I keep thinking back to Musk's initial Twitter bid, which was partly a joke and he quickly tried to back out of. What if the courts had let him back out? Would he have remained on the political sidelines, just focused on hoarding wealth in his conventional businesses without a media platform to ruin and then repurpose for propaganda? At what point did he decide to become an emperor instead of just a massively wealthy troll?
To have a junta you need the military on your side, and for all the parallels with Hitler the one thing that Trump and Musk and the tech bros don't have, and that you need to pull a true takeover, is the respect and backing of the military establishment. If retaliatory tariffs and DOGE are levied against the US defense industry there's a good chance it will shorten his presidency. In his previous term the military did a lot of stuff to lessen Trump's authority over the military.
Putting someone who was a Major over a decade ago and a 'news' host since then, a person wholly unqualified for the job, in charge of the DoD isn't going to help. The military leadership are going to run rings around Pete Hegseth, and probably have a mountain of Kompromat to use against him if it comes to that.
The US is a militaristic republic, and if a leader wants to stay in power the one thing they don't do is mess with military leadership or the defense industry, and the US exports many more billions of dollars in arms than it does software. Though mostly we export resources like oil and some manufactured goods like planes and cars.
Given that fossil fuels are on the way out, and most countries are switching to more sane methods of transport infrastructure (rails and trails) the US is already hurting on exports. Canada and South America will just take over oil export contracts the US used to have and retaliatory tariffs will devastate the US economy.
I won't be surprised if some more attempts are made on Trump's life by disgruntled MAGAs who lost their jobs and can no longer find an electrician or plumber to work on their McMansion. It's what you get for making unrealistic promises to the most unhinged and well armed part of the US populace.
Oh, and on the loss of potential futures. The voters in the aggregate have sent a clear and consistent message since the end of WW2. They don't want the federal government to do too much of anything. Hence the otherwise senseless seesaw of power between the 2 parties with wildly different track records on economics and social rights. I think it was North Carolina that voted in an abortion rights amendment to their state constitution, and a Republican supermajority who will move heaven and earth to block it. We have the government we vote for and deserve, though Trump is doing his level best to test the indifference of voters who didn't bother.
If Musk is serious about his DOGE mission, he may simply use they systems he's hijacked to block paymemts to groups or individuals he deems "illegitimate". Apparantly he's done this already for Lutheran Family Services, according to Kevin Drum. Voila, Constitutional crisis before the Supreme Court. IF (big if) the Court rules against the government, how does it get enforced if the governmemt ignores it? How long can Trump have DOJ delay, delay, delay, his standard tactic? And this is only 1 front in the War on the Deep State. Trump has the US Treasury to pay for his lawyers now, so redress through the courts could take a while. Trump and Musk are managing the federal government like they manage their corporations. This may be a problem.
Viewed from Germany, it all feels like the US is living through 1933—the year of the "Gleichschaltung," the Nazi Takeover of the German State. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleichschaltung
Key elements:
* State control of the economy (backed by the Oligarchs)
* State control by the media (backed by the Oligarchs)
* Cleansing of the administrative state (Getting rid of misfits in state bureaucracy)
* Rewriting Culture (Suppressing certain narratives and pushing new ones)
* Transforming Education (New Content, new teachers)
* State control of the Courts
The military was not as focused at first. It was left on its own, except that it was bribed into submission through extensive rearmament and many promotions.
All, esp. the Courts and the public, were overwhelmed by a Blitz of Activity. Facts were created en masse and ad hoc so fast that the initial outcry made way for an accommodation of the new Power within days. Within weeks, even formerly opposed people liked this arrangement. It brought peace, unity (the kind you get by suppressing dissent), and (a bit later) prosperity (Autobahn...). Opposition decamped to other Nations or stuck to their people as the grandfather of my ex-wife, a social democrat, did.
It was not that you couldn't live in Germany. You could even raise your voice. But it didn't help, and it certainly was not beneficial for getting on with your life. Said grandfather has been in and out of labor camps multiple times, working for weeks and months in local peat bogs. But that started 3 years after the Gleichschaltung and lasted till 1945.
My point is: The power of Gleichschaltung—of Overwhelming the State and the Population with the backing of the Industry—worked wonders by getting people to accommodate to the new reality within weeks. Resistance—once so vivid and seemingly irrepressible—subsided within weeks. Life's daily chords demanded it. There was nothing else to do.
Note that Steven Bannon and JD Vance like Lina Khan, and Bannon thinks the extremely wealthy should pay more taxes. He claims (incorrectly) the tech bros are really left wingers, but he recognizes them for what they are - oligarchs and tech feudalists wanting cheap foreign workers. JD will bend in any direction Trump demands of him, but Bannon will force a reckoning between the tech oligarchs and the more populist forces. It may not happen soon but it will happen. Right now it looks like Trump will side with the oligarchs and while believing his blue collar and evangelical supporters will blindly follow him no matter what.
But your pals the Dems sank themselves with a phoney Russia collusion narrative that included actual collusion between the the Intelligence Community and the Dems, repeated with the Hunter Got High tapes and the apparent corruption of the Biden Family, the "Joe's in Great shape mentally" until his , shall we say, sub-par performance in the debate, at which time the pro-Democracy Dems appointed Harris( horrible candidate)... I could go on .
Anyway, while I agree with your analysis of the importance of proper regulation, I'm more of a political realist and not the fantasist.
Oh btw Liz Warren is as corrupt as the rest of them, e.g. Big Pharma recipient of over a million dollars in campaign contributions, and is an abject failure for her constituents having brought home little by way of money to rebuild and maintain infrastructure, lower taxes, finance the public safety net....again I could go on.
“The investigation “identified numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump Campaign” and established that the Trump Campaign “showed interest in WikiLeaks's releases of documents and welcomed their potential to damage candidate Clinton” “
“The Special Counsel investigation uncovered extensive criminal activity”
Everything you propose, including the piece you site, has been rebutted and will continue to be rebutted as more and more information is released that supports my position, and the position of the ever growing politically awake crowd, that Brennan and the Dems colluded to undermine a sitting President. I am sorry, your absolutism and unsubstantiated certainty that Mueller produced significant evidence of meaningful and destructive “Russian Interference”, when in fact he produced nothing of significance e.g.$150,000 in FB ads that were ridiculously shallow in their so-called support of Trump, tells me that you’ve not followed Taibbi et al in their clear reporting to the contrary. At this late date in the debate I simply refuse to try to educate a contrarian such as yourself. I leave it to you to educate yourself.
I keep thinking back to Musk's initial Twitter bid, which was partly a joke and he quickly tried to back out of. What if the courts had let him back out? Would he have remained on the political sidelines, just focused on hoarding wealth in his conventional businesses without a media platform to ruin and then repurpose for propaganda? At what point did he decide to become an emperor instead of just a massively wealthy troll?
To have a junta you need the military on your side, and for all the parallels with Hitler the one thing that Trump and Musk and the tech bros don't have, and that you need to pull a true takeover, is the respect and backing of the military establishment. If retaliatory tariffs and DOGE are levied against the US defense industry there's a good chance it will shorten his presidency. In his previous term the military did a lot of stuff to lessen Trump's authority over the military.
Putting someone who was a Major over a decade ago and a 'news' host since then, a person wholly unqualified for the job, in charge of the DoD isn't going to help. The military leadership are going to run rings around Pete Hegseth, and probably have a mountain of Kompromat to use against him if it comes to that.
The US is a militaristic republic, and if a leader wants to stay in power the one thing they don't do is mess with military leadership or the defense industry, and the US exports many more billions of dollars in arms than it does software. Though mostly we export resources like oil and some manufactured goods like planes and cars.
Given that fossil fuels are on the way out, and most countries are switching to more sane methods of transport infrastructure (rails and trails) the US is already hurting on exports. Canada and South America will just take over oil export contracts the US used to have and retaliatory tariffs will devastate the US economy.
I won't be surprised if some more attempts are made on Trump's life by disgruntled MAGAs who lost their jobs and can no longer find an electrician or plumber to work on their McMansion. It's what you get for making unrealistic promises to the most unhinged and well armed part of the US populace.
Oh, and on the loss of potential futures. The voters in the aggregate have sent a clear and consistent message since the end of WW2. They don't want the federal government to do too much of anything. Hence the otherwise senseless seesaw of power between the 2 parties with wildly different track records on economics and social rights. I think it was North Carolina that voted in an abortion rights amendment to their state constitution, and a Republican supermajority who will move heaven and earth to block it. We have the government we vote for and deserve, though Trump is doing his level best to test the indifference of voters who didn't bother.
If Musk is serious about his DOGE mission, he may simply use they systems he's hijacked to block paymemts to groups or individuals he deems "illegitimate". Apparantly he's done this already for Lutheran Family Services, according to Kevin Drum. Voila, Constitutional crisis before the Supreme Court. IF (big if) the Court rules against the government, how does it get enforced if the governmemt ignores it? How long can Trump have DOJ delay, delay, delay, his standard tactic? And this is only 1 front in the War on the Deep State. Trump has the US Treasury to pay for his lawyers now, so redress through the courts could take a while. Trump and Musk are managing the federal government like they manage their corporations. This may be a problem.
What does he mean, "Warren appointees"?
Viewed from Germany, it all feels like the US is living through 1933—the year of the "Gleichschaltung," the Nazi Takeover of the German State. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleichschaltung
Key elements:
* State control of the economy (backed by the Oligarchs)
* State control by the media (backed by the Oligarchs)
* Cleansing of the administrative state (Getting rid of misfits in state bureaucracy)
* Rewriting Culture (Suppressing certain narratives and pushing new ones)
* Transforming Education (New Content, new teachers)
* State control of the Courts
The military was not as focused at first. It was left on its own, except that it was bribed into submission through extensive rearmament and many promotions.
All, esp. the Courts and the public, were overwhelmed by a Blitz of Activity. Facts were created en masse and ad hoc so fast that the initial outcry made way for an accommodation of the new Power within days. Within weeks, even formerly opposed people liked this arrangement. It brought peace, unity (the kind you get by suppressing dissent), and (a bit later) prosperity (Autobahn...). Opposition decamped to other Nations or stuck to their people as the grandfather of my ex-wife, a social democrat, did.
It was not that you couldn't live in Germany. You could even raise your voice. But it didn't help, and it certainly was not beneficial for getting on with your life. Said grandfather has been in and out of labor camps multiple times, working for weeks and months in local peat bogs. But that started 3 years after the Gleichschaltung and lasted till 1945.
My point is: The power of Gleichschaltung—of Overwhelming the State and the Population with the backing of the Industry—worked wonders by getting people to accommodate to the new reality within weeks. Resistance—once so vivid and seemingly irrepressible—subsided within weeks. Life's daily chords demanded it. There was nothing else to do.
I fear for America.
Note that Steven Bannon and JD Vance like Lina Khan, and Bannon thinks the extremely wealthy should pay more taxes. He claims (incorrectly) the tech bros are really left wingers, but he recognizes them for what they are - oligarchs and tech feudalists wanting cheap foreign workers. JD will bend in any direction Trump demands of him, but Bannon will force a reckoning between the tech oligarchs and the more populist forces. It may not happen soon but it will happen. Right now it looks like Trump will side with the oligarchs and while believing his blue collar and evangelical supporters will blindly follow him no matter what.
Very relevant…in combination with this from @Charley Johnson https://open.substack.com/pub/untangled/p/trapped-by-the-pursuit-of-efficiency?r=2cunh&utm_medium=ios
But your pals the Dems sank themselves with a phoney Russia collusion narrative that included actual collusion between the the Intelligence Community and the Dems, repeated with the Hunter Got High tapes and the apparent corruption of the Biden Family, the "Joe's in Great shape mentally" until his , shall we say, sub-par performance in the debate, at which time the pro-Democracy Dems appointed Harris( horrible candidate)... I could go on .
Anyway, while I agree with your analysis of the importance of proper regulation, I'm more of a political realist and not the fantasist.
Oh btw Liz Warren is as corrupt as the rest of them, e.g. Big Pharma recipient of over a million dollars in campaign contributions, and is an abject failure for her constituents having brought home little by way of money to rebuild and maintain infrastructure, lower taxes, finance the public safety net....again I could go on.
But it is lovely to dream
All right. I’ll bite. I know I’ll regret this since I don’t believe you’re really interested in a conversation, but maybe you are.
What’s phony about the Russia investigation?
Here’s a summary of what was found. https://www.acslaw.org/projects/the-presidential-investigation-education-project/other-resources/key-findings-of-the-mueller-report/
“The investigation “identified numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump Campaign” and established that the Trump Campaign “showed interest in WikiLeaks's releases of documents and welcomed their potential to damage candidate Clinton” “
“The Special Counsel investigation uncovered extensive criminal activity”
Everything you propose, including the piece you site, has been rebutted and will continue to be rebutted as more and more information is released that supports my position, and the position of the ever growing politically awake crowd, that Brennan and the Dems colluded to undermine a sitting President. I am sorry, your absolutism and unsubstantiated certainty that Mueller produced significant evidence of meaningful and destructive “Russian Interference”, when in fact he produced nothing of significance e.g.$150,000 in FB ads that were ridiculously shallow in their so-called support of Trump, tells me that you’ve not followed Taibbi et al in their clear reporting to the contrary. At this late date in the debate I simply refuse to try to educate a contrarian such as yourself. I leave it to you to educate yourself.
Go home sean, you're drunk.
It does kinda warm my heart that, even in the midst of their greatest triumph, the right-wingers are still miserable on an individual level.
They’re still stewing about old grievances instead of being happy that, you know, they won and are in charge now.
And you need a drink
And you're reduced to ad hominem attacks. Try again
Absolutely