have pressed charges, but WAS AFRAID to do so. Why are we not supporting these people? We should have their backs when they do the right thing.

The last major piece is the media’s overt, stupid or inadvertent support for Trump. The call of the dollar is behind most of it. You need ratings. But I fail to see what “the balance approach” does as it is neither exciting nor elucidating.

I have lots of ideas for the long term, but for now Trump must be held accountable for everything, and we should guard his accusers from harm. The media must be shamed. And we must stop watching because viewers mean money. Problem is that some media outlet owners don’t need the money. They would prefer to mandate their preferred vision. Things are tough, but underscoring Kamala’s joy and the egregious rhetoric of Trance and Vump might help. A lot of people are sickened by what they say.

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