The rule of law is collapsing

This 1 page Nov. 22, 2024 order by judge Merchan indefinitely delays sentencing in DJT's massive fraud trial. He was convicted by a jury of 34 felonies for business fraud in New York state. One of the felonies was the Stormy Daniels hush money payoff.

The judge here, a state judge, not federal, gives DJT permission to file for complete dismissal of the case. No explanation is given. 

That order to delay is the direct effect of the radical right authoritarian supreme court's decision to grant immunity to Trump for crimes committed while he was in office. Trump committed those felony crimes before he was elected as president in 2016. 

So why the delay? The only answer that makes even a little sense to argue boils down to this: Legally, he is the president-elect. DJT will argue that a president-elect is immune from crimes committed as a regular citizen before being elected as president. Second, and if the 1st argument fails, that president-elect status extends to the existing grant of presidential immunity, even if DJT committed his crimes as a regular citizen. 

Does that make one shred of sense? Not to me. It certainly does to DJT and all or nearly all of his supporters. And, I am coming to believe it probably makes sense to a lot of people who are not DJT supporters. Why? In my opinion it is mostly due to sympathy for authoritarianism among Americans who have been taught to distrust and even hate democracy, whether they know or believe it or not.

Does that make any sense? Absolutely not, in my staunchly pro-democracy opinion. By definition, authoritarians can be as corrupt and brutal as their power and circumstances allow. In a democracy, the rule of law is supposed to restrain at least some of the more egregious brutality and theft. Those restraints do not exist under authoritarianism.

In my firm opinion the American rule of law is crumbling in real time, right now.

Peanut gallery

Peanut 1: Can someone help me make this make sense? He was tried and convicted while not president of crimes he committed while not president. He still isn't president right now when the sentencing was pushed out to for some reason. He was then elected president

What does the one have to do with the other? I understand the doctrine of sovereign immunity. I get that. The president can't be sued or tried for illegalities committed in office as part of his regular duties. But that's not what ANY OF THIS IS. So what the hell is going on here? I'm not a lawyer, but I feel like I'm a pretty smart guy and I can't come up with a way that this makes any sense.

Peanut 2: The judge is a coward is what's happening. He doesn't want to be the judge to order Trump to appear for sentencing and then be expected to answer the "now what" question that must be asked when Trump says, "No." There's a term for this when analyzing the rise of authoritarianism as well as fascism. It's called "preemptive compliance," and it's one of the warning signs that shows that it's almost too late to stop it.

Peanut 3: Exactly. He should have sentenced Trump in September. It would have made no difference anyway as he would have appealed it. The judge is probably afraid of getting sent to Guantanamo bay. And he might be right.

Peanut 4: The darkly hilarious thing is that if he's doing this because he's afraid of the new emperor coming after him...this doesn't prevent that. It guarantees it.

Perplexity

In response to my question 3, Perplexity summarizes deeper complexity of the legal landscape in answer 3.  

A3: The judge's decision to delay sentencing in Trump's hush money case, despite the crimes being committed before he was in office, is not directly related to presidential immunity. There are several factors at play. 

1. Legal complexities: The case presents unprecedented legal questions about sentencing a president-elect for crimes committed before taking office.

2. Procedural considerations: Judge Merchan is allowing Trump's legal team to file a motion to dismiss the case, giving both sides time to present arguments.

3. Practical concerns: Prosecutors acknowledged that sentencing might not occur until after Trump's potential term ends, given the unique circumstances.

4. Separation of powers: The court is likely considering the balance between the judicial process and the executive branch, given Trump's status as president-elect.

5. Pending motions: The judge has also delayed ruling on whether the Supreme Court's recent presidential immunity decision applies to this case, which requires further review.

My response to those legal concerns are: 

• 1 and 2 are bullshit -- all of this will either be decided by the US supreme court or New York state will figure a way to weasel out and let DJT off scot-free

• 3 is direct evidence of shocking weakness in the American rule of law for elites, i.e., waiting until DJT is out of office in 2028 (assuming he will ever be out of office again in his lifetime) is a complete failure of the rule of law -- America really does have a two-tiered system of law

• 4 separation of powers questions are for the supreme court to decide, not for a state trial judge who is obligated to follow the rule of law in New York as it exists right fracking now -- it does not matter what Merchan decides, because the case will go to the supreme court no matter what or, the law in New York will be chicken shit and unilaterally drop the prosecution and sentencing in some way 

• 5 is also bullshit -- it clearly contradicts Perplexity's assertion that this is is not directly related to presidential immunity

Q: Is all of that way too hyperbolic, regular hyperbolic, almost hyperbolic, basically correct, spot on or an elephino*?

* Elephino: What you get when you cross an elephant with a rhino.

Taking stock and reassessing the political war: It's worse than I thought

What is going to happen next is becoming pretty clear, pretty fast. It is going to be authoritarian, ugly and shockingly corrupt. What to do next isn't obvious. Most of my common sense-grounded predictions are well on their way to being more right than wrong. No surprise there. He's doing what he said he was gonna do and tried to do the last time.[1] 

Reflecting on America's current political situation, its feels reasonable to think that my understanding of the war between deeply corrupt authoritarianism and less corrupt democracy was significantly off the mark about the democracy side of the war. It appears to be significantly more corrupt and authoritarian than I previously believed. That reassessment comes from factors like (i) blind Dem support for the corrupt authoritarians running Israel and their goal of making criticism of Israel by American citizens illegal, and (ii) the plutocratic neoliberal wing of the Dems, which is in control. In essence, the Dem party has its own internal deeply corrupt plutocratic authoritarian war going on against already unacceptably corrupt democracy. 

I now think that internal war has made the Dems rather ineffective in dealing with at least ~20 years of constant Repub attacks on democracy and inconvenient facts and truths. The war seems to be better framed like this: Deeply corrupt radical right authoritarianism (autocratic, plutocratic, theocratic) against too corrupt democratic-plutocratic impulses. That doesn't look very good for democracy.

Worse, the MSM seems to be buckling under the open threat of radical right authoritarianism and the pressures of corporate ownership and demands for profit. Since Bezos bent his knee to protect his wealth in the face of DJT's very credible public threats, the tone of the WaPo has begun to change for the worse. I won't renew my subscription when it ends next April. The NYT is already under a massive threat that could put it out of business, i.e., a $10 billion defamation lawsuit. All or most of the rest of the non-MAGA mainstream media is in disarray and under intense economic pressure to simply survive. 

There is a hint that some in the non-MAGA MSM are starting to sense a deadly threat to democracy. What will lead to, if anything at all, is unclear. A WaPo opinionologist (not paywalled) put it this way, democracy needs a different model for journalism. Well, duh. One could reframe that as journalism needs a different economic model. The opinionologist suggested a non-profit model based on what ProPublica is doing.[2] 

I support ProPublica and recommend it to anyone who can afford to donate. It may wind up being among the last survivors standing in defense of democracy. Capitalism is implacably hostile to professional journalism, so the money for operations has to come from a different economic model. MSNBC and CNBC are up for sale and they could, probably will, wind up under the control of a MAGA billionaire or consortium. Again, all forms of authoritarianism are incompatible with professional journalism. Bye, bye Rachael Maddow, hello morally rotted, lying, slandering, crackpot MAGA propagandist.

Q: Is American democracy and honest governance on a bumpy road, in a rough patch, on the way to being great again, and/or something else?

Footnotes:

1. The one important prediction that might be going off the rails is about DJT handing Ukraine to Putin by a mutual agreement, presumably in secret, followed by mass slaughter of Ukrainians. It may be the case that Putin is going to be openly contemptuous of DJT and his blither about ending the war in one day. A lot of Russians are dead. Putin is probably implacably furious and out for bloody revenge, regardless of DJT's nonsense. 

Complicating the analysis is Biden's unexpected decision to allow the Ukraine to shoot long-range US missiles into Russia. In response, Putin issued a warning that aggressive move gives Russia the right to use nuclear weapons and to attack countries that supply the missiles. We just inched closer to nuclear war, in Ukraine, NATO and/or the US. Regardless, one probably can still reasonably expect the start of mass slaughter of Ukrainians in the next 2 years. NATO seems to be a steaming pile of uselessness.

What's the range, ~100 mi or ~180 mi?

2. The opinion comments:

The plight of the news business has gotten steadily worse over the past decade. Cable TV networks are shedding audience share at an alarming rate. Increasingly, they seemed to have forgotten who their audience even is. The hosts of “Morning Joe” visiting Mar-a-Lago was the sort of move, judging from the backlash, that is likely to increase its progressive audience’s flight from MSNBC. CNN, in its effort to be all things to all people, is also hemorrhaging viewers. Many national newspapers are losing subscribers (and hollowing out their coverage), and local media has been shriveling for years. (The Post’s decision not to endorse a presidential candidate unleashed an exodus of hundreds of thousands of readers who had expected a clarion voice in defense of democracy.)

It is not merely this shrinkage in conventional news consumption that should be alarming. The preponderance of voters who get no news whatsoever suggests the very notion of an “informed electorate” might become a thing of the past. 

ProPublica has pioneered an inventive partnership with local papers all over the country. ProPublica provides an enterprising investigative reporter with salary for a year plus the infrastructure necessary to report the story, including editors, research assistance and lawyers. 

Was the notion of an “informed electorate” ever more real than illusion? I doubt it, but that depends on how one defines the concept of “informed” in this context.  

Fighting against dark free speech: "Authoritarianism" propaganda wars

Propaganda tip #1

Key arguments that Trump and MAGA made and still make against basically the entire left are that (i) the left is radical and authoritarian, and by implication (ii) this alleged authoritarianism by the left justifies it by Trump and MAGA. False beliefs of allegedly radical left authoritarianism are deeply embedded in the authoritarian MAGA movement and also many or most conservatives outside of MAGA. At present, very few of those MAGA minds can be changed. Maybe that will change somewhat after radical right authoritarianism starts to take hold and bite.

 

A hypothetical example

Claim 1: Progressives need to remember that conservatives and especially social conservatives view the progressives as the authoritarians. When the employer or education establishment was forcing them to bend the knee to black lives matters, and same sex marriage, conservatives were viewing it as the heavy hand of the government. 

Response 1: One can argue that most MAGA people do not really understand what authoritarianism is or what democracy is. One can argue that a major factor is that decades of divisive, polarizing radical right authoritarian propaganda has deceived and manipulated tens of millions of Americans. Take this for example:

Q: Compare the seriousness and depth of authoritarianism in Trump, Project 2025 and the MAGA movement to the authoritarianism of progressives alleged by conservatives and other critics.

A: The comparison of authoritarianism between Trump/Project 2025/MAGA and progressives reveals significant differences in scope, intent, and potential impact.

Trump/Project 2025/MAGA Authoritarianism

Project 2025 and associated MAGA policies propose sweeping changes that would significantly expand executive power and reshape American governance. Consolidating presidential control over federal agencies, including independent ones like the DOJ and FBI. Reclassifying tens of thousands of civil servants as political appointees to replace them with loyalists. .... Imposing conservative Christian values in government and society. .... Weaponizing government agencies against political opponents. These proposals would fundamentally alter the balance of power in the U.S. government, potentially undermining democratic norms, civil liberties, and the rule of law.

Progressive Policies Criticized as Authoritarian

Conservative critics often label certain progressive policies as authoritarian, including:
Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, expanded social welfare programs, environmental regulations, gun control measures, and COVID-19 public health mandates.

However, these policies generally work within existing democratic and constitutional frameworks, rather than seeking to fundamentally restructure government power. They aim to address social issues through legislation and established governmental processes, not by concentrating power in the executive branch or dismantling core democratic institutions. (emphasis added)

Scope: Project 2025 proposes a comprehensive overhaul of government structure and function, while progressive policies typically focus on specific social or economic issues.

Institutional Impact: MAGA proposals seek to fundamentally alter the balance of power between branches of government, while progressive policies generally work within existing institutional structures.

Democratic Norms: Project 2025 explicitly challenges many longstanding democratic norms and institutions, whereas progressive policies, even when controversial, typically operate within established democratic processes.

Individual Rights: MAGA proposals include rolling back certain civil liberties and protections, particularly for marginalized groups, while progressive policies often aim to expand protections for these groups.

While both sides accuse each other of authoritarianism, the scale and nature of the changes proposed by Project 2025 and associated MAGA policies represent a more significant departure from traditional American governance and democratic norms than typical progressive policy proposals. (emphasis added)

Q2: Did the black lives matter movement hurt or kill conservatives?

A2: Based on the search results provided, there is no evidence that the Black Lives Matter movement directly hurt or killed conservatives. The search results do not contain any information about Black Lives Matter protesters physically harming or killing conservative individuals.

In other words, progressives are not significantly authoritarian. But the politics that most Trump supporters have embraced, at least by voting for him, are authoritarian. 

Claim 2: The homicide rate in the U.S. jumped 35% starting soon after the George Floyd video hit the media. There are estimates that there were more than 1,000 additional homicides of blacks due to the push to de-police and end incarceration. Also, traffic fatalities also jumped in that time due to ending of enforcement of traffic laws in many areas. Progressives increased crime while trying to hunt down the thought criminals on the rights.

Response 2: It is doubtful that there is solid evidence to support any of those assertions.  Here is some data that contradicts those implications and allegations:

Q: Are the following comments mostly true? The homicide rate in the U.S. jumped 35% starting soon after the George Floyd video hit the media. There are estimates that there were more than 1,000 additional homicides of blacks due to the push to de-police and end incarceration. Also, traffic fatalities also jumped in that time due to ending of enforcement of traffic laws in many areas. Progressives increased crime while trying to hunt down the thought criminals on the rights.

A: The comments contain some accurate points but also include exaggerations and unsupported claims.

The claim of a 35% jump in homicide rates soon after the George Floyd incident is not supported by the provided search results. While there was an increase in homicides during this period, the exact percentage and direct causation are not verified.

There is evidence supporting an increase in traffic fatalities coinciding with reduced traffic enforcement. Experts attribute this to bad driving habits that developed during the pandemic and reduced traffic enforcement.

The search results do not support claims about:
1. Specific numbers of additional homicides among Black individuals.
2. Direct causation between progressive policies and increased crime rates.
3. Motivations related to "hunting down thought criminals on the right."

These assertions appear to be opinions or speculations not backed by the provided information.

Q2: Did the bad driving habits that developed during the pandemic and reduced traffic enforcement occur only in areas that liberals or progressives controlled, or was the phenomenon more widespread and included rural areas and conservative-controlled areas?

A2: The phenomenon of bad driving habits and reduced traffic enforcement during the pandemic was widespread and not limited to areas controlled by liberals or progressives. .... In summary, the increase in bad driving habits and the decline in traffic enforcement were widespread issues affecting both urban and rural areas across the political spectrum, rather than being confined to liberal or progressive jurisdictions.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Note the serious asymmetry in dealing with false information and false beliefs. False allegations and implications are usually short and easy to assert. It is rarely backed up with links to data sources. Claim 1 = 48 words, but Response 1 = 484 words, with a link to the information sources. Claim 2 = 73 words, but Response 2 = 342 words, with a link to the information sources. 

In short, falsehoods, deceit via opacity and DFS (dark free speech) generally have a sedrious advantage in their power of persuasion compared to honest speech. They are short, emotion-provoking and almost completely devoid of cognitive dissonance due to inconvenient facts or reasoning. In short DFS is a lot more fun and easy than honest speech. 

In my firm opinion, DFS is the most potent and effective weapon that American radical right authoritarianism brings to bear against secular democracy, civil liberties, the rule of law, transparency in government and inconvenient facts, truths and sound reasoning.

Bluesky link

The drama unfolds: A mind awakens, but too late; Environment update; Rule of law update; Prediction comment

The US is ranked 26th at 0.70

By 1/11/26, it will be ~30th?

US News opinion:

Forget Matt Gaetz. 

Merrick Garland Is America’s Worst Attorney General.

His abject failure to hold Trump accountable doomed us

Let people debate whether President-elect Donald Trump’s headline-grabbing pick of former Florida GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz as his attorney general will be good, bad or really ugly. But there is no debate in my mind that President Joe Biden’s chief prosecutor, Merrick Garland, is already the biggest failure of an attorney general in our lifetimes.

We are where we are today because Garland failed spectacularly to act swiftly to hold Trump accountable for his illegal efforts to stay in power four years ago for inciting the violent Capitol insurrection that resulted in deaths, injuries, destruction of property and devastation to our democracy. By turning a blind eye to those crimes for as long as he could, Garland paved the way for the election of a disgraced felon who should not have been on the 2024 ballot. Thanks to Garland, Trump is storming back to the White House vowing revenge. 

Garland’s focus from Day One should have been to appoint a special counsel to investigate the former president for an insurrection that everyone saw him incite. Trump – still ginned up from the Jan. 6 violence – had just spoken at the conservative political gathering CPAC and hinted he would run again. Garland should have realized – as the rest of us did – that Trump was not going quietly into the night.  

Instead, Garland slow-rolled any Justice Department investigation, waiting nearly a year and a half after taking office before finally appointing veteran prosecutor Jack Smith as special counsel in November 2022 to probe Trump’s mishandling of classified materials and his incitement of the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Why did Garland wait? “Wariness about appearing partisan, institutional caution, and clashes over how much evidence was sufficient to investigate the actions of Trump and those around him all contributed to the slow pace,” The Washington Post reported.

The Justice Department didn’t even start investigating Trump in earnest until former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson’s June 2022 blockbuster testimony to the bipartisan House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection “jolted” Garland’s office into discussions, according to The New York Times.   

Garland helped normalize Trump. The longer the Justice Department stalled before investigating the former president, the more the GOP and the media embraced Trump as the Republican front-runner for 2024.

Finally, someone among the literati, or whatever they are, sees Garland the way I do. He is deeply corrupt and a traitor, pure and simple. I saw Garland's critical failure early on, in May 2021, as a matter of incompetence and timidity. But it wasn't until Sept. 2024 that I came to realize that Garland was neither incompetent nor timid. He was corrupt, complicit, treasonous, audacious and competent in destroying the rule of law and the DoJ. Garland did not fail to hold DJT accountable. He refused.

Well, now it's too late to do squat. Garland greatly helped DJT get back in power. He was arguably necessary for that. Sadly, there will be no accountability or penalty for him and his treasonous betrayal of the rule of law. 

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The Verge:

Donald Trump’s pick for energy secretary says 

‘there is no climate crisis’

President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Energy is fossil fuel executive Chris Wright — who has misleadingly claimed on LinkedIn that “there is no climate crisis, and we’re not in the midst of an energy transition either.”

Wright is a staunch evangelist for fossil fuels who consistently rejects mainstream climate science. .... Wright is the CEO of Liberty Energy, a major oil and gas service provider that launched during America’s fracking boom more than a decade ago. Around 10 percent of total US primary energy production comes from wells fracked by Liberty, according to the company.

In a video posted by the right-wing think tank Heritage Foundation last year, Wright refers to “irrationally restrictive policies against the production of oil and natural gas” that “do nothing to change the demand for oil and natural gas,” he claims. “Our business today is the most profitable it’s ever been. As I say, I’m one of those people needlessly enriched by [the] bad energy policy environment we live in today. I don’t celebrate that. In fact, I adamantly oppose it.”

Trump campaigned on a Republican platform that says simply, “We will DRILL, BABY, DRILL.”

Keep your eye on the propaganda: Notice that Wright saying there is no “climate crisis”  and regulations “do nothing to change the demand for oil and natural gas” is subtle, powerful radical right authoritarian propaganda. That dark rhetoric is designed to distract from inconvenient facts that (i) global warming is real, (ii) most Americans are concerned about it and want to do something  about it, and (iii) there is demand for clean energy, but it is not yet available, in large part because people like Trump, Wright and the GOP vehemently oppose environmental regulations. In other words, Wright’s rhetoric is a pack of cynical, sophisticated misdirection intended to deceive the public to keep the profits flowing to elite authoritarians.

Serious erosion of environmental regulations by Trump was predictable, so I predicted it, accurately so far (“The Environmental Protection Agency will be gutted and neutered by then [11/1/26]. International climate agreements will be terminated.”)

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The New Republic:

It looks like the guy who has made it perfectly clear he doesn’t care about federal law is violating federal law. Oh, and also he’s about to be the president of the United States.

Donald Trump and his campaign are currently in violation of the Presidential Transition Act, a federal law that coordinates and funds the transition of power from one administration to the next.

The PTA has a few components that must be submitted by the Trump campaign—and so far, the president-elect’s team hasn’t handed over a single one.

Trump has yet to submit a Memo of Understanding to the General Services Administration, which would theoretically articulate an ethics policy pledging not to hire individuals with conflicts of interest to assist with its transition. The document would provide $7.2 million to fund Trump’s transition, and was due at the beginning of October.

It’s become increasingly clear the president-elect has no intention to submit one. That’s possibly because the PTA also requires candidates to disclose all of their private donors, and places a $5,000 cap on individual donations to the transition.

Trump has also failed to submit security clearance requests for members of his administration, with each appointment more disturbing than the last.

Last week, the Department of Justice said that it was ready to “process requests for security clearances for those who will need access to national security information.” Trump’s top advisers have previously suggested that the president-elect hand out security clearances without FBI vetting.

Further erosion of the rule of law by Trump was predictable, so I predicted it, accurately so far. 

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In retrospect - it’s not prescience, it’s common sense

Looking back on my predictions, there’s not much prescience in them. Honestly. Trump is just (1) continuing to do the things he clumsily tried to do the last time he was in power, and (2) repeatedly told us he would do it again before the 2024 elections. It’s not a mostly matter of predicting the future. It is mostly a matter of knowing what Trump did and listening to him saying he will do it again. But this time he will do it again with less clumsiness and more ferocity. 

Q: Do predictions of future actions and outcomes based on solid evidence of (i) current political circumstances, and (ii) Trump’s past behavior and intent constitute, mostly prescience/intelligence or mostly old-fashioned common sense?

Bluesky post

Chronicling the drama: Authoritarianism undeniably rising

There's no point in getting upset or mad. Some fear is now officially warranted. Power is literally flowing from government and the public interest to authoritarian special interests. What we are witnessing is a fascinating human story of what will likely be of truly epic proportions. Well, at least to me it is fascinating. The power flow looks likely to be huge. 

Law & Crime: ‘Despicable in their falsity’: Trump threatens to sue New York Times and Penguin Random House for $10 billion for ‘false and defamatory statements’ -- “There was a time, long ago, when the New York Times was considered the ‘newspaper of record,’” a letter reads from Trump’s attorney, Edward Andrew Paltzik, to Penguin Random House and the Times, which was reviewed and first reported by Columbia Journalism Review on Thursday. 

“Those halcyon days have passed,” the letter says, blasting the Times as a “full-throated mouthpiece of the Democratic Party” that employs “industrial-scale libel against political opponents,” per CJR.

The newspaper reportedly had “every intention of defaming and disparaging the world-renowned Trump brand that consumers have long associated with excellence, luxury, and success in entertainment, hospitality, and real estate, among many other industries, as well as falsely and maliciously defaming and disparaging him as a candidate for the highest office in the United States,” the letter asserts.

NPR: Accused of violating worker rights, SpaceX and Amazon go after labor board -- Now, SpaceX and Amazon are at the forefront of a corporate-led effort to monumentally change the labor agency. On Monday, attorneys for the two companies will try to convince a panel of judges at the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that the labor agency, created by Congress in 1935, is unconstitutional. Their lawsuits are among more than two dozen challenges brought by companies who say the NLRB's structure gives it unchecked power to shape and enforce labor law. A ruling in favor of the companies could make it much harder for workers to form unions and take collective action in pursuit of better wages and working conditions.

My 11/14/24 prediction: 7. Whatever else I am unable to conjure right now. (Update 11/14/24: I forgot, the CFPB and NLRB will be mostly neutered so that consumer and worker protections can be eroded without much or any government pushback)

Creepier and scarier than those nasty little nuggets are two truly ominous items. One is a dystopian view that what is happening with the flow of power from government and the public interest to special interests is an inevitable evolution of a system that is too powerful for any government to control. That is an essay in Off Guardian, A Tale of Two PSYOPS, by CJ Hopkins. I'll get back to that. The other is this scary reporting from just a couple of outlets:

Anti-NGO Bill Would Give Trump Administration 

“Frightening New Powers”

Anti-NGO bill H.R. 9495 would grant President-Elect Trump and his handpicked Secretary of Treasury unilateral power to investigate and effectively shut down any tax-exempt organization including news outlets, universities and civil liberties organizations based on a unilateral accusation of wrongdoing.

Ahead of an upcoming Congressional vote on the bill, Public Citizen Co-President Lisa Gilbert released the following statement:

“This bill gives the Treasury Department broad power to designate groups as ‘terrorist supporting’ in order to shut them down, a dangerous power with few standards or guardrails that is an invitation to abuse,” said Gilbert. “H.R. 9495 would give the Trump administration – and any administration – frightening new powers to suppress nonprofit opponents.”

Think about that. An enraged, vengeful, thin skinned DJT would have the power to shut down political opposition groups, calling them supporters of terrorists. 

Regarding the Off Guardian essay, I have seen this power flow argument several times in recent years but ignored it as too extremist and unlikely. Now in view of what is happening in real time, this argument seems much less farfetched.

A Tale of Two PSYOPS

CJ Hopkins

The global-capitalist empire is not a cabal of powerful individuals. It is a system. And that system is evolving. Metamorphosing. Transmogrifying. Evolving into a new form of totalitarianism. [comment: I would use the term authoritarianism, at least for now] A global-capitalist form of totalitarianism.

It is the system, and not its servants, that is driving … driving this systemic evolution. It makes no difference whether Elon Musk, or Donald Trump, or Macron, or Starmer, or Netanyahu, or Gates, or Bezos, or Soros, or any other political “leader” or powerful figure knows what they are doing. They serve the system, as the system requires, each according to their specific role and scope of action within the system.

Elon Musk did not “save free speech” or “rescue Twitter” from a “Woke Mind Virus.” He purchased a corporation and rebranded its product for new market demographic. In so doing, he corralled and neutralized most of the conservative populist resistance to the evolution of the global-capitalist system … which is what the system needed to happen. It makes no difference whether Elon Musk understood his role. He played it perfectly. He is continuing to play it perfectly.

The Musk Cult is growing. Its apostles are preaching the Gospel of Elon throughout the empire, paving the road to The Privatization of Everything! Verily, it is the dawn of a golden age of “Freedom” ruled by global corporations and beneficent oligarchs!

But I don’t think I can make it any simpler. And I don’t see any way to stop it or fix it. It isn’t an error to be corrected. It is the organic evolution of a system … a supranational system evolving into a new totalitarian form.

So, there you have it, a tale of two PSYOPS. I’m sorry that it isn’t as comforting as a story about how Donald Trump and Elon Musk and their global-capitalist investors, and their subsidiaries, agents, and assigns, are going to “make America great again.”  

If it’s any consolation, one thing is certain … whatever happens, it won’t be boring.

I think that something along this line could be happening. In the past few years, I recall a few who wrote about something more or less like an authoritarian global-capitalist empire the article talks about. I dismissed it as very unlikely. Now I'm not at all sure about that. 

I have been deeply concerned about the out of control power of US corporations leading to some form of brass knuckles capitalist plutocracy as part of the shift of power I see flowing from government and the public interest to special interests. I do not know how to integrate that ruthless force with old-fashioned kleptocratic autocracy with DJT as the dictator for life or the ferocious Christian nationalist theocratic movement. Trump will fight for supremacy and all the power he can get. But so will brass knuckles capitalism and Christian nationalism.

I do believe that Hopkins is right to say that whatever happens, it won’t be boring. As far as I am concerned the radical right authoritarian social engineering is underway. It is already fascinating, i.e., not boring, not even a little. 

The flow of power to authoritarianism is starting to look unstoppable. Senate Republicans constitute one of our last lines of defense. Most of them are already signaling to Trump that they will not stand in his way. The US supreme court has already shown that, other than some window dressing and fig leaves, it will not stand in his way. The House will not stand in the way. Trump has said he will purge US military generals who stand in his way. 

So, who is left to defend us and our democracy? 

Q: As usual, is Germaine unmedicated crazy, off his meds crazy or otherwise chock full of baloney to argue that a major power flow is underway and its is empowering American radical right authoritarianism at the expense of democracy and the public interest?

Bluesky link

Bluesky update

I finally figured out how to find and copy a link to my posts there. 

https://bsky.app/profile/germaine2.bsky.social/post/3lbaaxlndkc25 

And, I think I've figured out how to embed my posts there.

Masha Gessen asserts that the election turned out like it did in part because liberal democracy offers moral constraints without problem-solving. But populism offers problem-solving without moral constraints. Trump promises you don’t have to think about others. dispol.blogspot.com/2024/11/post...

[image or embed]

— Rational Politics (@germaine2.bsky.social) November 18, 2024 at 7:40 AM

I'm making progress! Sort of.

Various thoughts

All I can do now is watch and comment on the unfolding drama. Will it be a midnight trainwreck, delicately lit by many smelly dumpster fires? Or, will it be peace, prosperity and happiness upon the land (excluding Gaza and Ukraine of course)? 

The human psychology of politics and the economy

Politico: Republicans suddenly think the economy’s great and the election wasn’t rigged -- Less than two weeks since Donald Trump’s victory, consumer sentiment in the Republican Party has skyrocketed. Democrats, meanwhile, are despondent. Elections? Suddenly Republicans are on board with the reality that they’re secure. House Speaker Mike Johnson said he saw no evidence of fraud in the 2024 campaign. And the media landscape? Viewership of Fox News has surged since Trump’s win despite his harsh criticism of the network in the run up to Nov. 5.

Well, he said he was gonna do it

Are the Dreamers hosed?

The Wash. Examiner: Trump confirms plans to declare national emergency to implement mass deportation program -- President-elect Donald Trump confirmed on Truth Social early Monday morning that his incoming administration will declare a national emergency and use military resources to implement a mass deportation of illegal immigrants. The confirmation was made in response to an earlier post by Tom Fitton, journalist and president of Judicial Watch. .... “President Trump’s been clear; public safety threats and national security threats will be the priority because they have to be. They pose the most danger to this country,” Homan said.

Well, he said he was gonna do it

Is that a smelly dumpster being rolled into position before being lit on fire? 

The Guardian: Gaetz pick raises fears that Trump will seek ‘retribution’ on political foes --
With president-elect likely to use DoJ to crush enemies, only hope lies in staffers refusing to carry out illegal orders. Above all, the choice of Gaetz underscores the premium Trump places on selecting a loyalist who can help him expand his powers at the DoJ to further his revenge agenda, and avoid the conflicts Trump had at times with Jeff Sessions and Bill Barr when they were attorneys general in his first administration.

Project 2025

I'm not dead yet!

ars Technica: Trump’s likely FCC chair wrote Project 2025 chapter on how he’d run the agency -- Brendan Carr wants to preserve data caps, punish NBC, and give money to SpaceX. If Trump makes Carr the next FCC chairman after his inauguration, the FCC is likely to ditch consumer protection initiatives, like a recently announced inquiry into data caps, and attempt to regulate Big Tech companies while reducing regulation of Internet service providers. That could include forcing Big Tech companies to pay into a fund that subsidizes ISPs' broadband network construction. A Carr-led FCC could also try to punish news organizations that are perceived to be anti-Trump. Just before the election, Carr alleged that NBC putting Kamala Harris on Saturday Night Live was "a clear and blatant effort to evade the FCC's Equal Time rule," and that the FCC should consider issuing penalties. Despite Carr's claim, NBC did provide equal time to the Trump campaign. (Trump sure doesn't let facts get in the way) 

I'm NOT a Nazi!

Salon: "Makes us look like Nazis": Trump allies asked to stop talking about mass deportation "camps" -- The president-elect's advisers worry about how the word "camp" plays as they plot mass deportation schemes. Donald Trump’s allies have been told to stop saying the quiet part out loud. Rolling Stone reports that MAGA associates have been asked to stop using the word “camps” to describe potential facilities that would be used to house people rounded up in a massive deportation operation.

From the new Bluesky subreddit:

About Bluesky

The NYT writes (not paywalled):

How Bluesky, Alternative to X and Facebook, 

Is Handling Explosive Growth

Jay Graber 

Bluesky’s chief executive

Over the past week, Bluesky’s growth has exploded, more than doubling to 15 million-plus users as people seek alternatives to X, Facebook and Threads. It has rocketed to the top of Apple’s and Google’s app stores as the most downloaded free app. Its ascent has been so rapid that the company has been forced to grow up practically overnight.

Bluesky’s 20 full-time employees have been working around the clock to deal with the issues that come with hyper-growth: site outages, glitches in the code and content moderation issues. Most importantly, they have been trying to keep early users happy as new members have flooded in.

From its beginning, Bluesky aimed to separate itself from other social media. The project grew out of an idea from Jack Dorsey, a founder of Twitter, who said he hoped to build a “decentralized” social network.

That meant building the app with an “open protocol,” which keeps the social network’s power and decision making out of the hands of any one company or group of people. Mr. Dorsey called the project “Bluesky,” and it eventually became a public benefit corporation, a type of for-profit company that aims to have a positive impact on society rather than focus on maximizing shareholder value.

Bluesky was initially financed with a grant from Twitter under Mr. Dorsey; Mr. Musk cut ties with the Bluesky team after he bought Twitter. Bluesky later raised more than $23 million in two rounds of venture funding from private investors.

With Bluesky, “you’re no longer tied to a dominant algorithm that promotes either the most polarizing posts and/or the biggest brands,” Rose Wang, Bluesky’s chief operating officer, said in a recent video explaining the site to new users. She added, “It’s built by the people, for the people.”

Rose Wang, COO

We'll see how this plays out. Bluesky is still a pipsqueak.

Update: The Bluesky experiment is underway

Welp, I made my 1st post of substance on Bluesky. I linked it to my post here on authoritarianism. I switched my name from Germaine2 to Rational Politics. 

I tried to set up a feed called Rational Politics, but I'm unsure about how it works, or even if it works. That will turn out to be a work in progress, assuming I can ever figure it out. My son had to come over to help me get set up just to find the button to write a post. He intuitively understood immediately how to navigate Bluesky. But to me social media is strange and counterintuitive. 

The 300  character post limit was not as bad as I originally assumed. I'll just post a couple of sentences there and add a link to posts here. 

Now I need to figure out RegEx (regular expression) syntax to set up my feed parameters, whatever that means. RegEx is scary. 

A RegEx cheat sheet.

I've still got a lot to learn. I think I need to figure out "or", "and/or" and "and" to get set up. 

I have no idea about how this experiment will play out. I truly do not know what I am doing.

Well well, I ain't alone in the woods...........

 I have said similar myself, but leave it to John Fetterman to say it better..............

Sen. John Fetterman says Democrats can't get 'freaked out' over every move Trump makes

WASHINGTON - Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. John Fetterman warned his fellow party members in an interview that they can’t get “freaked out” over every move that President-elect Donald Trump makes. 

His remarks in the interview came after Trump tapped former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., as attorney general, prompting backlash and skepticism from Democrats and some Republicans. Gaetz was under investigation by the House Ethics Committee for sexual misconduct. After his resignation from Congress earlier this week, Democrats and Republicans have sparred over whether the committee should release its report on him. 

“If you’re already exhausted, freaking out, and it’s not even Thanksgiving, then you really ought to pace yourselves,” Fetterman told NBC News on Friday. “Because he hasn’t even been inaugurated yet.”

“So you really have to chill out, and you’re going to have to be more discerning or discriminate on what’s going to freak you out or what’s just trolling. Because it’s not the weather, it’s the climate now for the next four years,” he added.

Fetterman stands apart from many of his more progressive Democratic colleagues as a strong supporter of Israel and tougher border restrictions. He has clashed with progressive members including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. 

In the interview, Fetterman said that Democrats scolding Republicans “louder” isn’t going to be a winning strategy under a Trump administration.

“It’s like he’s the guy with the laser pointer, and we’re going to be the cat chasing around here or there. ‘He did that. Can you believe (it)? I can’t believe he appointed so and so.’ And like, I’m not going to be that. I’m not that guy. I’m not that Democrat. Because we knew that’s what’s going to happen,” he said.

“And, like, Gaetz was the ultimate troll. That’s got to be candy for him to have and watch everybody get triggered. I’ve said this before, it’s like, clutch those pearls harder and scold louder, that’s not going to win. And that’s been demonstrated in this cycle,” he said.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/11/16/john-fetterman-democrats-calm-down/76362222007/

It’s like he’s the guy with the laser pointer, and we’re going to be the cat chasing around here or there.

I get where Fetterman is coming from. Think the Dems might listen?  

Injustice: The future of American "justice"

What will come next is nicely summed up here. American injustice is coming to us all. This is just a friendly reminder. I did predict that for the elites and others who tow the authoritarian line, the rule of law would become crumble into not much of anything. We've already been there and done that. It was so much fun, we're gonna go there and do it again. He did 237 pardons and commutations from 2017 to 2021. This time I bet it will be a huge initial blast to pardon the 1/6 traitors, and maybe a slew of others, followed by not a lot more because the DoJ will have been shut down except for political enemies, critics and the like, none of whom will get a pardon or commutation. 

Search All Pardons and Commutations

August 25, 2017 | March 9, 2018 | April 13, 2018 | May 24, 2018  | May 31, 2018 | July 10, 2018 | May 6, 2019 | May 15, 2019 

July 29, 2019 | October 10, 2019 | November 15, 2019 | February 18, 2020 | August 18, 2020 | August 25, 2020 | August 28, 2020 | November 25, 2020 | December 22, 2020 | December 23, 2020 | January 13, 2021 | January 19, 2021 | January 20, 2021

Rational politics: A Mission Statement

I need a short mission statement for a Rational Politics feed on Bluesky. What do you think about this?

Rational politics. There is a vision of democracy that is public interest-centered, honest, and reasonably transparent. That brand of politics can be less ideological and less dominated by special interests. It can be more rational, evidence-based, transparent and inclusive than what the two main parties and third parties offer. Public-interest-centered democracy can reasonably accommodate both the public interest and special interest needs by balancing conflicting goals. A search for reasonable compromise policies is possible and necessary. Public opinion has to have reasonable influence and power relative to America's current political situation. This vision of democracy has to stand in steadfast opposition to the opacity, special interest power, corruption, ideological fantasies and self-dealing that permeates the main parties. Special interests include the Democratic and Republican parties themselves. 

Word count: 126

Suggestions? Is it too wordy, wonky or corny? Not specific enough? Too specific? Appealing as seriously overcooked broccoli? Mention morals, if so which ones, facts, true truths and sound reasoning?

Post election analyses: A second narrative about what just happened

A NYT opinion by Masha Gessen, a Russian reporter who witnessed the fall of Russian democracy to Putin, offers her narrative (not paywalled). I've quoted Gessen's Nov. 2016 warning about DJT here several times, maybe many. But here it is again:

“Thank you, my friends. Thank you. Thank you. We have lost. We have lost, and this is the last day of my political career, so I will say what must be said. We are standing at the edge of the abyss. Our political system, our society, our country itself are in greater danger than at any time in the last century and a half. The president-elect has made his intentions clear, and it would be immoral to pretend otherwise. We must band together right now to defend the laws, the institutions, and the ideals on which our country is based.” 

That, or something like that, is what Hillary Clinton should have said on Wednesday [in her concession speech to Trump].

I find this analysis appealing because it directly raises the question of morality and values. Gessen's analysis:

For those bewildered by why so many Americans apparently voted against the values of liberal democracy, Balint Magyar has a useful formulation. “Liberal democracy,” he says, “offers moral constraints without problem-solving” — a lot of rules, not a lot of change — while “populism offers problem-solving without moral constraints.” Magyar, a scholar of autocracy, isn’t interested in calling Donald Trump a fascist. He sees the president-elect’s appeal in terms of something more primal: “Trump promises that you don’t have to think about other people.”

Around the world, populist autocrats have leveraged the thrilling power of that promise to transform their countries into vehicles for their own singular will. Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orban vowed to restore a simpler, more orderly past, in which men were men and in charge. What they delivered was permission to abandon societal inhibitions, to amplify the grievances of one’s own group and heap hate on assorted others, particularly on groups that cannot speak up for themselves. Magyar calls this “morally unconstrained collective egoism.”

Trump’s first term, and his actions in the four years since, tracked the early record of Putin and Orban in important ways. Looking closely at their trajectories, through the lens of Magyar’s theories, gives a chillingly clear sense of where Trump’s second term may lead.

Magyar is Hungarian, and has extensively studied the autocracy of Orban. Like Trump, Orban had been cast out of office (in 2002, in a vote his supporters said had been fraudulent); he didn’t regain power until eight years later. In the interim, he consolidated his movement, positioning himself and his party as the only true representatives of the Hungarian people. It followed that the sitting government was illegitimate and that anyone who supported it was not part of the nation. When Orban was re-elected, he carried out what Magyar calls an “autocratic breakthrough,” changing laws and practices so that he could not be dislodged again. It helped that he had a supermajority in parliament. Trump, similarly, spent four years attacking the Biden administration, and the vote that brought it to the White House, as fraudulent, and positioning himself as the only true voice of the people. He is also returning with a power trifecta — the presidency and both houses of Congress. He too can quickly reshape American government in his image.

Trump and his supporters have shown tremendous hostility to civic institutions — the judiciary, the media, universities, many nonprofits, some religious groups — that seek to define and enforce our obligations to one another. Autocrats such as Orban and Putin reject that deliberative process, claiming for themselves the exclusive right to define those obligations. If those two leaders, and Trump’s own first term, are any indication, he will likely begin by getting rid of experts, regulators and other civil servants he sees as superfluous, eliminating jobs that he thinks simply shouldn’t exist. Expect asylum officers to be high on that list.

A major target outside of government will be universities. In Hungary, the Central European University, a pioneering research and educational institution (and Magyar’s academic home), was forced into exile. To understand what can happen to public universities in the United States, look at Florida, where the administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis has effectively turned the state university system into a highly policed arm of his government.

Civil society groups — especially those that serve or advocate for immigrants, formerly incarcerated people, L.G.B.T.Q. people, women and vulnerable groups — will be attacked. Then they may come for the unions.

In an Opinion article in The Washington Post, the publisher of The Times, A.G. Sulzberger, laid out some probable scenarios for a Trump administration’s war on the media. I would add that, like Orban — and like the first Trump administration — this president will reward loyal media with privileged access and will attack critical media by targeting its owners’ other businesses. That is a particularly effective tactic, one that we may have seen at work even before Trump was re-elected, when the billionaire owners of The Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post decided to nix their publications’ presidential endorsements. (Explaining their decision, the owners cited reasons not related to deference to Trump.)

I am going to go way out on a limb and say that along with high levels of discontent with our opaque, two-party, pay-to-play system, there is a lot of hunger for a stronger sense of morality that can at least partly bind liberals, conservatives and other kinds of non-authoritarians together. In my opinion, that moral hunger is important to be mindful and respectful about. The trick is figuring out how to appeal to it and make it grow.

Post election analyses: One narrative about what just happened

Dozens of narratives about what just happened and why are floating around out there. Many more will probably be forthcoming. The narratives from radical right authoritarians, self-professed MAGA “conservatives” are quite different from those coming from non-MAGAlandia. I plan to post at least two non-MAGAland narratives to give people a sense of the kind of thinking that is going on outside MAGAlandia. This one is by Ben Rhodes, formerly in the Obama administration. Tomorrow I'll post Masha Gessen's narrative. 

In a NYT opinion Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser to Barack Obama, offers his take on the election (not paywalled):

[In 2019] I met with a [Hong Kong pro-democracy] government official preparing to resign and told him I was writing a book about the rise of authoritarian nationalism. “The nationalism in the U.S. and Europe is somewhat different,” he told me. “Yours started with the financial crisis in 2008. That’s when liberalism started to lose its appeal, when people saw this wasn’t working. The narrative of liberalism and democracy collapsed. This spilled over into China, too. This is when China started to think — should we really follow a Western model?” We were sitting in a hotel lounge, the invisible forces he described surrounding us: capitalism, but not democracy; cultural elites cloistered away from the working class. “The nationalist movements in East and West were both a response to the collapse of the Western model,” he added.

Everything I’d experienced told me he was right. Eight years serving in the Obama White House after the financial crisis felt like swimming upstream, against the currents of global politics. A radicalized Republican Party rejected liberal democracy at home, mirroring far-right leaders like Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary who spoke about installing “illiberal democracy” (a polite term for “blood and soil” nationalism) across Europe. In Russia, Vladimir Putin set out to undermine — if not dismantle — the liberal order helmed by the United States. In China, Xi Jinping began to shift Beijing’s strategy from rising within that order to building a separate one, drained of democratic values.

In the West, neoliberalism — that blend of free trade, deregulation and deference to financial markets — hollowed out communities while enriching a global oligarchy. Meanwhile, a homogenized and often crass popular culture eroded traditional national and religious identities. After 9/11, the war on terror was embraced by autocrats such as Mr. Putin, who used it as a frame to justify power grabs while forever wars fueled mass migration. The financial crisis came through like a hurricane, wrecking the lives of people already struggling to get by while the rich profited on the back end. Then social media’s explosion offered a vehicle to spread grievance and conspiracy theories, allowing populist leaders to radicalize their followers with the precision of an algorithm.  

The playbook for transforming a democracy into a soft autocracy was clear: Win power with a populist message against elites. Redraw parliamentary districts. Change voting laws. Harass civil society. Pack courts with judges willing to support power grabs. Enrich cronies through corruption. Buy up newspapers and television stations and turn them into right-wing propaganda. Use social media to energize supporters. Wrap it up in an Us versus Them message: Us, the “real” Russians or Hungarians or Americans, against a rotating cast of Them: the migrants, the Muslims, the liberals, the gays, George Soros and on and on.  

Yet now Mr. Trump has decisively won back the presidency. I would never claim to have all the answers about what went wrong, but I do worry that Democrats walked into the trap of defending the very institutions — the “establishment” — that most Americans distrust. As a party interested in competent technocracy, we lost touch with the anger people feel at government.  

Yes, this is unfair: Republican policies from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush did far more than Democrats to create this mess. But Mr. Trump’s crusade against the past elites of his own party — from the Bush family to Mitch McConnell — credentialed him with a public hungry for accountability, while the Harris campaign’s embrace of Dick Cheney conveyed the opposite message.  

Donald Trump has won the presidency, but I don’t believe he will deliver on his promises. Like other self-interested autocrats, his remedies are designed to exploit problems instead of solving them, and he’s surrounded by oligarchs who want to loot the system instead of reforming it.  

Out of the wreckage of this election, Democrats must reject the impulse to simply be a resistance that condemns whatever outrageous thing Mr. Trump says. While confronting Mr. Trump when we must, we must also focus on ourselves — what we stand for, and how we tell our story. That means acknowledging — as my Hong Kong interlocutor said — that “the narrative of liberalism and democracy collapsed.” Instead of defending a system that has been rejected, we need to articulate an alternative vision for what kind of democracy comes next. 

The idea that the narrative of liberalism and democracy collapsed strikes me as having a lot of truth in it. The idea that a Chinese official in Hong Kong watching the collapse of democracy there makes sense. Maybe his US outsider position made it easier to see what probably most Americans cannot easily accept. Worse, the forces arguing for liberalism and democracy are themselves significantly undermined by special interest power and wealth, which in my opinion are inherently authoritarian and inherently pro-corruption.

The question Rhodes raises is this: What are the alternative visions for what kind of democracy comes next? I’d like to think it is a tolerant democracy that is at least modestly more uncoupled from left-right politics and more honestly focused on serving the public interest in a different mental framework (pragmatic rationalism maybe?). But we have to deal with the poisonous power of dark free speech and toxic social media, and the unshakable false realities they create. It’s not clear to me that a new vision can compete and win against that monstrosity. I think MAGA will probably have to implode on its own before a new vision of democracy has a chance to regain its footing.