If you think Nazi is a remotely valid way to describe what’s going on then you’re probably spending too much time online surrounded by catastropists, and have lost touch with reality.
You don't think the literal nazi salute elon gave at a rally, twice, warrants any comparisons? Or that the administration flirts with annexing Canada, Greenland, and Palestine? Or that their support is driven through prejudice against migrants?
The reopening of Guantanamo Bay as a concentration camp, at a cost of over $1 Billion, while elon musk's minion yank money from farmers and poor Alabamans $100 and $80,000 at a time, while tauting their own success on fox news...
> You don't think the literal nazi salute elon gave at a rally, twice, warrants any comparisons?
Honestly? I was on team "he's a clueless weirdo" and was mostly amused by watching his supporters cortort themselves to avoid saying that... But he somehow managed to fish out and hire not one but two engineers with a history of blatant racism, and even decided to rehire the one that resigned once it became public.
I generally think the whole "Nazi" thing is easy and reductive, but what the fuck?
A conspiracy theory would be claiming something vaguely defined but sinister is going on in secret and that absence of evidence is evidence.
(e.g. 9/11 or Sandy Hook being false flags, Pizzagate, Qanon, the "deep state").
What most people are talking about now is resemblances between actual actions and events that aren't in dispute and things that have happened in countries generally recognized as autocratic.
(e.g. the fake electors plot isn't a conspiracy theory, we know it happened; presidential immunity isn't a conspiracy theory, it is a Supreme Court ruling; pardoning people that attacked the Capitol isn't a conspiracy theory, it's an actual Executive Order; rewriting term limits isn't a conspiracy theory, it's an actual bill, etc.)
Reasonable people can disagree on the extrapolation of current events into the future without either being a conspiracy theorist.
Given this forum is generally serious and populated with generally serious people, it’s worthwhile to consider that there may be some context you are missing rather than dismissing them as “lefty nutbags”. Smoke/fire/etc. This cuts both ways, and there’s a productive way to help us understand why you think this its ridiculous for lots of “the smart people” to be really really really worried.
I've read a fair amount of history (half my family is from germany, and the other half, jews who escaped in time) and what's happening now is remarkably similar to what happened in the lead-up to WWII, historically speaking.
We're not being hysterical, we're being realistic. Trump is mostly a buffoon but Miller, Musk, and Vance are all truly evil people (I don't say this lightly) whose vision for America is truly terrifying. Like, Handmaid's Tale wasn't speculative fiction, but a working manual for these guys.
what you missing is that it's not about literal Nazis
it's about seeing exactly the same kind of patterns and dynamics as during the rise of the 3rd riche
i.e. by every objective measurable metric the US is currently falling to autocracy and fascism
Will that be "literal Nazis" taking over the US, no most likely not. But might it become bad for most US citizens and the World in general to a really really bad point, then yes every thing is pointing in that direction.
If you then add in how much tension both the world economy and geopolitics is in (since years getting worse) it would be strange to assume we aren't at
sever risk of WW3 in some form (could be a cold war
or similar, too).
Look at how the US is currently trying to get right of a absurd high amount of people (nearly twice
as many as Jews where killed by Nazi Germany) most of
which do not have a home to go back to and probably
most of which other countries don't want to take in (in context of forced deportations, due to such people e.g.
being jobless as they had to leave their job behind).
And then look at how they started building/expanding Guantanamo and how the current head of state is constantly using dehumanizing language and look on how some of the people he puts in power have outed themself as being very inhuman and cruel in their world view. And then think how is this _not_ going to end in a catastrophe. Not necessary on the level of industrialized mass killing. But really there is no way this is going to end well.
By now the question isn't if people die, but how many digits.
What is your experience with history? Have you read much since high school? What is your experience in shaping your government? How many times a year do you communicate with your representatives?
I ask because a person not used to expending energy doing those things could quickly and easily get "tired" and believe the present situation to be "hysterics, " while those who are politcally aware - as opposed to those newly being told all of their xenophobic urges are wonderful - are rightfully alarmed.
I recommend you read _Defying_Hitler_ to see how authoritarianism creeps in. You might also get to know the recent history of Hungary, Turkey, Belarus, Myanmar, Venezuela, Poland, Macedonia, and Thailand.
Every single man I know is fully committed to fight an invasion if it came to it, and most of us have aggressively cut back spending in American companies and tourism wherever possible. If the people I know are a decent representation of the country, it’ll be absolutely miserable for Trump to make an inch of progress on this without substantial losses.
you don't need to do any of that. you just have to say you'll be happy to join with immediate representation with the same rules as the other states. No GOP are going to be happy voting to absorb a new state who think the Dems are slightly to the right.
God, no! I don't believe that for a moment! Hahahaha! He's maybe crazy enough to try but he'd be shut down instantly by much smarter people than him who'd for sure refuse to follow that stupid an order. ;)
Its worth a look at what actually happened during the rise of the third reich. People aren't just making the comparisons to be hyperbolic. I know a bit of it from reading the beginning of William L. Shirer's "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich".
The power shift in the Republican party has strong parallels to shifts in power that lead to compromises with the NSDAP, and eventually to Hitler's chancellorship.
The moves away from old institution norms (by both parties, though I tend to bias against R) who claim they are fighting to preserve it, whether with good intentions or not, have the effect of eroding our democracy.
The Trump admin's denigration of immigrants, and gender ideology also have obvious parallels.
For a time I didn't consider there to be genocidal parallels, but the recent threats to empty Gaza puts that on shaky ground.
Until these trends start reversing, and the groups involved work to restore norms, we are at an increasing risk of repeating past government's failures. For one party that feels like the intent (see recent chaos monkey efforts), while at least the other recognizes they are eroding norms, but can't seem to reverse course (Biden's executive orders).
Trump is stacking the federal government with loyalist and preparing to outright ignore court orders(if they are not doing so already) and become a monarchy while billionaires chop up the government for fun and profit. If you don't see this then you have lost touch with reality. Democracy is on life support and Elon's fans are putting fingers in their ears acting like this isn't happening.
For anyone who thinks the comparisons to monarchy are an overreaction look up favorite philosopher of Peter Thiel and JD Vance Curtis Yarvin. He quite explicitly calls for a “CEO king” to fire all federal employees and replace them with loyalists.
What I want to understand is how much smaller will it be, and why are they targeting what they are at the moment? The administrations they've cut back only make up fractions of a percent of the overall spending, and make virtually no difference for the average person. One of them actually put more money back into the pockets of taxpayers than it cost them, and seems to have made no sense to discard. Why not target major cost centres?
They also stopped $489 million of food aid to leave it to rot, which it has. That level of waste is not aligned with their mission statement to reduce waste. So the statement can't be trusted.
If you are ignorant to widely-reported news, it's curious to dismiss it as anecdotal.
It's also curious to paint this an accident (before you knew anything about it) when it's the intended result of the order and an inspector was fired for attempting to raise effort to correct it.
The philosophy behind what they're doing comes from Curtis Yarvin. JD Vance is a fan.
Yarvin believes American democracy is a failed project and it should be replaced with an American monarchy. He thinks all of society should be organized like a corporation and a CEO of America should call the shots, no elections necessary:
They've been thinking about it for years, including preparing themselves to ignore court rulings.
To quote JD Vance from the Vanity Fair article: “I think Trump is going to run again in 2024,” [Vance] said. “I think that what Trump should do, if I was giving him one piece of advice: Fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people.” “And when the courts stop you,” he went on, “stand before the country, and say—” he quoted Andrew Jackson, giving a challenge to the entire constitutional order—“the chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.”
Trump literally said in a press conference about DOGE a few days ago that he will follow all court orders, but also appeal them where he thinks they’re wrong. This claim that he is ignoring courts is false, and increasingly I am noticing journalists factually misrepresent reality to create widespread beliefs like this.
A judge who is a major donor to Democrats, appointed by a Democrat president, has determined that. He could be correct, or he could just be an activist. Let’s see how it plays out. But the administration has said publicly that they will follow judicial rulings in response to a direct question about these rulings.
Ok.