Creating one or more heavily armed policing force that marches wholly in the name of the Lord High Unitary Executive and does whatever he wants, legalities be damned, is pretty standard practice in authoritarian takeovers…But I think we can still take some comfort in the fact that sometimes authoritarian takeovers work and sometimes they don’t. … This one seems to have steam now, I think, because the current takeover UE, Donny, for some reason appeals to his cult as an extremely charismatic figure…But on the bright side, as others have said, J.D.V. doesn’t seem to appeal to anyone in that way … so that’ll be a problem for sustaining the cult if DJT sickens and dies…
And, maybe I’m being Pollyanna, but I do feel as if there’s even a chance that Donny’s current mental state and behaviors might be working against his cult charisma. I don’t think you can win the authoritarian game without omse cult-y hold over either a sufficient number of the public or over the armed forces and their leadership…So even though this awarding of extraordinary powers to ICE is such a standard ascending dictator mood, I think it can still crash and burn if Don’s personal charms start to wear thin on enough people. …
heard some retired military guy on London Times Radio today note that DJT’s turn against U.S. cooperation with other NATO troops is not going over well at all with many in the U.S. military, who are used to work in conjunction with other NATO forces all the time…So if that pans out and he loses the military support – which this guy said he really gained in 2024 because he promised to end “stupid wars” (apparently a popular promise for our military leaders) – then that could diminish some of the most important support that rising authoritarians count on to bolster their attempts to take all the law into their own hands…
What I don’t want is " Well, we’ve pared down ICE and we’re not going to annex Greenland, but we’re not hiring back any of the monitors or government oversight offices so we can continue to loot with impunity. Also, women can no longer vote. "
CBS News, a network whose bosses have made elaborate contortions to please the president, portrayed Vance as calling on local officials to “lower the temperature.” ABC, NBC, and PBS all had similar headlines.
Hey morons – when he says “lower the temperature,” he means “stop resisting!”
It’s worth noting that if a 279wpm typist (no doubt a woman) was transported from 1966 – 60 years ago, the year NASA launched five crewed Gemini missions! – and tasked with entering the names of others who don’t trust his “word” using the latest IBM Selectric, a warehouse of paper, 666 spare Typeballs and thousands of miles of ribbon, they wouldn’t be able to begin to list all the people who don’t trust his “word.”
I suspect either the crippling carpal tunnel pain or madness brought on by the unending tick-tick-ticking would surely lead to either institutionalization or, alternatively, suicide well before a “Mission Accomplished” cake could be wheeled out at a nursing home for the proud, pained typist. But who knows? Could paleo-MAGAts type?
And this is the problem…the Trumpers ‘believe’ that the only LAWS to adhere to are the ones that make sense…to THEM. They don’t believe in the Constitution, they insist they are ‘Christians’ and don’t know the Bible and absolutely revel in their stupidity.
Oh, c’mon. If you don’t understand that they are all cos-playing by now …. Rethugliklans have proven time and again they have no “better self,” zero “altruistic spirit.” They’re geared to appeal to the lowest common denominator, take the money, and run.
“If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
― Lyndon B. Johnson
Vance is at the head of the line in succession. While he served as a military journalist during his 2003-2007 stint in the US marines, the US military may balk at the idea of this guy as commander-in-chief. The problem is that Trump’s multipolar world order involves partnering with Russia to keep China in check, and abandoning Europe. NATO’s high-end military equipment, including F-35s and satellite systems, come from the US. Much of this technology was originally developed to counteract specifically Soviet and Russian threats. Now with the informal sharing of intelligence and state secrets, Europe finds not just that the US has become an unreliable partner, but the dependence on US tech will take perhaps a decade to extricate itself from. Needless to say, defense industries in Europe are booming. I’m not sure that the majority at the Pentagon, the big defense contractors and large petrostates like Saudi Arabia would go along with Vance’s multipolar world largely geared to containing China and, despite his current wife, cutting India loose. One could even imagine a military coup in the US to allow elections once it is clear that the US wants to return to a path not based entirely on empire. In the meantime, Vance’s creator, Peter Thiel, will be offline in his Faraday-caged hidey-hole near Queenstown, South Island, New Zealand.
Nah this was just a chance for MTG to get in a dig at Laura Loomer who she’s been feuding with for what feels like a long time. I wouldn’t even call this “friendly fire" with the quotes, they’re just bitter enemies period. Their past twitter wars have gotten deeply personal criticizing each others looks, calling each other whores, all in service for the attention of their god king for which they haven’t held back. He was their common ground.
Now that Loomer has appeared to have won that war since MTG went rogue and resigned when their god king spurned her Loomer has been dancing on her grave. So this looked like MTG’s very tame slap back. JDV is just a convenient prop in this mildly amusing but mostly pathetic catfight. I’m actually surprised to hear anything from her at all as she’s gone mostly quiet since the base turned against her and her teenage kid started getting death threats.
Vance has negative charisma, but I think what will sink him in the primary is that he has no path to diverge from approving everything Trump did in his second administration. Vance owns all of it, and he’ll have to defend it.
Another Republican in the primary could pay the necessary amount of fealty to Trump, while saying he (it has to be a “he”) would do it a bit differently. I don’t think even R’s at this point want a carbon copy of Trump as the next candidate.
That said, if the R money machine lines up behind Vance then he’ll win regardless. He’s probably our best shot as someone for the Dem candidate to run against.
