Blue Meme and John F Kennedy Center

Were they applying the Nuremberg laws?

“This constant lying is not aimed at making the people believe a lie, but at ensuring that no one believes anything anymore.
A people that can no longer distinguish between truth and lies cannot distinguish between right and wrong…
With such a people, you can do whatever you want.”
Hannah Arendt

Embodying things that are true, when Donald Trump is saying the opposite, is very divisive.

As bad as things have become, local cops still generally prefer to ally with other cops than with their own communities.

Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.”

3/3

Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism

Total domination does not allow for free initiative in any field of life, for any activity that is not entirely predictable.

2/3

“The consistent persecution of every form of intellectual activity by the new mass leaders springs more from their natural resentment against everything they cannot understand.

1/3

When "journalists" parrot this nonsense now, it isn't gullibility.

It is complicity.

know hope.

As is often the case, as interesting (and troubling) as the story itself is the untold story of who is leaking and why.

Even as Trump has tried to purge the government of anyone with a shred of integrity, his corruption manages drive even a few of his toadies to rebel.

Hard today to envision good coming out of ICE’s constant lying and thuggery. But if courts generally assume that cops are lying until proven otherwise, that is some consolation.

Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS) stepped down from his position as Senate Minority Leader position after praising Strom Thurmond’s 1948 Dixiecrat presidential campaign in 2002.

Today Republicans are defending and deflecting the president’s post of a video depicting a Black President and First Lady as apes.

I'm sorry the guy changing the rules on the fly is named what

We should also acknowledge that our own “opposition” leaders cling to norms long past the point at which the authoritarians have made clear that they have been rendered irrelevant.

Cover of Origins of Totalitarianism

“Before mass leaders seize the power to fit reality to their lies, their propaganda is marked by its extreme contempt for facts as such, for in their opinion fact depends entirely on the power of the man who can fabricate it.”

Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism

Yes. No crematoria (yet), but the (first) Nazis operated concentration camps for years before installing ovens.

I think we are best served by acknowledging that norms are ineffective against authoritarians.

I think it is more internal. I think the psychology that drives people that hard makes them permanently insecure (and unhappy).

The cruelty is the policy.

Great point. Makes perfect sense.

I was always told the point of becoming wealthy was to accumulate "fuck you money" -- the financial security to tell anyone who wants you to do anything you don't want to do to pound sand.

Really hoping clueless squishes like De Lauro get turfed by challengers who understand the moment as she clearly does not.

Here's @rickhasen.bsky.social detailing the scenario in which Trump uses search warrant to seize ballot boxes in a contested 2026 locale. This is more worrisome than ICE at the polls. Hasen also suggests ways to act against this now.

It's harrowing stuff:

newrepublic.com/article/2062...

This is obviously a hugely significant development in Ukraine. Wondering what happened to put Musk in opposition to Putin.

I’d like to believe that a dam has broken, and that they will now say what has been obvious for years.

I’d like to believe they finally recognize the danger, to us and to themselves.

I’d like to believe. But I don’t.

Leonardo DiCaprio is Brazilian?

I read the “SAVE Act” (the GOP’s new voter suppression bill) so you don’t have to. This is my one page summary. Jesus it’s bad. 1/

You don’t have to convince me that he has been headed this way for years. But it does seem to be getting worse.

And yeah, so many people don’t understand the consequences of their actions.

Even if our racist POTUS is this staggeringly racist, he once knew better than to broadcast his racism like this.

What changed?

A theory:
dementia.nz/wp-content/u...

Especially because he treats his social media as a means of disseminating policy and even orders to the rest of the federal government.