Simmering dictatorship concerns

NPR reports about concern about the threat of a Trump dictatorship. The issue is still just simmering quietly. We have not yet reached a point of boiling over and erupting public sentiment. Arguably, too many Americans remain insufficiently concerned to lurch into hair-on-fire mode or something vigorous like that. Of course, we won't know what the level of activity in the soup pot full of frogs amounts to until the 2026 mid-terms. That assumes Trump won't cancel them, or much more likely, subvert them and declare MAGA politicians the winners and Dems the losers.

The NPR article says that Sweden's V-Dem Institute, which monitors global democracy, says the US now is an "electoral autocracy." According to V-Dem, 45 countries are in the process of “autocratizing.” The number of autocracies exceeds democracies. 

Electoral autocracy is a hybrid political system where multiparty elections exist and formally determine who governs, but the playing field is so heavily tilted, and liberal‑democratic safeguards so weakened, that the system is effectively authoritarian. India is an example.

Arguably, the NPR article and the experts it quotes continue to understate the gravity and urgency of the threat. A Trump and MAGA elite-driven authoritarian state arising in the US is the undeniable goal of kleptocratic, bigoted MAGA wealth and power politics. Because of that, Dissident Politics gives this NPR reporting a grade of F.

Politics, racism, and the human condition

Various sources reported (and this) that Trump has nominated Jeremy Carl, a self-described champion of white identity, to lead the State Department’s outreach to international organizations. Carl’s 2024 book, The Unprotected Class: How Anti-White Racism Is Tearing America Apart, argues that white Americans face systematic persecution through civil-rights enforcement, DEI programs, immigration policy, and cultural institutions across education, media, law, business, and government. Stripped of its policy language, the argument is a repackaged appeal to the old fear that white people are being replaced and subjugated by non-white Americans and immigrants. Carl makes the fear explicit by endorsing the Great Replacement theory, calling the Civil Rights Act an anti-white weapon, and dismissing Juneteenth as race hustling and white-shaming. Primal fear is the glue that holds debunked American racist narratives together. Carl’s nomination signals that those narratives now have a seat at the center of US foreign policy. (link 1, link 2)

Whether the Senate confirms Carl’s nomination is unclear. At least one Republican senator is uneasy with Carl and opposes his nomination. A Democratic senator referred to Carl as wildly unqualified for this job. (link 3, link 4, link 5)

Research on the 2024 presidential election indicated that four issues were the main drivers of support for Trump, inflation, immigration, the anti‑woke/DEI/transgender politics cluster, and sexist attitudes toward Harris and women leaders. All of those issues were distorted by ruthless MAGA demagoguery, lies, slanders, and irrational emotional manipulation. MAGA propaganda relied heavily on conspiratorial “white replacement” rhetoric, and false and misleading claims about crime, immigration and Harris herself. The anti‑woke cluster of concerns largely reflected perceived status loss by whites and men in a diversifying, more egalitarian society, arguably making it a subtype of racial and gendered status‑threat politics. However, many Trump supporters sincerely describe their concerns as about speech, merit, or religious freedom, even though the overall pattern of attitudes aligns more with defending existing racial and gender hierarchies than with neutral principles alone. (link 6, link 7, link 8, link 9)

MAGA politics, racism & the human condition

Obviously, racism is not a modern invention or a superficial cultural habit. It is deeply rooted in fundamental features of human social cognition and social behavior. Evolutionary psychology and decades of experimental research show that humans automatically (mostly unconsciously) categorize people into in-groups and out-groups. In-group favoritism is a basic feature of social cooperation that can be exploited to produce hostility toward outsiders. MAGA demagoguery is highly focused on exploiting race to produce hostility toward opposition to Trump and MAGA authoritarianism. Data from several million Americans indicate that about 65% display an automatic pro-White/anti-Black bias. That includes members of third-party racial groups such as Asian and Latino Americans who generally have little personal stake in White–Black relations. (link 10, link 11, link 12, link 13)

When people perceive threats to their group’s status, in-group loyalty intensifies and out-group hostility deepens. That dynamic that is especially potent when the threatened group has historically been dominant. In diverse environments, individuals high in authoritarianism become markedly more racially prejudiced and politically intolerant, while non-authoritarians become less so—meaning diversity itself activates a latent authoritarian disposition in those predisposed to it.

MAGA politics exploits these deep-seated human biases with relentless precision. Trump’s rhetoric systematically dehumanizes immigrants, calling them animals, vermin, and an invading force that will make America no longer recognizable. Scholars see that demagogic language as historically associated with genocide and mass violence. Research data indicates that authoritarianism in the United States is raced, and heavily associated with white people. As long as the perceived, demagoguery-boosted racial threat remains a strong presence if American life, authoritarianism will haunt American democracy. American white supremacists and white nationalists are keeping the illusory racial threat alive. (link 14, link 15)

MAGA’s racist policy tactics and manifestations are concrete. Trump’s racial demagoguery and mass deportation campaign includes military-style ICE raids on homes, schools, and churches, with proposals and guidance that would greatly expand warrantless arrests and make civil‑rights accountability far more difficult Now, ICE agents are encouraged to make warrantless arrests and granted effective but illegal immunity for civil-rights violations. Also, DEI programs across federal agencies have been dismantled by executive order on the first day of Trump’s second term, explicitly reversing policies designed to address systemic racial inequality. States including Georgia and Texas have implemented voter-suppression laws and racial gerrymandering that disproportionately strips Black, Latino, and Asian American voters of political power. For example, black mail-ballot use in Georgia fell from 29% to 5%. (link 16, link 17, link 18)

Q1: Do Trump and MAGA elites cynically play the race card, or are their arguments that what they do is fair, warranted and race-neutral?

Q2: Is Trump a racist, or is he non-racist but cynically playing the race card as part of his personal wealth and power campaign?

BNR just blew up as free access to news reporting goes up in smoke

Stick with me on this -- it ain't gonna go where most would expect.

BNR is a strange half-MAGA, half-something else mostly normal blog I've been posting at recently. It  shut down its posting of news articles as of this morning or sometime last night. Here's BNR's notice.

Based on zero information I instantly strongly suspected two things. First, copyright infringement. Second, the unobvious twist here, Trump and MAGA.

Copyright and the free markets 

Recently news media in the UK started getting extremely aggressive about enforcing copyrights of several thousand online UK media sources. That caused BNR to stop posting anything from those sources such as The Independent and The Guardian. In the last few months, ~4-6 months, I've noticed a limiting of free access to US news sources online. Major news and politics-related info content aggregators like r/politics, r/law and r/scotus were posting from a shrinking number of sites where content from articles was still not paywalled. And, many not paywalled places were starting to demand ad blockers to be shut off or no access allowed. Intense economic pressure was closing in on free online content. Lots of sites were putting paywalls in place or forcing people to be subject to endless obnoxious, aggressive and just plain stupid ads.

Trump and MAGA

Authoritarianism, unregulated capitalism 

are inherently incompatible with professional journalism

This argument is complicated but can be boiled down to this. Trump and MAGA elites have made very clear, public and undeniable their seething contempt and hate of professional news reporting. The reasons for that are obvious -- honest, professional journalism is a major threat to all kinds of authoritarianism and kleptocracy. Dictators hate it. So to theocrats, oligarchs, military juntas, thieves and rigid ideologues.

Trump's threats to mainstream news and social media sources have been clear, public and aggressive. We all saw how Trump's threats collapsed Jeff Bezos into a steaming pile of complicity with the WaPo, causing that formerly top notch newspaper to die in darkness. We all saw Trump and MAGA elites defund NPR and PBS. We also witnessed a corrupt authoritarian MAGA oligarch force a radical Zionist propagandist, Bari Weiss, to take over at CBS News. Some of you have read PD's brilliant analyses of what is going on with the mainstream media (and some other things), clearly showing a state of collapse from fear of Trump and MAGA, reluctant complicity and probably more than a little sympathetic authoritarian sentiment (analysis 1, analysis 2, analysis 3, analysis 4, analysis 5, analysis 6). 

In my firm opinion, we're on our own. No one can save us except ourselves. The MSM is toast. The Democratic Party remains weak, divided, clueless, and I now begin to suspect more than a little sympathetic to authoritarianism and corruption. The Christian church is split, with vast power in its aggressive, bigoted, theocratic Christian nationalism. The real, pro-democracy, tolerant Christians appear to be weak, divided, and confused or paralyzed. Universities have been cowed into complicity. The business community is, or appears to be, mostly cowed into silence or supportive of oligarchy, Christian nationalist theocracy and/or a Trump dictatorship-kleptocracy.

All that's left in defense of democracy appears to be mostly the 2026 mid-term elections. As PD pointed out in his analysis, Trump and MAGA elites are now desperately trying to subvert those elections. 

In my opinion, what is happened to BNR fits easily into the larger picture of Trump and MAGA authoritarianism slowly engulfing and smothering what's left of pro-democracy resistance. Instead of government propping up professional reporting and public interest broadcasting, e.g., NPR and PBS, the Trump and his MAGA government are doing their very best to kill as much professional reporting as they can by public threats and whatever else they can do in secrecy. They can do a hell of a lot in secrecy. Essentially all the available evidence points to Trump and MAGA elites doing as much damage to our democracy and rule of law in as much secrecy as they can, as fast as they can.

Q: Has Germaine gone off his meds and started spewing blither and falsehoods like Trump now routinely spews? Or, is there maybe something to the argument that we're in very deep shit with Trump and elite MAGA authoritarianism and corruption? 

AI WARNING.....

 

Glorified Ad or Grave Warning? The Internet Debates Mega-Viral Economic Doomsday Article About AI Revolution

An article warning humans that artificial intelligence (AI) would soon replace just about everyone went viral on social media on Tuesday, sparking a debate over whether the text was a legitimate warning or an “AI-generated word salad” intended as a glorified advertisement.

In the article posted by AI company CEO Matt Shumer, social media users were warned that the AI revolution could come far sooner than most expected.

Shumer warned that lawyers, finance experts, journalists, marketing copywriters, programmers, workers in the health industry, and customer service agents would all soon be on the chopping block to be replaced by AI, with AI systems on track to “replace human judgment, creativity, strategic thinking,” and even “empathy.”

While the article went hugely viral on social media, amassing 33 million views and 53,000 likes on Elon Musk’s X, Shumer’s claims were shot down by many skeptics.

“It’s depressing how widely shared and read this is. It’s AI-generated word salad posted by someone with a vested interest in spreading AI hype,” weighed in Front Porch Republic editor Jeffrey Bilbro. “AI is ‘big,’ I guess, but its effects will be much more complicated and variegated than this ‘essay’ implies.”

Others, including The Washington Post’s Megan McArdle, argued that the fact that an AI-written article could ignite such a firestorm was evidence in favor of Shumer’s thesis.

“If ‘AI-generated word salad’ can convince a bunch of folks that AI will be the biggest disruption since man tamed fire … well, you should update your priors in favor of AI being incredibly disruptive,” argued McArdle.

Critics described the article as “delusional,” “bullsh*t,” and a barely disguised ad.

https://www.mediaite.com/media/tech/glorified-ad-or-grave-warning-the-internet-debates-mega-viral-economic-doomsday-article-about-ai-revolution/ 

Only question I have is how soon will AI replace Germaine or myself?? 😕