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new Salon article: Day two of Donald Trump's dictatorship [1]

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Date: 2024-07-07  

I just mentioned this new article in my last diary , but it needs its' own:

Day two of Donald Trump's dictatorship .

In their new essay at Slate, Norm Ornstein and Dahlia Lithwick write with uncommon clarity and force about how the news media and the country’s political class have mostly failed in their responsibilities to warn the American people about the imminent dangers and reality of Trumpism and American neofascism: Americans have a normalcy bias. It leads them to believe anyone who tells them that everything is awesome and that a system is “holding” — even as that system is hanging together by way of dental floss…..And many journalists have a normalcy bias so acute they wouldn’t know how to cover an authoritarian takeover if it meant that one of the two presidential candidates threatened jail for his political opponents—even as he continues to refer to these journalists as “the enemy of the people.” (My emphasis added) It also means that they tend to cover “Trump convicted on 34 felony counts” in terms of “how much would this story make us deviate from covering a normal election?” It turns out that we’re normalizing the abnormal, covering the election as a horse race between democracy and illiberalism without mentioning illiberalism or considering the stakes and the consequences, and repeatedly applying a false equivalence to Trump and Biden…. The signals are flashing red that our fundamental system is in danger. “The system is holding” is not a plan for a knowable future. It never was.

What are the specifics of Project 2025, Agenda 47, and the larger right-wing plot to end American democracy? These plans include removing any checks and balances on Dictator Trump and his regime by purging any members of the bureaucracy who are deemed to be disloyal, i.e. they place the Constitution and the rule of law above personal fealty to Trump and the MAGA movement. The Department of Justice will also be politicized and used to attack the enemies of the Trump regime. The Republican Party will basically be made into the country’s official national party. Voting for the Democrats or other political parties that are deemed to be a threat to the MAGA movement will be made prohibitively difficult through voter intimidation, nullification and purges. White Christianity will be made into America’s official state religion. The civil rights of Black and brown people, the LGBTQ community, and women will be severely curtailed. Women will have their reproductive rights and freedoms taken away. There will be mass deportations and concentration camps targeting non-white migrants and refugees. Homeless people and other “undesirables” will also be imprisoned in these camps. As promised, Trump and his forces will target the human “vermin” who are polluting the “blood” of the nation, including but not be limited to non-whites, Muslims, Jews, and disabled people.

The United States military will be ordered to occupy Democrat-led cities and other “blue” parts of the country to combat "crime." There will be a national “patriotic” education program where dissent and intellectual freedom and otherwise challenging “conservative”/neo-fascist orthodoxy and dogma will not be allowed. High-quality public education will be ended and replaced with indoctrination programs to create compliant subjects who lack the intellectual training to be critical thinkers and responsible citizens in a real democracy. Universities and colleges will be targeted with censorship, lawsuits and other efforts to defund and close them down – as well as to threaten and intimidate faculty and administrators – if they do not sufficiently support the Trump regime and the larger right-wing reactionary and revolutionary project. Freedom of the press and freedom of speech will be severely limited. President Biden and other leading Democrats, Republicans deemed to be disloyal, and any other individuals and groups who are targeted as the enemy will face the possibility of being put in prison for “treason” and then being executed. Donald Trump and his propagandists and other agents and allies have repeatedly made such explicit threats and promises of “revenge” and “retribution”. As part of that project, Trump will pardon the January 6 terrorists (a group he describes as “soldiers” and “heroes”) and other violent right-wing extremists who will then become his personal brownshirts.

Freedom of the press and freedom of speech will be severely limited. President Biden and other leading Democrats, Republicans deemed to be disloyal, and any other individuals and groups who are targeted as the enemy will face the possibility of being put in prison for “treason” and then being executed. Donald Trump and his propagandists and other agents and allies have repeatedly made such explicit threats and promises of “revenge” and “retribution”. As part of that project, Trump will pardon the January 6 terrorists (a group he describes as “soldiers” and “heroes”) and other violent right-wing extremists who will then become his personal brownshirts. Donald Trump will personally exercise control over the United States economy by making himself the de facto head of the Federal Reserve board. Trump, like other autocrats and authoritarians, will use federal tax policy and other laws to reward his business allies. In turn, these business interests will give Trump and his family and other designated recipients vast sums of money. Trump’s first term in office was but a preview of the vast corruption that will take place when/if he takes power in 2025. To that point, at a fundraising event, the former president recently told fossil fuel industry executives to give him one billion dollars. In return, they will be permitted to pollute and ruin the world. There are prominent voices among the news media and political class (and general public) who will push back that this is all “hysterical”, “doomsaying”, and that “the institutions” and “the rule of law” will stop aspiring dictator Donald Trump and Project 2025 and his Agenda 47 and the other plans to end the country’s democracy. Plus, Trump could not implement his desire to become a dictator during his first regime because he is “stupid” and “disorganized” and his Jan. 6 coup failed, and he is now a convicted felon which all means that the “guardrails held”. And of course, there is this talking point: the American people are basically good! Donald Trump is a bad man! The American people will get it right because they always do in the end!

...and the article continues. It is a must read. Please check it out!

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/7/7/2252133/-new-Salon-article-Day-two-of-Donald-Trump-s-dictatorship?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

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