Mastodawn

Kevin Gatewood Aug 18, 2023

WTF has happened to our country? One party's frontrunner was unanimously adjudged a rapist by a federal jury, his namesake company was convicted of tax fraud, and he's under indictment for 91 felony counts in 4 different jurisdictions.

#Trump followers stormed the capital trying to block the peaceful transition of power. He calls them patriots and pledges to pardon them, which will only embolden more followers to commit more crimes in his name.

He attacks the prosecutors, judges and witnesses, vowing to go after them, while his followers dox the grand jurors and threaten a federal judge.

Meanwhile, the GOP sits by in silence, as if any part of this is normal??? These are warning signs of a nation on the precipice, and should not be ignored due to cowardice, or to political expediency

Can the 236 year-old American experiment in democracy survive a cult built around a dangerous and autocratic criminal?

#TrumpIndictment

SingingPups Aug 17, 2023

@CarlG314 I find myself wondering the same things on a fairly frequent basis…our legal system is really going to be put to the test in the next few years.

CarlG Aug 17, 2023

@Singingpups I have confidence our legal system can handle Trump. Even his hand-picked judges have slapped him down. Repeatedly. (With the notable exception of Aileen Cannon in Florida, who can simply set herself up to get reversed again on appeal if she persists in carrying his water).

My greater concern is whether the political system has the strength to reject him and his criming. And how so many Americans are weak enough to fall under his spell.

lippyduck Aug 18, 2023

@CarlG314 @Singingpups "his spell" indeed. It is a witch hunt and he is the witch.

SingingPups Aug 20, 2023

@CarlG314 Well said, I share your latter concern. The past 8 years certainly have been an interesting study in human behavior, I’ll give it that!

lw329 Aug 17, 2023

@CarlG314 and what if the rot is actually worse, in that it’s not really just about this one person? If he is not in the picture, there will be someone else who will drive the party the same way.

🌊Ann Morris🐕🍀🌎🌊🌊Aug 18, 2023

@lw329 @CarlG314 trump is just the pus pocket on the tumor that is the republican party. There are many republican House and Senate member pus pockets who are being paid, bribed or blackmailed into destroying our government. Who are the extremely wealthy men who want the US destroyed?

Andreas K Aug 19, 2023

@AnnMorris @lw329 @CarlG314 There have been GOP House/Senate members for years now who that have replaced democracy with freedom (the libertarian version) in their top priorities.

And if you swallow the libertarian ideology, the state (and thus democracy) is incompatible with their definition of freedom.

And so the “small state GOP politician” has mutated over time into what I call the “no state politician”.

Andreas K Aug 19, 2023

@AnnMorris @lw329 @CarlG314

You can see a perverse example of this in the UK:

After the sell-off some decades earlier, their water utilities are all private, and surprise surprise they have not invested in the infrastructure, they invested in paying out the highest profits to their new owners. Funny that.

So now UK water utilities are severely broken.

But the Tories, they fixed it by basically deregulating the sector, allowing them to continue not to invest.

Andreas K Aug 19, 2023

@AnnMorris @lw329 @CarlG314
Any normal government one would assume, would care about utilities that do what utilities are supposed to do.

UK Tories (British GOP cousins) care about utilities continuing to pay proper profits to their shareholders, that's freedom from undue interference by the state. (like forbidding them to dump raw sewage into rivers or the sea, that's a radical idea only EU idiots could come up. Or force investments over paying profits. Barbarian.)

See #BrExit benefit!!!

JoeStewart Aug 17, 2023

@CarlG314
It’s the “meanwhile” part that has me most worried. I understand Trump’s behavior, it’s logical from his point of view. I do not understand the “leaders” of the GOP.

Mrs Raven Aug 18, 2023

Well, I was here for Goldwater and Reagan so nothing surprises me.

Billions are spent by conservatives and fascists to study, construct, and spread lies. Cable makes it possible.

Stan R. Mitchell Aug 18, 2023

Yes, we can. And I actually see some signs of the fever beginning to break, slowly but surely. Did you some of the polls today? 👊❤️🇺🇸

CarlG Aug 18, 2023

@stanrmitchell HRC led virtually every poll in 2016. But our system anointed Trump as president.

RiBurton Aug 18, 2023

@CarlG314 Powerful post.

llywrch Aug 18, 2023

@CarlG314 One has to contemplate assassination as a solution to this threat. But since that would only create martyrs & give the wrong people a symbol to rally around, it remains a bad idea. And not for that reason alone.

CarlG Aug 18, 2023

@llywrch Violence begets violence, and even thinking of assassination shows the extremists are winning.

Nicole Parsons Aug 18, 2023

The only way to achieve complicit silence from the GOP is the donors.

Republican billionaire donors want cooperation from the GOP, and they're getting it, for a seditious conspiracy.

Urban Hermit Aug 18, 2023

@CarlG314
Best summary ever. And America will survive and hopefully be better for it, because Trump's popularity is appalling and deplorable, but it has hit its hard ceiling and it is enough to have him run as a Republican, but not enough to win the presidency again.

The Republican Party represents only the richest Americans who made their money off the exploitation of the the earth and the poor, and they thought they could control the dumbest of us with propaganda. This is 100% their fault.

James Britt Aug 18, 2023

A good chunk of the GOP are worse than silent, they are loudly defending him and his behavior.

CarlG Aug 18, 2023

@jamesbritt Fair point. I should have said the GOP are a combination of actively advocating for the criminal or too cowardly to speak out and say "not in my name".

theMamiyaMan 🇺🇦 🇨🇦Aug 18, 2023

@CarlG314 The USA is completely fucked imo.

Jo ♀️🐈🐈‍⬛🛍️🌛🥂Aug 18, 2023

@CarlG314 The world is upsidedown. 2016 was the tipping point & the pandemic made it worse. Idk what it's going to take...to fix it.

radioactivestardust Aug 18, 2023

@CarlG314 are you honestly surprised by this? There are so many reasons, why this is happening. Crazy fundamental churches which could run wild, bad education, high inequality.
50% of Americans do not accept the laws anymore, because they do not accept the government anymore. They want to establish a white supremacist autocracy because your education system failed in your neolilberal country and GOP supporters belief this to better stateform.

Satchmaus Aug 18, 2023

@CarlG314 I honestly think this is going to be a century of autocrats around the world, not just the US, if these people aren't punished.

SometimesIGetBored Aug 18, 2023

@CarlG314 nothing that is happening is unique to our country or it's history. It's always been a system that rewarded the wealthy and protected them, while harming the rest of us.

This is all just an extension of that.

Kropotkinbaking Aug 18, 2023

@CarlG314 "Can the 236 year-old American experiment in democracy survive a cult built around a dangerous and autocratic criminal?"

No and good riddance. It's a genocidal empire and the only political party is the Capitalists and they're dedicated to destroying the planet for profit. The sooner the US is over and we can build better things in its place the better we will be, in the US and more importantly for the other 7 billion people on earth.

TheDude Aug 18, 2023

DanaBlankenhorn Aug 18, 2023

Dud (Mx)Aug 18, 2023

@CarlG314 The USA was created by people not too far from him, the electoral college, the lack of education and suppression of free thought ensured people like him would always be in charge. Any time you get a "progressive" president is by accident. The USA is a 2 party dictatorship supported by the SCOTUS and it's "Appointed for life" members. Just my opinion.

Brett Clubbe Aug 18, 2023

@CarlG314 this experiment was doomed to fail when it was built on genocide, murder, theft, lies and slavery.

Brett Clubbe Aug 18, 2023

@CarlG314 USA is a death cult, always has been.

jollyrogue Aug 18, 2023

@CarlG314 This makes it sound as if the GOP isn’t complicit or benefitting from all this.

“Oh those poor people who stood by doing nothing benefitting from all of this. They’re just victims of circumstance.” 😐😑

Conservatives took the mask off. That’s what happened. This is who they are, except now loud and proud.

Tom 🇨🇦Aug 20, 2023

#AllureOfFascism

Patricia Lavatai Aug 23, 2023

@CarlG314
I have spent the last week reading, and rereading the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
My takeaway is that you have to interpret the Bill of Rights in light of the Constitution, not vice versa. MAGA, it seems to me, do not understand that the Bill of Rightsis not the Constitution, and that and amendment is just that, an amendment, an addendum to the original “contract”. Case in point. The Second Amendment does not make Article One, Section 8 null and void.