Something to be mindful of: “Trump’s assumption of control over the Washington, D.C., police force and his calling out of the D.C. National Guard are definitely ways for him to divert attention from the Epstein files and the stalling economy. But they are also an attempt to create a dictatorship as Project 2025 prescribed. Both can be true at the same time.”

#Politics #USPolitics #GOPAuthoritarianism #Project2025 #TrumpIsANationalDisgrace #LettetsFromAnAmerican

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-12-2025

August 12, 2025

Liberal commentator Jessica Tarlov nailed it this morning when she wrote: “He’s doing everything EXCEPT releasing the Epstein files.” Her comment was in reference to President Donald Trump’s social media post of 7:30 this morning, when he chummed the water by suggesting that the John F.

Letters from an American

Is it that no one *can* do anything, or that no one *wants* to? 🤔

“Trump is weaponizing the military on his own whims, shaping the National Guard into a private, militant police force that answers to him and him only. And it seems like no one can do anything about it.”

#Politics #USPolitics #TrumpMilitaryTakeover #TrumpIsANationalDisgrace #TrumpMilitaryWeaponization #TrumpAuthoritarianism #GOPAuthoritarianism

https://newrepublic.com/post/199008/trump-plans-military-reaction-force-use-americans

Trump Plans Military “Reaction Force” to Use Against Americans

A disturbing new report reveals how Trump wants to use the military to crush civil unrest.

The New Republic

"In a new letter, Sen. Elizabeth Warren is demanding answers from the General Services Administration on the "serious consequences" of Trump's "unprecedented" refusal to complete required transition agreements.
No prior president-elect has refused to sign these agreements."
-K Cheney

It appears that the federal govt has already surrendered. Americans will need to rise up against the incoming authoritarian govt.

#USPol #GOPFascism #GOPAuthoritarianism
https://www.warren.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/warren_letter_to_gsa_re_trump_transition.pdf

When they talk to each other, that's when the masks slip and the fascist and authoritarian beneath peaks out. So much of the GOP is now the party of fascism, authoritarianism and theocracy. Those multi-syllabic words are more than they can understand but that doesn't stop them in the least. Right-wing oligarchs, Fox News and right-wing talk radio/media, religious zealots, racists and white supremacists and power-hungry goons have been prepping the GOP base for this for years. Anybody with half a brain who values democracy, liberty, freedom, human rights and a healthy society, should never vote Republican and better wake up if they are voting GOP on auto-pilot!

'That's how fascists talk': Matt Gaetz flattened for threat of violence in support of Trump https://www.rawstory.com/matt-gaetz-violence/

#GOPFascism
#GOPTheocracy
#GOPAuthoritarianism
#GOPThePartyOfViolence
#GOPRacism

"According to an expert on authoritarianism, comments made by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) on Saturday while standing with former president Donald Trump should raise flags as he promised to use "force" to create change in Washington, D.C.

Considering the former president was recently indicted for conspiracy related to the Jan. 6 insurrection that led to lawmakers fleeing for their lives, historian and author Ruth Ben-Ghiat called Gaetz comments alarming.

Speaking before a crowd at the Iowa State Fair on Saturday, Gaetz stated, "Mr. President, I cannot stand these people that are destroying our country. They are opening our borders. They are weaponizing our federal law enforcement against patriotic Americans who love this nation as we should," before adding, "But we know that only through force do we make any change in a corrupt town like Washington, D.C. And so to all my friends here in Iowa, when you see them come for this man, know that they are coming for our movement and they are coming for all of us."

Reacting to Gaetz's proclamations, Ben-Ghiat told MSNBC's Ayman Mohyeldin, "What he is saying is that they are not going to have change through elections or through legislation or through reform. They are going to have change through violence."

"And that's how fascists talk," she added. "So, even if Trump is out of the picture, these are people who have adopted methods very familiar to me as a historian of fascism, that violence and corruption and lying that's what the party is today.""

'That's how fascists talk': Matt Gaetz flattened for threat of violence in support of Trump

According to an expert on authoritarianism, comments made by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) on Saturday while standing with former president Donald Trump should raise flags as he promised to use "force" to create change in Washington, D.C.Considering the former president was recently indicted for conspiracy...

Raw Story - Celebrating 19 Years of Independent Journalism

The GOP and their base are not coming to their senses. If anything they are becoming more extreme, more illiberal, more fascistic, more racist and more reactionary. The GOP and its base no longer care about truth and democracy. They are angry, aggrieved, longing for power and in their delusional models of reality, certain they are victimized and justified in hating and hurting their "enemies." They have been weaponized by the obscenely wealthy, the power hungry and their religious and cultural demagogues, to destroy democracy and create an oligarchic, Christian nationalist government. The base only knows they are angry, economically hurting and victims and they are primed to destroy whatever their demagogues tell them is to blame for their woes. It's not the wealthy who have impoverished them and it's not the religious leaders who have misguided and used them, it's the minorities who have stolen their jobs, their privileges and their cultural dominance. There are no economic, industrial, educational or political policies they are being offered by their leaders that will help them. Instead they are being directed to hate and destroy real education, economic opportunities, health care, political and voting reform and progressive policies that could actually benefit them and their children. They are being primed to destroy our democracy, our progress and our society. We must not lose sight of this or we are all doomed.

Opinion | Has the GOP Lost Its Brain? Hardly. | Common Dreams https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/has-the-gop-lost-its-brain-hardly

#GOPFascism
#GOPRacism
#GOPHatesDemocracy
#GOPLovesPower
#GOPAreTheToolOfTheRich
#TheRichHateDemocracy
#GOPAuthoritarianism
#GOPTheocracy

"The GOP might be confused about what it is for. But it is crystal clear about what it is against.

And while the nasty skirmish about Kevin McCarthy’s House Speakership might have centered on “egos and power rivalries,” it is a fact that McCarthy, Elise Stefaniak, Steve Scalise and their attack dog Marjorie Taylor Greene in short order came together with Matt Gaetz, Lauren Boebert, Paul Gosar—all of whom voted to undo Joe Biden’s election as president—to commit themselves to a culture war against the left and indeed against cultural modernity itself.

Today’s GOP contains idiots and nihilists and pathological liars like George Santos. It contains sheer opportunists such as Mitch McConnell and even McCarthy himself. And since 2016, it has been dominated by a group of right-wing ideologues, inside and outside of government, who have fueled and been fueled by Trump and who are emphatically committed to a reactionary nationalist, racist, and authoritarian vision of “American Greatness.” Whether this vision is carried forward by Trump, or DeSantis, is for them quite beside the point. For that is the GOP vision.
...
They surely inhabit a strange intellectual and moral universe of their own deluded contrivance. But they are not without ideas. They are fanatics, in possession of and possessed by very dangerous ideas. These ideas helped to promote an insurrection. They continue to sustain lies about the legitimacy of the Biden administration and to justify efforts to undermine democratic procedures, voting rights, and racial and gender equality. And they are currently being instrumentalized to reshape K-12 education and higher education in the U.S.

These ideas are very dangerous. And in order to defeat them we need to treat them with the seriousness they deserve."

Has the GOP Lost Its Brain? Hardly.

Timothy Noah is an incisive commentor on U.S. politics. His recent New Republic essay, “How the GOP Lost Its Brain,” nicely documents the ways that the Republican party has become both increasingly anti-intellectual and incoherent since the days of Reagan. The GOP deserves to be skewered for its inc

Common Dreams
Abortion Rights Triumphed in Michigan and Almost Everywhere Else in the Midterms

Voters in Michigan, California, and Vermont agreed to enshrine abortion protections in their state constitution.