Are we now in full blown fascist totalitarianism?

[Shadowy Man]

Any resistance from within the command ranks of the National guard, or just the “I was just following orders” defense?

No news on that ever it seems. Of course all the military lawyers know that they'd be fired for suggesting that anything Trump does is illegal. Not a peep when he orders boats sunk or this. Never.

Seems to be more integrity among lawyers of the DOJ than the military.

 

[RVonse]

Very disturbing...

Your closing words made me reflect on how disturbing the Trump phenomenon has always been, for me and most of my friends. I have never understood how he attracted anything like the number of voters that consider him an ideal leader. First of all, do they have any character assessment skills whatsoever? He is manifestly a liar, first and foremost. Other striking facets of the man are his juvenile and sadistic thinking and his utter contempt for knowledge. His swearing and abusive name calling are on display every week of the year. Who are these Christians who revere him? What good is their religion if they support this man?
A few minutes ago I googled 'What is the American spirit?' to see what the AI collective brain answer would be. Google wrote a message about our core values being optimism, independence, self-determination, unity, and resilience. Our most important ideal is freedom, which encompasses personal liberties like free speech and freedom of religion. But Trump squats on this definition of America and contradicts most of it. How can those values embody Americanism when we've elected a man who talks about going after the 'vermin' in the country; who talks about protesters as if they are all paid, corrupt agents and allied with terrorism; who tells his DOJ to indict his political foes, and sees that it happens; who says that he is so popular that 'negative reporting' is 'illegal'? Trump crafted his rise to power by playing on the darkest side of our national character. I get it. It's still a baffling problem for me, that so many Americans think this is the way we should be.

There are many supporters of Trump well aware he is borderline authoritarian. But how else to fix our country at this point?

The serious damage of open borders and lack of industrial productivity isn't just going to be fixed easy without acting like a dictator.

There were many who also viewed FDR a dictator during a similar time in our history when big decisions had to be made quickly....

 

[laughing dog]

There are many supporters of Trump well aware he is borderline authoritarian. But how else to fix our country at this point?

The serious damage of open borders and lack of industrial productivity isn't just going to be fixed easy without acting like a dictator.

Dictators as a cure always end up ad worse than any problem.

Dictators don’t fix industrial productivity.

 

[bilby]

The serious damage of open borders and lack of industrial productivity isn't just going to be fixed easy without acting like a dictator.

Well, before you even begin to worry about how to fix these things, you need to show that there even is a problem that needs to be fixed.

Could you provide hard evidence for any damage (much less serious damage) due to open borders? Could you even provide evidence that any US international border is "open" in any reasonable sense?

If it is, how do you explain the decline in net migration rate?



Does the US lack industrial productivity? What should the industrial productivity target be, do you think, and why?

Doesn't look too bad to me. At least it's five times the horrific levels seen in the middle of the twentieth century.

It seems to me that your problems exist in your imagination, and were placed there by those people who seek support for "acting like a dictator".

And so, by repeating their outright lies (that borders are open, and that industrial productivity is lacking), and using these lies as the basis for your reasoning, you reach a conclusion that "acting like a dictator" is justified, having explained to your audience in the process that you have been suckered by a bunch of liars into calling for an end to your own freedom.

You may be surprised that this is not seen by your audience as a very good justification at all for kowtowing to a wannabe dictator.

Indeed, you seriously ought to reconsider your position, in the light of the fact that the guys you support have been systematically feeding you lies, and that your beliefs about the things that need to be "fixed" are (as a result) horribly naïve and objectively false.

The thing that urgently needs fixing (if you care about the constitutional foundations of your republic) is the clear and present trend towards allowing a dictator to take over, and to destroy those foundations.

 

[Swammerdami]

Donald Trump is a semi-literate rapist whose alleged business acumen is reflected in a long string of bankruptcies. Western banks stopped lending him money and for several years he relied on Russian banks to finance his gaudy hotels. We do not know what the quid pro quo was for these unsavory loans. He got his original seed capital by defrauding his siblings out of their share of their super-rich daddy's estate. Donald Trump is the very paradigm of a despicable man.

Franklin D. Roosevelt was one of the very greatest U.S. Presidents. He was inaugurated in 1933 after his highly-respected Republican predecessor had allowed the economy to plummet into a deflationary spiral. He worked to prevent the Second World War, but then led the fight with wisdom and courage when that war threatened to consume the world. A list of his accomplishments would go on and on.

There is one decision for which FDR is widely condemned: the interment of Japanese-Americans during the Great War. Without re-litigating that, note that America was the Great Arsenal that literally saved the world from fascism. If even 00.05% of the interred Japanese had been saboteurs they could have done great damage. FDR did not act unilaterally: Public Law 77-503 was enacted authorizing the interment. That Law passed both chambers of Congress by a voice vote.

I don't think people today can appreciate the scope of the Second World War, by many measures the most severe catastrophe humanity has ever faced. To compare the Attack on Pearl Harbor and WWII more generally to the alleged "war" against Portland Oregon goes beyond mere idiocy, or even an audition for The Onion. Any sentient hominid should be ashamed to make such a comparison.

There are many supporters of Trump well aware he is borderline authoritarian. But how else to fix our country at this point?

The serious damage of open borders and lack of industrial productivity isn't just going to be fixed easy without acting like a dictator.

There were many who also viewed FDR a dictator during a similar time in our history when big decisions had to be made quickly....

@RVonse has outdone himself here. Comparing this psychopath to one of America's greatest leaders is particularly odious. Words fail me.

 

[Swammerdami]

While I agree with most of bilby's post, I assert my credentials as objective centrist to object to his graph.
First, it is the rate of change of this function which is most relevant. I always object when the logarithmic y-axis is NOT specified when it should be. Why? Just to exaggerate the change? And second, did bilby not even notice that industrial production is no longer rising? This is NOT the graph to demonstrate RVonse's wrongness.

Here are two more relevant graphs. The first shows TWO functions (one of them bilby's) but with logarithmic plotting. It compares industrial production with TOTAL production. You can see that industrial production did indeed begin tapering off after the Clinton boom, and has more-or-less flatlined. Real GDP -- which reflects real employment by real Americans -- has continued to rise. Please note: the scaling of GDP in the graph was ARBITRARY, just to make the two functions easier to compare.

The second graph shows WHY GDP outpaces industrial production. America exports software, Hollywood movies, financial services and much more. (I suppose that if Trump and RVonse and othe Trumplickers have their way, the tense of "exports" should change to "exported.")

 

[DrZoidberg]

The problem with calling Trump a fascist is that it relatvises actual fascism. It's the "cry wolf" problem. It's the same thing with calling his policies racist. It relativises actual racism. Has he put in place any laws that limits people based on race? If not, then his policies aren't racist. He can be a racist while his policies aren't racist. To the rape accusation. He hasn't been convicted of rape. So calling him a rapist relativises rape.

The problem with all of this is that it will make us blind to being taken over by actual racist rapist fascist.

You don't need to like Trump to insist that we call him what he actually is, a lying orange clown

 

[ZiprHead]

The problem with calling Trump a fascist is that it relatvises actual fascism. It's the "cry wolf" problem. It's the same thing with calling his policies racist. It relativises actual racism. Has he put in place any laws that limits people based on race? If not, then his policies aren't racist. He can be a racist while his policies aren't racist. To the rape accusation. He hasn't been convicted of rape. So calling him a rapist relativises rape.

That's the standard for determining racism and rape???

The judge in the case said it was "rape" but the law as written could only call it sexual assault.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The problem with calling Trump a fascist is that it relatvises actual fascism. It's the "cry wolf" problem.

I get you know almost nothing about US history, so that is how you can think that. There reality is otherwise. Trump told the Military brass that there was a war within the US. That is near verbatim with Hitler. I typically compare Trump with Mussolini as Putin shares more in common with Hitler than Trump does and Trump is more trying to buddy buddy with the big despot like Mussolini did, but Trump has crossed a lot of lines Presidents rarely ever cross, and that military speech was a line that really only came about during the Great War (Germans and war disentters) and WWII (Italians, Japanese). So, the War Time stuff. President Adams was pretty out there too as the US was struggling.

It's the same thing with calling his policies racist. It relativises actual racism. Has he put in place any laws that limits people based on race? If not, then his policies aren't racist. He can be a racist while his policies aren't racist. To the rape accusation. He hasn't been convicted of rape. So calling him a rapist relativises rape.

The problem with all of this is that it will make us blind to being taken over by actual racist rapist fascist.

You don't need to like Trump to insist that we call him what he actually is, a lying orange clown

He is interfering with corporate decision making to influence the media broadly. He is interfering with collegiate institutions. He sued large legal firms in order to usurp their services! He federalized National Guard troops multiple times. He is running the Government via declaration like a King (tariffs, birthright citizenship, impounding spending), buoyed only by the most corrupt and partisan SCOTUS our nation has ever had. He is decentralizing the Executive Branch in DC and selling properties making undoing what he is doing much harder. He has had more Executive Orders in the first 8 months than the HW and Biden single term presidencies and he is approaching breaking Obama's, W's, and Clinton's for their entire 8 year terms.

Some of this is 2025, some of it is Putin whispering into his ear to ruin our economy. It doesn't matter why Trump is doing what he is doing nearly as much as what he is doing, and he is going to lengths that have rarely or never been exceeded. He isn't a "lying orange clown"... well he is... but he is enacting policies that are intentionally weakening our Government at the behest of a foreign power and those behind Project 2025. And he is doing it all outside the law.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

You don't need to like Trump to insist that we call him what he actually is, a lying orange clown

Two of the many things he lies about: being a fascist--he says he's not--and his birthday letter to Epstein.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

To the rape accusation. He hasn't been convicted of rape. So calling him a rapist relativises rape.

That's like saying O.J. had nothing to do with the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson because he was never convicted.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

The problem with calling Trump a fascist is that it relatvises actual fascism. It's the "cry wolf" problem.

Evidence of fascism (not an exhaustive list):

• Arrests and deportation of legal residents
• Consolidation of power & undermining checks and balances
• Attacks on media, speech, and dissent
• Purges of opposition
• Rhetoric, demagoguery, and scapegoating of groups
• Using the military against civilians

 

[DrZoidberg]

The problem with calling Trump a fascist is that it relatvises actual fascism. It's the "cry wolf" problem. It's the same thing with calling his policies racist. It relativises actual racism. Has he put in place any laws that limits people based on race? If not, then his policies aren't racist. He can be a racist while his policies aren't racist. To the rape accusation. He hasn't been convicted of rape. So calling him a rapist relativises rape.

That's the standard for determining racism and rape???

The judge in the case said it was "rape" but the law as written could only call it sexual assault.

That's exactly the standard. Which is important if we're for democracy, liberal values and the rule of law. That’s exactly how it works. And should work

 

[Gospel]

The problem with calling Trump a fascist is that it relatvises actual fascism. It's the "cry wolf" problem.

Evidence of fascism (not an exhaustive list):

• Arrests and deportation of legal residents
• Consolidation of power & undermining checks and balances
• Attacks on media, speech, and dissent
• Purges of opposition
• Rhetoric, demagoguery, and scapegoating of groups
• Using the military against civilians