What's there to see? These people are nuts, and have the support of nearly half of the voting population. Whether because people have actually adopted their lunatic notions or just because party loyalty is incredibly powerful, I can't say.
What I always wonder about is the cause and effect. People choose a political party when they're young, usually just whatever party their parents follow, or the dominant party in the area where they live. But they don't necessarily have all the beliefs yet, those come over time. I don't think people start out awful and then become Republicans because they're awful, they start out normal, become more awful because that's what the Republicans feed them, then become still more awful when the Republicans pick a guy like Trump.
Billionaires figure they won’t need most of these humans with AI and technology so let’s have they kill each off in a battle of democracy against patriarchy. And they can float away to infinity in their Hawaiian compounds. In their insane minds this is the humane way to do it, a survival of the fittest without getting their hands too dirty.
People can have all sorts of crazy ideas and plans, what's more important is whether they can realize their plans. And even more important than that: What can we do to stop them from realizing their plans?
What I never hear is what we can do beyond donating, writing letters, voting, and helping to get out the vote.
We are on the verge of authoritarian fascism but all we get is the same playbook and it's reactive and playing defense. It's time we start planning for Trump's assumption of power (even as we fight it) and how we will refuse and resist each element of the 2025 plan. Even though it will mean a quiet civil war. If we don't plan now, we'll be on the back foot then, too.
Would those of you in positions of influence please start coming up with an actual, actionable and bold plan? Or tell us who is doing so? Is anyone on the left actually doing anything real?
I wish. You must understand, though, that most of The Democrats (TM) understand that if they keep their heads down and don’t offend the big orange guy their personal positions are assured, because in an American-style authoritarian police state, the apparatus of representative government will need to stay in place because it will be necessary for appearances, therefore a Democratic Party (and its leadership) will be necessary, even as it will be carefully rendered even more helpless and useless than it is now.
If Trump wins, can't the Democrats take back the House and Senate in 2026? (assuming they don't hold on to or win both in 2024?) And then take back the White House in 2028? Elected Democrats resisting Trump, who is very unpopular, would be how elected Democrats become re-elected Democrats. They have no incentive to help Trump succeed.
Things are getting so rigged. Gerrymandering, courts tilted red, red state legislatures, laws being passed to limit referendums, voter ID and other voter restriction laws, terrorizing election officials and reporters (doxing, etc.).
And you can expect that if the GOP wins House and Senate, they and Trump will pack courts and pass legislation and take further actions in the two years they have, making it near impossible for us to retake Congress. They have a plan. That's why we need one too.
I live in Wisconsin, so I've had a front-row seat for Republican gerrymandering. But it can be overturned. First, we elected a Democratic governor and then through a succession of Supreme Court elections (Wisconsin has elected and not appointed Supreme Court justices) the liberals took a majority on the state Supreme Court, which the ordered new maps be drawn. Gov. Evers signed the new maps into law last week, and now, for the first time since 2010, the Democrats have a chance at winning a majority in the state legislature (under the old gerrymandered maps, Democrats won a majority of the votes for legislature, Republicans won nearly two-thirds of the seats.)
Also, I'm encouraged that Biden's unpopularity doesn't seem to extend to Democrats generally, if you look at off-year and special election results and referenda (especially on abortion rights.)
Usually a winning Presidential candidate carries along the House and Senate as well, but this may be the year that doesn't happen. Trump may win, but the Democrats may win back the House and/or retain control of the Senate. Those are scenarios we need to plan for as well.
This a great comment, we need to plan no matter how much we'd prefer not to think about President Donald Trump.
I think an important base of resistance will be the 25-or-so states with Democratic legislatures and Governors because - thankfully - our federal elections a decentralized and administered by the states. So President Trump can't tell New York and California they're not having an election in 2026.
I agree. Frankly, I think we should be forming east and west blue state coalitions now, reviewing the 2025 plan in detail, and passing resolutions and agreeing at state government levels how we'll respond. It may mean importing our own abortion drugs despite federal rulings outlawing it. It will mean non-violent resistance and refusal to abide with federal laws or court rulings. But it has to be organized.
If worst comes to worst and you find yourself needing to resist a hostile power that's seized control of your state/city/etc., well, there's a how-to guide for that.
In 1944, the U.S. government put out the Simple Sabotage Field Manual to help people in occupied regions of Europe resist the post-conquest attempts to govern them. It was declassified long ago and is freely available. At 32 pages of actual content (36 total), it's a quick read.
For most of us, the most relevant section will be #11, on how to kneecap organizations (which you may have joined for that purpose) just by being *annoying*.
That's a good question, I wish I had a good answer for it. Come 2026, states need to make clear they're holding an election whether Donald Trump likes it or not. I don't think he can be sure the military would follow his orders, especially if the orders are "Go into the state of California and seize all the ballot boxes" (do they even use ballot boxes any more? Seize all the thumb drives?)
And there's an enormous amount of work for people in red states to do, just look at the networks that have sprung up to help a woman who needs an abortion get to a state where she can have one. Attacks on undocumented immigrants would be most fierce in the red states, there will be a need for an "underground railroad" to shelter and protect people being hunted by ICE. And then there's the work of caring for one another and helping people just survive, that's work we will all have to do.
I cringed with distaste at the thought of being at her kitchen table. Is this really a rising star in the GOP? I actually prefer MTG who seems genuinely nuts.
And of course a top Republican woman speaking from the kitchen says much about how they think of women. And why on earth would she bring up IVF? The Democrats couldn’t have scripted this better except maybe to have Santos and McConnell and Gaetz step in. On second thought she was not that bad. Jim Jordan would have been worse too.
The story that Katie Britt told about a trafficked woman was true, but it all happened in Mexico between 2004-2008. The woman testified before Congress. She didn't have a convo with Britt in Del Rio and it didn't happen in the US. I live 60 mi from the border. I knew this didn't happen in the US.
Also, just to state the bleedin' obvious, her own story shows the migrants are VICTIMS of crime, not the perpetrators of crime. All the more reason why we should be admitting these refugees into the US.
And now we find out her captivity was part of the international sex tourism trade, so this was Americans traveling to Mexico to rape underaged girls, and she twists it around so we, the Innocent Americans, are the REAL victims.
There was a line in her speech about, "You might expect this to happen in a third-world country, but not in the United States of America." Huh, guess it didn't happen in the United States of America.
And if the young woman testified to Congress, does that mean she is now safely in the US? Is Katie Britt saying she should be sent back?
Yes Jared, I wanted bolt from that kitchen table before she started handing out the unsolicited "literature". So, she's the one that's "in touch with the American people" and not Biden or the Democrats, I see. I have nothing against born again Christians, unless they bury their head in the sand and put their support behind an obvious monster like you know who, or they're simply just God hustlers like Joel Osteen. But I love Christians like Ali Hewson and her husband Paul, also known as Bono, and all the work that they've spent their lives doing. That said, and I might've missed it, but I don't believe she stumped for Trump in her "rebuttal" at all. His name seemed to be left out of the whole thing. Hmmm, kinda stealthy. Mike Johnson had to have hand picked her for this when he wasn't busy rehearsing for his SOTU pantomime of showing disgust.
You mentioned Stepford Wives, but I think and even more on-point reference would be Witches of Eastwick. Specifically, the strait-laced woman, the town scold, who becomes fixated on the three free-spirited divorcees who are the main characters of the film. We watch her descent into obsession and madness, til she's mumbling incoherently about these brazen hussies who are leading the whole town to SIN. Then her husband (John Lithgow) kills her with a fireplace poker.
Horrifying at the time, but even more horrifying today, because so many of us have seen a family member take that slide into madness and there's nothing to be done (because I firmly disapprove of the fireplace-poker method.)
Part of it is also that we have become a visual culture. Words, content, isn't doing it anymore. People turn the voice down on their TVs and doing other things while watching the visuals. If you do not listen to mr 45 you can actually survive one of his speeches! And may be, if you do no listen to Britt but eat dinner or washing dishes. while watching her appearance may be it does the trick. I don't know. I think that was already a part of the Trump Clinton debates. People did not listen. They just watched. And what they saw was a heavy man doing gorilla like poses. People who listened knew who won on content but people who only watched?
Keep your day job, lady. Please. I know your day job is Senator, and we are all poorer for that, but we think we’d rather see you there than be forced to watch you perform. Where is the talent show hook when we need it.
The weirdest thing is that so many Americans grovel at the feet of these idiots.
That wasn’t a joke or a response, that was a call for war against reality and anybody they deem an enemy. This is going to explode.
And it’s perfect at that, all the reality based people are making jokes about it. They don’t see it.
What's there to see? These people are nuts, and have the support of nearly half of the voting population. Whether because people have actually adopted their lunatic notions or just because party loyalty is incredibly powerful, I can't say.
I think trump just validated all their lunatic notions, which are mostly mean and hateful.
What I always wonder about is the cause and effect. People choose a political party when they're young, usually just whatever party their parents follow, or the dominant party in the area where they live. But they don't necessarily have all the beliefs yet, those come over time. I don't think people start out awful and then become Republicans because they're awful, they start out normal, become more awful because that's what the Republicans feed them, then become still more awful when the Republicans pick a guy like Trump.
Billionaires figure they won’t need most of these humans with AI and technology so let’s have they kill each off in a battle of democracy against patriarchy. And they can float away to infinity in their Hawaiian compounds. In their insane minds this is the humane way to do it, a survival of the fittest without getting their hands too dirty.
People can have all sorts of crazy ideas and plans, what's more important is whether they can realize their plans. And even more important than that: What can we do to stop them from realizing their plans?
This has occurred to me as well, they will use AI to rely on service nd eliminate the people who once provided it.
What I never hear is what we can do beyond donating, writing letters, voting, and helping to get out the vote.
We are on the verge of authoritarian fascism but all we get is the same playbook and it's reactive and playing defense. It's time we start planning for Trump's assumption of power (even as we fight it) and how we will refuse and resist each element of the 2025 plan. Even though it will mean a quiet civil war. If we don't plan now, we'll be on the back foot then, too.
Would those of you in positions of influence please start coming up with an actual, actionable and bold plan? Or tell us who is doing so? Is anyone on the left actually doing anything real?
I wish. You must understand, though, that most of The Democrats (TM) understand that if they keep their heads down and don’t offend the big orange guy their personal positions are assured, because in an American-style authoritarian police state, the apparatus of representative government will need to stay in place because it will be necessary for appearances, therefore a Democratic Party (and its leadership) will be necessary, even as it will be carefully rendered even more helpless and useless than it is now.
If Trump wins, can't the Democrats take back the House and Senate in 2026? (assuming they don't hold on to or win both in 2024?) And then take back the White House in 2028? Elected Democrats resisting Trump, who is very unpopular, would be how elected Democrats become re-elected Democrats. They have no incentive to help Trump succeed.
Things are getting so rigged. Gerrymandering, courts tilted red, red state legislatures, laws being passed to limit referendums, voter ID and other voter restriction laws, terrorizing election officials and reporters (doxing, etc.).
And you can expect that if the GOP wins House and Senate, they and Trump will pack courts and pass legislation and take further actions in the two years they have, making it near impossible for us to retake Congress. They have a plan. That's why we need one too.
I live in Wisconsin, so I've had a front-row seat for Republican gerrymandering. But it can be overturned. First, we elected a Democratic governor and then through a succession of Supreme Court elections (Wisconsin has elected and not appointed Supreme Court justices) the liberals took a majority on the state Supreme Court, which the ordered new maps be drawn. Gov. Evers signed the new maps into law last week, and now, for the first time since 2010, the Democrats have a chance at winning a majority in the state legislature (under the old gerrymandered maps, Democrats won a majority of the votes for legislature, Republicans won nearly two-thirds of the seats.)
I donated to help you win that Supreme Court seat! One for the team.
Thank you!
Also, I'm encouraged that Biden's unpopularity doesn't seem to extend to Democrats generally, if you look at off-year and special election results and referenda (especially on abortion rights.)
Usually a winning Presidential candidate carries along the House and Senate as well, but this may be the year that doesn't happen. Trump may win, but the Democrats may win back the House and/or retain control of the Senate. Those are scenarios we need to plan for as well.
This a great comment, we need to plan no matter how much we'd prefer not to think about President Donald Trump.
I think an important base of resistance will be the 25-or-so states with Democratic legislatures and Governors because - thankfully - our federal elections a decentralized and administered by the states. So President Trump can't tell New York and California they're not having an election in 2026.
I agree. Frankly, I think we should be forming east and west blue state coalitions now, reviewing the 2025 plan in detail, and passing resolutions and agreeing at state government levels how we'll respond. It may mean importing our own abortion drugs despite federal rulings outlawing it. It will mean non-violent resistance and refusal to abide with federal laws or court rulings. But it has to be organized.
@Steve B, what if he uses the military against those states? And how do those in “red” states fight?
If worst comes to worst and you find yourself needing to resist a hostile power that's seized control of your state/city/etc., well, there's a how-to guide for that.
In 1944, the U.S. government put out the Simple Sabotage Field Manual to help people in occupied regions of Europe resist the post-conquest attempts to govern them. It was declassified long ago and is freely available. At 32 pages of actual content (36 total), it's a quick read.
For most of us, the most relevant section will be #11, on how to kneecap organizations (which you may have joined for that purpose) just by being *annoying*.
I like being annoying!
Thanks, I’ll check it out!
That's a good question, I wish I had a good answer for it. Come 2026, states need to make clear they're holding an election whether Donald Trump likes it or not. I don't think he can be sure the military would follow his orders, especially if the orders are "Go into the state of California and seize all the ballot boxes" (do they even use ballot boxes any more? Seize all the thumb drives?)
And there's an enormous amount of work for people in red states to do, just look at the networks that have sprung up to help a woman who needs an abortion get to a state where she can have one. Attacks on undocumented immigrants would be most fierce in the red states, there will be a need for an "underground railroad" to shelter and protect people being hunted by ICE. And then there's the work of caring for one another and helping people just survive, that's work we will all have to do.
I cringed with distaste at the thought of being at her kitchen table. Is this really a rising star in the GOP? I actually prefer MTG who seems genuinely nuts.
And of course a top Republican woman speaking from the kitchen says much about how they think of women. And why on earth would she bring up IVF? The Democrats couldn’t have scripted this better except maybe to have Santos and McConnell and Gaetz step in. On second thought she was not that bad. Jim Jordan would have been worse too.
From the way it was shot, I couldn't tell if she was barefoot. Or pregnant.
"The cartels put her on a mattress in a shoe-box of a room..."
I don't know why the size of the room matters, but if it does I know of a woman who was raped in a changing room at Bonwit's.
Jared, I don't know how you can keep watching these things. It's like a bad actor in a terrible political movie reading lines from a terrible script.
With political speeches, even from sane people, I just go to the transcript, it saves time.
She got caught in a lie.
The story that Katie Britt told about a trafficked woman was true, but it all happened in Mexico between 2004-2008. The woman testified before Congress. She didn't have a convo with Britt in Del Rio and it didn't happen in the US. I live 60 mi from the border. I knew this didn't happen in the US.
https://www.threads.net/@yasharali/post/C4SAKACOPHZ
Also, just to state the bleedin' obvious, her own story shows the migrants are VICTIMS of crime, not the perpetrators of crime. All the more reason why we should be admitting these refugees into the US.
And now we find out her captivity was part of the international sex tourism trade, so this was Americans traveling to Mexico to rape underaged girls, and she twists it around so we, the Innocent Americans, are the REAL victims.
Thank you! No one else seems to be bringing up that point.
There was a line in her speech about, "You might expect this to happen in a third-world country, but not in the United States of America." Huh, guess it didn't happen in the United States of America.
And if the young woman testified to Congress, does that mean she is now safely in the US? Is Katie Britt saying she should be sent back?
Yes Jared, I wanted bolt from that kitchen table before she started handing out the unsolicited "literature". So, she's the one that's "in touch with the American people" and not Biden or the Democrats, I see. I have nothing against born again Christians, unless they bury their head in the sand and put their support behind an obvious monster like you know who, or they're simply just God hustlers like Joel Osteen. But I love Christians like Ali Hewson and her husband Paul, also known as Bono, and all the work that they've spent their lives doing. That said, and I might've missed it, but I don't believe she stumped for Trump in her "rebuttal" at all. His name seemed to be left out of the whole thing. Hmmm, kinda stealthy. Mike Johnson had to have hand picked her for this when he wasn't busy rehearsing for his SOTU pantomime of showing disgust.
Audition tape for horror version of forthcoming Real Housewives of Tuscaloosa.
You mentioned Stepford Wives, but I think and even more on-point reference would be Witches of Eastwick. Specifically, the strait-laced woman, the town scold, who becomes fixated on the three free-spirited divorcees who are the main characters of the film. We watch her descent into obsession and madness, til she's mumbling incoherently about these brazen hussies who are leading the whole town to SIN. Then her husband (John Lithgow) kills her with a fireplace poker.
Horrifying at the time, but even more horrifying today, because so many of us have seen a family member take that slide into madness and there's nothing to be done (because I firmly disapprove of the fireplace-poker method.)
How cosplay meta universe of her.
Jared, you captured the cringe worthiness superbly!
Part of it is also that we have become a visual culture. Words, content, isn't doing it anymore. People turn the voice down on their TVs and doing other things while watching the visuals. If you do not listen to mr 45 you can actually survive one of his speeches! And may be, if you do no listen to Britt but eat dinner or washing dishes. while watching her appearance may be it does the trick. I don't know. I think that was already a part of the Trump Clinton debates. People did not listen. They just watched. And what they saw was a heavy man doing gorilla like poses. People who listened knew who won on content but people who only watched?
Keep your day job, lady. Please. I know your day job is Senator, and we are all poorer for that, but we think we’d rather see you there than be forced to watch you perform. Where is the talent show hook when we need it.