“This is out of the autocratic playbook. As autocrats consolidate their power once they’re in office, anything that threatens their power … becomes illegal,” historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat said.
Donald Trump is ramping up his rhetoric depicting his political rivals and critics as criminals, while dropping a long trail of suggestions that he favors outlawing political speech that he deems misleading or challenges his claims to power.
In a speech Friday in Aurora, Colorado, the Republican presidential nominee blasted the immigration system and lobbed a rhetorical grenade at his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.
“She’s a criminal. She’s a criminal,” said Trump, who was found guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in his New York hush money trial. “She really is, if you think about it.”
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How the f*ck is this race tied!?
Do you remember growing up and asking “how was it even possible that someone as monstrous as Hitler was put in power? He wasn’t shy about his intents!”?
I think this go around it’s worse than Hitler.
We didn’t have mass communication in the same way during the rise of Hitler.
We didn’t have access to a wealth of information that ran counter to the programming during the rise of Hitler.
We didn’t have the amount of available access to other parts of the country and the world during the rise of Hitler.
We didn’t have the example of Hitler during the rise of Hitler.
The thing that’s so fucking surreal this time is that people should largely know better, but don’t.
So now, we’ll watch in 4k ultra hd the rise of a wanton fascist who spouts provable lies daily: an anti-science, anti-tech, anti-globalist ignoramus who likely could’ve never rose to prominence without an international micro-blogging website enabling him.
The Internet has provided us a wealth of information. In fact… maybe too much information, with questionable veracity. Social media has provided viral ways of spreading this information to people finding a truth that fits their existing beliefs, not necessarily finding the truth from an objective set of facts.
This isn’t just about Trump, the GOP, or even just fascism. It’s a complete breakdown of our trust in shared reality. It’s an indication that humans are not as smart as we think about applying technology we’ve invented, or maybe not as capable as we think about connecting with as many people as the internet allows us to.
I largely agree. However, it’s not 100% of humanity that cannot handle the advent of social media.
A large portion of the population does actually know what’s happening.
Some of the people pushing the lies (e.g. the FEMA crap), even know that they’re creating or redistributing AI generated garbage, but they are actively participating in the perpetuation of the falsehoods and purposefully becoming detached from reality.
All of this is what makes it so surreal to me (and arguably worse than before). A large portion of the public knows that what is being pushed is a complete fabrication and it continues anyway.
It was easier to argue ignorance in the past (after the war a lot of people argued that they didn’t even know that the holocaust was happening). I don’t know that we could make the same argument this go around.
I was always a really good lier as a kid so I never wondered that. I just figured people these days are to educated to fall for it.
A lot of people are more interested in hating people that are different from them than making informed decisions.
Sadly I truly believe this is the case. There’s no reason to support Trump positions unless you’re a billionaire. Any non-billionaire that supports his obvious lies and grifts must be a racist, because he doesn’t have anything else going on.
Decades of unfiltered right wing radio declaring Democrats as literally evil and propogating the idea of Republicans being the party of God. When your rival is the embodiment of evil you cannot ever work with them or compromise with them lest you be destroyed.
If Hitler got to power with plenty of supporters, there’s plenty of room for propaganda to work in other cases too
So many reasons.
Just one of these is the people who seem to think making the insignificant gesture of voting third-party as a “fuck you” to the Dems is a good idea, when all it does is increase the chance of Republicans winning.
This goes for the presidential race and for most tight senate/house races, too. The ballot box isn’t where a coalition starts. A coalition starts by providing candidates who are actually likely to win.
Concentrated ownership of media and excessive lobbying.
The correct question others should have posited when the idea of race was created by white supremacists.
Was it? That seems oversimplified but I’m not familiar with the history there.
“If you think about it.” Please, for the love of God, if you are currently a supporter of Trump, I encourage you to critically think about everything this man has said, and the policies that have happend, and how this would impact your neighbors and family.
That being said if you have the capability to critically think, I can be fairly confident that you aren’t supporting Trump by this point. In which case we’re fucked if half of voters lack the ability to do so, with or without Kamala winning
Again, he exposes his fascistic tendencies
First off fuck trump and his authoritarian attacks on free speech. Even if the media is being misleading we need to protect it. He needs to be kept as far away from any position of power as possible, preferably behind bars.
Also fuck CBS though, this wasn’t him getting mad about them publishing a damaging story on him. It was about 60 minutes editing there interview where the actual clip shows Harris giving a completely incoherent non answer when questioned about netanyahu not listening and escalating the war, and replaced it with a slightly more coherent non answer about it. The media is supposed to speak truth to power and press candidates when they give bullshit like this on serious matters, not help them cover it up. If not for ethics then just to maintain there credibility. They don’t deserve to be shut down or have there license revoked but they should be shamed and held to a higher standard.
It’s only illegal if someone enforces the law, a judge holds a trial, and an actual punishment is meted out.
Given how little taste our justice system has for holding rich people accountable, it starts to get fuzzy around what is illegal or not. As President GW Bush said: “The Constitution is just a piece of paper.” While he’s wrong about the material, he was correct that unless people believe in the ideals and rules laid down by the Constitution, then actually build a nation who follows and enforces their ideals, the Condition just sits there as a pile of material.
Hey, does anyone remember when Saddam took power, and had any political opponents removed from government?
removed
That’s quite the euphemism… The guy was stilling in the cabinet calling out opponents and with each name, said opponent was immediately picked up out of the crowd, taken outside and shot.
Just a few of those in, people just started throwing eachother under the bus, hoping to be spared. It was a shit show, a disgrace and a horror show that (without a doubt) trump would love to pull off, though I doubt anyone but the most extremists maga would go with THAT.
I think y’all would be just better off ACTUALLY assassinating the guy. If he wins, the USA’s so royally screwed it’s almost worth making him some sort of twisted martyr for the retards that vote for him.
