Maybe it should not be, but it is surprising at how many people and groups are willing to go along with and openly support the collapse of American democracy, rule of law and civil liberties. That is rapidly being replaced with form of a morally rotted, autocratic-theocratic-plutocratic kleptocracy. Corrupt authoritarian conversion is broad and deep in US society, government and law.
Anti-democracy and anti-rule of law attacks are now openly coming from almost all major wealth and power sources. In particular, the MAGA Republican USSC has protected and empowered djt to rise to corrupt, incompetent, racist dictator status. Those six authoritarian MAGA judges defend a Trump dictatorship-kleptocracy as a "constitutional unitary executive."
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The Verge (and others) report and comment about the recent USSC decision in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton. In that case, the USSC obliterated decades of precedent and upheld a Texas law imposing age-verification for websites with more than 33% of sexually explicit content. That arguably would not be such a bad thing except for one gigantic problem. The MAGA elites and djt who now run the US are morally rotted, vindictive, kleptocratic authoritarians. That is a real problem. Once a website gets your proof of age info, you are sucked into the gigantic surveillance machine that MAGA elites are building right now.
Three points:
- The Court applied intermediate scrutiny, not strict scrutiny, to uphold age verification as a "necessary component" for shielding minors from obscenity, marking a departure from precedents like Ashcroft v. ACLU that protected adult speech. This amounts to a new "pornography exception" to the First Amendment. As we all know, MAGA will not stop with this attack on free speech. This is just the beginning.
- Mandatory age verification using government IDs or third-party checks obviously creates data breach and surveillance risks. Given MAGA's hate of target groups, especially ones that God hates, this will endanger marginalized groups, especially racial minorities and the LGBTQ+ community. Educational sources and sex education will be misclassified as "harmful to minors" under vague criteria.
- 24 states have enacted similar laws. This USSC ruling normalizes age-verification mandates across the internet. That empowers authoritarian state governments to cite child safety to justify broader speech restrictions.
Peanut 1: MAGA elites care way too much about what you do with your genitals, and they will ruin your life over it. It's not like showing an ID to buy beer or liquor. Nobody cares about that.
Peanut 2: All that needs to happen is for these porn sites to be hacked and the viewing habits of politicians to be revealed. Then, and only then, will there be a push by politicians to preserve privacy on the internet.
Peanut 3: A known sexual predator is currently the President of the US. I'm pretty sure the days of sex scandals ending careers are over.
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An opinion that AlterNet (and others) published focuses on the deep surveillance infrastructure that djt and MAGA elites are building to enable aggressive, intrusive spying on all Americans and what they do and say. AlterNet writes (shortened and edited):
Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency .... has made significant progress in achieving a poorly publicized but very important objective: assembling into a single federal database the personal details of hundreds of millions of individuals who have contact with the government. Such a database would combine information from the IRS, the Social Security Administration and other agencies. The process formally began in March 2025 when, as The New York Times reported, President Trump signed an executive order “calling for the federal government to share data across agencies.” Such a move, as Times reporters Sheera Frenkel and Aaron Krolik note, raises “questions over whether he might compile a master list of personal information on Americans that could give him untold surveillance power.”
Quoting the WaPo:
The current administration and DOGE are bypassing many normal data-sharing processes, according to staffers across 10 federal agencies, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution. For instance, many agencies are no longer creating records of who accessed or changed information while granting some individuals broader authority over computer systems. DOGE staffers can add new accounts and disable automated tracking logs at several Cabinet departments, employees said. Officials who objected were fired, placed on leave or sidelined.
Peter Thiel [builder of the surveillance database] and his elite tech bros, including Musk, Internet pioneer and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, and Clearview founder Hoan Ton-That, share a particular philosophy. Other believers include figures like fervent Trump supporter Steve Bannon and Vice President Vance. This explicitly anti-democratic worldview goes by various names, including the “neo-reactionary movement” and the “Dark Enlightenment.”
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An AP article discusses an example of the lust for enraged, mindless vengeance that djt has instilled in his loyal MAGA thugs in government:
The Justice Department on Friday fired at least three prosecutors involved in U.S. Capitol riot criminal cases, the latest moves by the Trump administration targeting attorneys connected to the massive prosecution of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack, according to two people familiar with the matter.A letter that was received by one of the prosecutors was signed by Attorney General Pam Bondi. The letter did not provide a reason for their removal, effective immediately, citing only “Article II of the United States Constitution and the laws of the United States,” according to a copy seen by The Associated Press.
The terminations marked yet another escalation of norm-shattering moves that have raised alarm over the Trump administration’s disregard for civil service protections for career lawyers and the erosion of the Justice Department’s independence from the White House. Top leaders at the Justice Department have also fired employees who worked on the prosecutions against Trump and demoted a slew of career supervisors in what has been seen as an effort to purge the agency of lawyers seen as insufficiently loyal.
This is dictatorship, not democracy.