Ziggy58

Opinion | This Is What Autocrats Dread

This should be a book
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/o...

4/ Lastly panic is a bad response if people see the iceberg. If they do not, the gravity of the situation has been recognized and real attempts to prevent the crash can begin. Like a ship a powerful state like US once captured by autocrats is going to sink under the weight of what can be stolen.

3/ Record inequality powerfully funds Trump while undermining social solidarity. They have control of federal resources and will just attempt to power through any opposition, let alone free and fair elections. A plan is needed for a Second American Revolution. An Armed Americmaidan.

2/ Most importantly they have control of the Federal Government, with its powerful military and security agencies. The domestic enemy of US democracy is in government with all the resources it needs to end US democracy.

1/ Things will go off rails. Trump has record US inequality + US debt (of all types public+private) + 40 years of hard-right political undermining of democracy + widespread status anxiety and lack faith democracy + global far-right ethno-nationalist autocracy trend (China,Russia,India....). No "if".

Genuine question, what do you think is more likely to happen? Seems likely to me US will follow global trend of autocratic far-right ethno-nationalism (China,Russia,India....) Trump has record inequality, 40 yrs of rightwing undermining, declining faith democracy enabling him. End bloodshed?

i dont think they’re going to save us. if we get amerimaidan we’ll save ourselves and they’ll side with us but i dont see them doing an open coup (tho still in my 5-10% range of things that could happen)

Amerimaidan cannot come soon enough

I'd hope there is a working group in the ACLU or AFL-CIO about quietly laying the groundwork to do a make-or-break Amerimaidan mobilization, but basically no one in politics does any long term planning so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

No Kings - Black Hawk County Iowa

I'm attending No Kings's event, “NO KINGS Ft. Pierce” - sign up now to join me! www.mobilize.us/nokings/even...

No Kings in America.

Can we all make the October 18 No Kings protest the biggest ever!!

#Michigan! #NoKings #Detroit! Oct 18 Detroit, Roosevelt Park 3p-5pm. Be there prepared to make some noise. We got a lot of people we need to wake up. We need to remind people that this is not a nation where we abide kings.

The very first statute authorizing domestic use of the military during domestic emergencies, enacted in 1792 by a Congress full of the same folks who wrote and ratified the Constitution, expressly provided for judicial review in certain circumstances *before* the President could even send troops.

Linking economics, conservative elites and the rise of Trump. Is Trump the wealthy elites answer to preventing another FDR ?

Trump is there to protect the wealth of the super-rich. Inequality provides the rationale, resources and the status anxiety that makes MAGA autocracy possible. Elections will not be free and fair. Unlike 1775 Trump controls a powerful state to crush rebellion. larakeller.substack.com/p/linking-ec...

Wrong. The super rich have been creating the conditions for Trump's murder of democracy for over 40 years. Trump has control of the federal govt, the Republican Party and 28 states.

The wealth of the richest 1% in America just hit a record $52 trillion. These are the people getting huge tax cuts — paid for by cuts to health care for millions of Americans. Every lie Trump and Republicans are telling right now about the shutdown is meant to distract you from this.

A Holistic Plan for an Authoritarian Military Trump and Hegseth unveil a plan to make the military an authoritarian institution and adapt the notion of the battlefield and the enemy for domestic use.

Excellent analysis of what Trump & Hegseth lecture to the genrals means.

A Holistic Plan for an Authoritarian Military
open.substack.com/pub/lucid/p/...

Massive immigration raid on Chicago apartment building leaves residents reeling: 'I feel defeated' The Department of Homeland Security said federal agents with Border Patrol, the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives arrested 37 people in the raid.

Naked children torn from their mothers and tossed into vans.

U.S. citizens detained for hours in zip ties.

Doors kicked in and belongings stolen or destroyed.

This is the reality of Trump’s deportation agenda.

It was always about cruelty.

JZ 🩵SOS🇺🇸 (@jzacek) 🫡🫡🫡

An angry military veteran names Trump as a domestic enemy of the Constitution, who millions in the US have taken oath to defend.

substack.com/@jzacek/note...

The masters of this MAGA cult are pursuing an unstated obession with country as spiritual entity. Set against this truth is nothing, the lives of Americans are nothing. Hannah Arendt nailed this in connection to Nazism and Stalinism. Putin and Xi are pursuing this obession. All down the rabbit hole

The GOP’s Addiction to Lies: The Death of Truth and the Rise of Post-Fact Politics When lies become policy and propaganda becomes identity, democracy itself is put at risk…

open.substack.com/pub/thomhart...

The Democrat leadership is what Europeans would call conservative. Anyone who opposes MAG fascism Trump describes as a radical left lunatic, even Hitler was not this deranged in his rhetoric.

Barbra Streisand is joining Jane Fonda and 600+ entertainment figures in re-launching the Committee for the First Amendment. Fonda announced the revival of the organization, initially founded by her father, Henry Fonda. The organization was founded in the 1940s to defend free speech against fascism.

His supporters do not care that his is lying, as they hold on to the fantasy he is lying for them.

Something to think about.