@Strandjunker

We, on the left, are too beholden to law and order... while the ones who demand law and order have little respect for it... that must change and quick.

@Strandjunker Trump is no longer the one to fear. He was damaging but incompetent, and his narcissism seems to ensure that nobody can leverage him to prevent that incompetence from being self-defeating. As happened with the US midterms, the Democrats were lucky that Trump was on the ballot in the form of dozens of MAGA endorsees. That’s why Dems weren’t demolished by a contracting, high inflation economy and a very unpopular Administration. By extension, I think the Dems might be lucky if somehow Trump was nominated again. But I’d only be slightly less shocked to see that happen than I was to see Trump win in 2016. Trump lost HUGE this year. I don’t see the Republican establishment giving him a third try.

I now fear those to whom Trump has shown the path to autocratic (or worse… fascist) power. I worry deSantis might be that threat. Happily, the American electorate seems to have agreed that the election denier would-be Secretaries of State and Governors, who wanted to establish states’ ability to reject the outcomes of their elections and submit their own slates of hand-selected electors, were a threat to democracy. Those were the races to watch.

Still plenty of danger to fight. But I worry a lot less about Trump today than I did on November 7th.

@Strandjunker

In the last 1920’s the NAZIS were a dead party. Why? Because Hitler was banned from public speaking. Once the ban was lifted the NAZIS took off.

There’s a lesson in that.

@Strandjunker In the past week, one Republican candidate has said that democracy doesn't work and the nation needs to abandon it. A far-right religious leader said the same thing and came right out and said the word, "dictator."

These guys are openly saying what a lot of Republican leaders are saying privately. They do not believe in democracy. They want to structure the political system in the US so that no Democrat can ever win office again. They do not want free elections, because Republicans don't win free elections.

In Georgia, the Republicans are trying to shut down Saturday voting — so that people who work on weekdays won't be able to vote. Add that to gerrymandering, vote-rigging, voter suppression, and all that crap about fraudulent stolen elections and their goal is to weaken and destroy the legitimacy of the most sacred ritual of democracy.

The Republican party has a fascist core. They're not even trying to hide it anymore. Charles and David Koch followed their father and spent mlilions pushing the Republican party rightward. It was their money that funded the "Tea Party" movement, which later evolved into the MAGA cult. 😡