Etiquette



DP Etiquette

First rule: Don't be a jackass.

Other rules: Do not attack or insult people you disagree with. Engage with facts, logic and beliefs. Out of respect for others, please provide some sources for the facts and truths you rely on if you are asked for that. If emotion is getting out of hand, get it back in hand. To limit dehumanizing people, don't call people or whole groups of people disrespectful names, e.g., stupid, dumb or liar. Insulting people is counterproductive to rational discussion. Insult makes people angry and defensive. All points of view are welcome, right, center, left and elsewhere. Just disagree, but don't be belligerent or reject inconvenient facts, truths or defensible reasoning.

Sunday, May 11, 2025

Blog note; MAGA's 2026 election subversion update; Initial thoughts about single-party rule

Blog note: Since mid-March, a number of people have commented that Disqus comments are not loading well or at all. I raised this issue with the Disqus. Maybe this is something unique to this blog or maybe it is something systemic. My concern, maybe baseless paranoia, is that MAGA is out to shut me up, either through Google and Blogger or Disqus, both, or any other means of tyrant fuckery that MAGA monsters can dream up. I see no other blogs or other politics or news sites that does news like I do. From what I can tell, the content here is at least as threatening to MAGA relative to what I have seen anywhere else.

Q: Regarding my fear of MAGA interference or suppression, am I being, rationally paranoid, irrationally paranoid, just plain nutz, or something else?
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A Common Dreams opinion: “The GOP Is Already Planning to Win the Midterms... by Suppressing Your Vote! -- The party is taking no chances on the upcoming plebiscite and has hatched a plan to rig all future federal elections with the goal of transforming the United States into a one-party state. At the center of the plan is the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, passed on April 10 by the House and pending before the Senate, and an executive order issued by President Donald Trump on March 25 with the Orwellian title of “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections.” And looming in the background, with the final word on either measure’s constitutionality, is the Supreme Court, packed with three Trump appointees and holding a long and sorry record of hostility to voting rights.”

The opinion points out that the SAVE Act requires everyone to provide a birth certificate, passport, or some other documentary proof of citizenship in person every time they register or re-register to vote. It also (1) requires each state to take steps to ensure that only US citizens are registered to vote; and (2) creates a private right of action that allows disgruntled asshats to sue election officials who register voters without obtaining proof of citizenship. That crime carries penalties of up to five years in prison for election officials who violate the act.

Data from a survey conducted by the Brennan Center indicates that more than 9% of American voting-age citizens, or 21.3 million people, don’t have a passport, birth certificate, naturalization papers, or other proof of citizenship readily available. “Voters of color, voters who change their names (most notably, married women), and younger voters would be most significantly affected,” according to the Brennan Center.

After about 17 years of fiddling, diddling, piddling and procrastinating, lots of people, are finally urgently scrambling* to get a real ID to get on an airplane. Just imagine. Voter registration procrastination is going to be far worse. Why? Because there is far less to personally lose than the cost of an airplane ticket by not voting.

* Some even have the galling gall to whine about long lines at the DMV to get their Real ID driver’s license. Un-fracking-believable. Well, it actually is fracking-believable. ☹️

Q: Now, can you see why I am a huge fan of mandatory voting in the US? 

(IMFO, it’s a last line of defense of democracy, honest, competent governance, civil liberties, the rule of law, etc.)
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Until recently, the major kleptocrat authoritarian forces at play in US politics seemed to me to be (1) kleptocratic dictatorship with djt as the tyrant, (2) big corporations and vastly wealthy people as kleptocratic plutocrats, and (3) rabid Christian nationalist fundamentalists as kleptocratic theocrats, with significant overlap among (i) those in 1 and 2, and (ii) those in 2 and 3. 

Another form of authoritarianism that seemed less likely to be seriously vying for power was kleptocratic MAGA Republicans wanting to turn the US into a single-party ruled state, which overlaps with 1, 2 and 3. Now, I’m not so sure about that. Not sure at all. Reporting like that in the Common Dreams opinion discussed above make it look like establishing the Republican Party as America's permanent, overwhelmingly dominant party. I asked Pxy about this.
Q: Analyze the threat of existing evidence of MAGA's intent to convert the US into a single-party state. Integrate evidence from Project 2025, Trump's and MAGA elite's rhetoric and policy choices, and whatever else is reliable and relevant. 

B: .... long analysis ....

Conclusion: A Crossroads for Democracy
The MAGA movement’s agenda constitutes the most severe threat to American pluralism since the Civil War. By merging Project 2025’s bureaucratic takeover, Agenda 47’s executive power grabs, and systemic voter suppression, Trump-aligned forces aim to create a de facto one-party state. This project’s success hinges on November’s election outcomes, Senate procedural rules, and the Supreme Court’s willingness to check authoritarian overreach.
Q: Is it time to add a fourth serious contender for kleptocratic American tyranny to the list, namely single party rule by the Republican Party?