Showing posts with label Autocracy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Autocracy. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 3, 2026
Thursday, May 28, 2026
Why Trump isn’t bothering to hide his corruption
Exhaustion of imagination becomes literal exhaustion. For a populace already demoralized by political gridlock, economic precarity, and an impenetrable morass of disinformation, resistance can feel like too much work. The only people left with any ambition are those bent on abusing it. When cynicism slides into compliance, the autocrat has won…
The first blow against autocracy is the refusal of cynical complacency. Right after Trump’s first election, the Russian émigré M Gessen proposed some “rules” for surviving autocracy. Among them: “Be outraged ... [I]n the face of the impulse to normalize, it is essential to maintain one’s capacity for shock.”…
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/may/27/trump-corruption-autocracy
Saturday, March 21, 2026
Trump has damaged democracy at remarkable speed, reports find : NPR
"The developments in the United States are moving towards dictatorship, what the founders wanted to avoid," said Staffan Lindberg, the V-Dem Institute's founding director, who spent seven years in the U.S. "It's the most rapid decline ever in the history of the United States and one of the most rapid in the world."…
https://www.npr.org/2026/03/20/nx-s1-5754021/trump-democracy-autocracy-dictatorship-reports
Sunday, November 2, 2025
The Firewall Against Nick Fuentes Is Crumbling - The Atlantic
He was soon back to making incendiary comments. During a lengthy back-and-forth in which he and Carlson found common ground on matters of gender, Fuentes said that "your wife ultimately is subordinate to you" and intimated that no-fault divorce gets in the way of relegating women to their supposed natural lower status…
Fuentes also gave some advice to Trump about the immigration crackdown in Chicago, where he lives. "Bring in the troops and say the federal government is supreme," he said. "The immigration law is the law of the land. If you're not on board with that, you're going to jail." Arrests aren't enough; there must be a total autocratic military takeover of Illinois. For years now, Fuentes has been both an embarrassment to the right and an indicator of what's brewing in the id of conservatism. Now that he has entered the fold of MAGA, his visions for a truly reactionary party are closer than ever to being realized.
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2025/10/nick-fuentes-tucker-carlson-interview/684792/
Tuesday, August 12, 2025
Saturday, August 2, 2025
Sunday, July 20, 2025
Stacey Abrams warns of autocracy and voter suppression, doesn't rule out another run (Tonya Mosley; Fresh Air podcast)
Political strategist Stacey Abrams is not currently running for office — but she's also not ruling out a run sometime in the future.
"Politics is a tool and it's a very important one for getting good done, but it's not the only one," Abrams says. "I am really focused right now on the other tools in my toolbox. ... My focus right now is on sharing information."
A former minority leader in the Georgia House of Representatives, Abrams ran for governor of Georgia as the Democratic nominee in 2018 and again in 2022. Though she lost both races, she drew national attention to issues of voter suppression in the state, particularly during the close 2018 campaign.
After the 2018 election, Abrams founded Fair Fight, an organization credited with boosting voter turnout in Georgia and contributing to Democratic victories in the 2020 presidential and Senate elections. She warns that voter suppression is "all around us" — though it's taken a new form in the 21st century. She says excessive restrictions on mail-in ballots, student voting and early voting can all be examples of voter suppression.
"Many of us grew up with the stories of the civil rights movement and voter suppression of the '60s, guns and dogs and hoses," she says. "The voter suppression in the 21st century is administrative."
Abrams discusses current politics and her concerns about the democratic process on her podcast, Assembly Required. She's also the author of several novels. Her latest thriller, Coded Justice, is the third installment in a series that centers on Avery Keene, a former Supreme Court clerk turned corporate investigator, who steps into the world of AI to examine a system designed to revolutionize veteran health care.
Abrams says she chose to focus on AI because it seems, on its face, like a neutral technology. "I wanted to write a book where the lines are blurred, because sometimes there's good intention, just problematic execution," she says. "This tool that we intend to use for good can be misapplied. ... I wanted to think about what happens when even the intentional pursuit of good can lead to challenges and murder."
Interview:
"Politics is a tool and it's a very important one for getting good done, but it's not the only one," Abrams says. "I am really focused right now on the other tools in my toolbox. ... My focus right now is on sharing information."
A former minority leader in the Georgia House of Representatives, Abrams ran for governor of Georgia as the Democratic nominee in 2018 and again in 2022. Though she lost both races, she drew national attention to issues of voter suppression in the state, particularly during the close 2018 campaign.
After the 2018 election, Abrams founded Fair Fight, an organization credited with boosting voter turnout in Georgia and contributing to Democratic victories in the 2020 presidential and Senate elections. She warns that voter suppression is "all around us" — though it's taken a new form in the 21st century. She says excessive restrictions on mail-in ballots, student voting and early voting can all be examples of voter suppression.
"Many of us grew up with the stories of the civil rights movement and voter suppression of the '60s, guns and dogs and hoses," she says. "The voter suppression in the 21st century is administrative."
Abrams discusses current politics and her concerns about the democratic process on her podcast, Assembly Required. She's also the author of several novels. Her latest thriller, Coded Justice, is the third installment in a series that centers on Avery Keene, a former Supreme Court clerk turned corporate investigator, who steps into the world of AI to examine a system designed to revolutionize veteran health care.
Abrams says she chose to focus on AI because it seems, on its face, like a neutral technology. "I wanted to write a book where the lines are blurred, because sometimes there's good intention, just problematic execution," she says. "This tool that we intend to use for good can be misapplied. ... I wanted to think about what happens when even the intentional pursuit of good can lead to challenges and murder."
Interview:
Friday, July 11, 2025
Money, Lies, and God: An Interview with Katherine Stewart (Warren Throckmorton; Telling Jefferson Lies: Debunking the Myth that America was Founded as a Christian Nation)
Today Warren features an interview with Katherine Stewart, the author of the New York Time bestseller Money, Lies, and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy. The segment is timely in that we discuss income disparities accentuated by the passage of the recent Trump budget. The dominance of Christian nationalism in the current administration isn't helping many of the foot soldiers who helped bring Trump to power.
Katherine discusses her new book and much more. Here is a sampling of topics:
Katherine discusses her new book and much more. Here is a sampling of topics:
- The uneasy coalitions in Christian nationalism and MAGA world
- The lifeblood of Christian nationalism: bad history
- Religious liberty means the freedom to do what Christian nationalists want to do
- Religion is a tool of autocratic leaders
- The threat of the New Right to American governance
- Power is what unites the religion of the New Right
- David Barton (Where's Waldo) is still active
- The rank and file are ultimately victims of the theology of power
Saturday, March 29, 2025
Sunday, February 23, 2025
Saturday, February 8, 2025
‘In a real sense, US democracy has died’: how Trump is emulating Hungary’s Orbán | Donald Trump | The Guardian
Trump has moved to gut the federal government, fire critics and reward allies – a path similar to 'would-be dictators' like Orbán, experts say…
Sunday, January 12, 2025
RFK and the Fight to Repeal the 20th Century (Bradley Onishi and Daniel Miller; Straight White American Jesus podcast)
Brad critiques the notion of finding common ground with RFK Jr. regarding public health and vaccines.
He discusses RFK Jr.’s controversial views and their potential negative impact on American public health.
Onishi examines past and present complexities surrounding U.S. public health policies and explores the Trump administration’s influence, drawing connections to historical regulatory frameworks established by FDR.
The episode also critiques modern figures promoting a return to pre-20th-century governance, linking their ideas to burgeoning autocratic tendencies.
Interview:
Sunday, December 22, 2024
He’s anti-democracy and pro-Trump: the obscure ‘dark enlightenment’ blogger influencing the next US administration
As JD Vance put it in a 2021 podcast interview with far-right influencer Jack Murphy: "There's this guy Curtis Yarvin who's written about some of these things. One has to basically accept that the whole thing is going to fall in on itself."
Vance added: "The task of conservatives right now is to preserve as much as can be preserved and then when the inevitable collapse comes you build back the country in a way that's actually better."…
"no one online has shaped Vance's thinking more". The growing parallels between the incoming administration's actions – especially Vance's views – and Yarvin's suggestions raise questions about his influence…
In 2022 Vox called Yarvin the "person who's spent the most time gaming out how, exactly, the US government could be toppled and replaced"…
"He didn't fall out of a coconut tree. He emerged into a rightwing media space where they had been talking about the evils of liberal media and corrupt academic institutions for decades," he said.
"He has influenced a lot of people in the incoming administration and a lot of other influential people on the right. But a lot of the stuff he advocates is the same windmills Republicans have been tilting at for a while," Evans continued.
"What's unique is his way of rebranding or repackaging old reactionary ideas in a way that appealed to libertarian-minded kids in the tech industry, and in eventually getting some of them to embrace a lot of far-right ideas," he said…
Monday, December 2, 2024
Trump Will Overplay His Hand. Here’s How to Be Ready. - POLITICO
Trump's return to power certainly poses challenges to U.S. democracy. But he will make mistakes and overplay his hand — at home and abroad. America will survive the next four years if Democrats pick themselves up and start learning from the successes of opponents of autocracy across the globe...
Thursday, October 31, 2024
Monday, August 5, 2024
Pulitzer Prize Winning Author Anne Applebaum on Autocracies and Comedian Trae Crowder on JD Vance (Al Franken podcast)
We talk to The Liberal Redneck, comedian Trae Crowder, about JD Vance and his “Hillbilly” roots.
With Donald Trump running for President of the United States, could we be heading for a similar fate?
We’ve seen other countries thwart autocracies in recent weeks. Is America ready to do the same?
Plus, Donald Trump has one of the most disliked VP candidates in history.
Interview:
Friday, April 5, 2024
Overheard (Alabama Edition) #9
"We can be truly free only if we’re confident we can go about our private lives without being monitored or intruded upon by the government and can practice whatever faith (or lack of faith) we wish regardless of the religious beliefs of others. A society where one set of religious views is imposed on those who disagree with them is not a democracy. It’s a theocracy."
— Guardian columnist Robert Reich
Monday, April 1, 2024
Pulitzer Prize Winning Historian Anne Applebaum Of The Atlantic (Al Franken podcast)
- We begin our wide-ranging conversation by discussing the attack on a Moscow concert hall last week.
- What are the implications of that violence?
- And who is behind it?
- Then delve into the US’s failure to fund the Ukrainian effort and the resulting loss of life.
- Will we help them?
- Or will Republicans continue to enable Putin?
- Anne also lays out the dangers of a second Trump term.
- With autocracy on the rise around the world, what would it look like here in America?
Interview:
Thursday, March 21, 2024
Bombshell plot exposed: ‘Secret men-only right-wing society’ plots Christian government takedown
The Society for American Civic Renewal, or SACR for short, is a group that was uncovered earlier this month by Talking Points Memo, which described them as, “a secret, men-only right-wing society with members in influential positions around the country who are on a crusade to recruit a Christian government that will form after the right achieves regime change in the United States, potentially via a 'national divorce.'"
Tuesday, December 12, 2023
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