"We are no longer at a 'tipping point' or 'an inflection point.' We are no longer 'sliding' toward autocracy. Donald Trump no longer 'aspires' to be an autocrat. Last week, in case you had any doubt, the Trump regime went full-bore authoritarian. We cannot accurately describe the current United States government as a functional democracy."

~ Jennifer Rubin

#Trump #fascism #authoritarianism #Epstein #military #PoliticsofDistraction #PoliticsofTheater #ApprovalRating
/2

"Over the weekend, on his Truth Social, Trump shared a video purporting to be a segment on Fox News — it wasn’t — in which an AI-generated, deepfaked version of himself sat in the White House and promised that 'every American will soon receive their own MedBed card' that will grant them access to new 'MedBed hospitals.'”

~ Robert Reich

#Trump #fascism #authoritarianism #Epstein #military #PoliticsofDistraction #PoliticsofTheater #healthcare #dementia
/3

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/why-isnt-the-media-reporting-on-trumps-d1e

"Trump also posted (again, without any basis in fact) that the FBI 'secretly placed … 274 FBI Agents into the Crowd just prior to, and during' the January 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol, during which they were 'probably acting as Agitators and Insurrectionists.'"

#Trump #fascism #authoritarianism #Epstein #military #PoliticsofDistraction #PoliticsofTheater #healthcare #dementia
/4

"Trump also announced Saturday that he intends to send the U.S. military to Portland, Oregon, authorizing 'Full Force, if necessary' to 'protect War ravaged Portland, and any of our ICE Facilities under siege from attack by Antifa, and other domestic terrorists.' …

What’s been the media’s response to Trump’s bonkers postings and announcements this weekend? Nada."

#Trump #fascism #authoritarianism #Epstein #military #PoliticsofDistraction #PoliticsofTheater #healthcare #dementia
/5

"Are his acts those of a sane person? Or of an aging paranoid megalomaniac?

Even if it’s unclear to which category Trump belongs, shouldn’t this question be central to the coverage of his presidency? At the very least, shouldn’t the media be actively investigating?"

#Trump #fascism #authoritarianism #Epstein #military #PoliticsofDistraction #PoliticsofTheater #healthcare #dementia
/6

"[Liza] Goitein told me that 'presidents have deployed troops domestically to quell civil unrest or enforce the law only 30 times in our nation’s 250-year history, yet if Trump follows through in Portland, he will have done it three times in nine months. This is wildly out of step with our nation’s principles and traditions.'"

~ Joyce Vance

#Trump #fascism #authoritarianism #Epstein #military #PoliticsofDistraction #PoliticsofTheater
/7

https://joycevance.substack.com/p/the-week-ahead-47a

"Donald Trump, whose desire to deploy the military was stymied by senior Pentagon leaders after demonstrations around the country against the police murder of George Floyd in 2020, has no such constraints on him now."

~ Lucian K. Truscott

#Trump #fascism #authoritarianism #Epstein #military #PoliticsofDistraction #PoliticsofTheater
/8

https://luciantruscott.substack.com/p/will-portland-be-trumps-first-step

"The first thing he did this time around was to appoint a puppet Pentagon chief, the execrable mock-Nazi tattooed Pete Hegseth, who almost immediately started firing military commanders he alleged were 'woke.'"

#Trump #fascism #authoritarianism #Epstein #military #PoliticsofDistraction #PoliticsofTheater #Hegseth
/9

"Now that Trump has, or thinks he has, a military command structure loyal to him, he’s been deploying soldiers to Democratic Party-controlled cities, including Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., to 'fight crime' and 'protect ICE agents.'”

#Trump #fascism #authoritarianism #Epstein #military #PoliticsofDistraction #PoliticsofTheater
/10

"While most normal people try to avoid chaos and uncertainty, a narcissistic chaos agent like Trump thrives on it. When everyone else is thrown off their game, then Trump can be exactly where he wants to be: at the center of the storm, grabbing all the attention."

~ Jay Kuo

#Trump #fascism #authoritarianism #Epstein #military #PoliticsofDistraction #PoliticsofTheater
/11

https://statuskuo.substack.com/p/holding-our-collective-breath

"For the sake of our own mental health, it’s better to predict and understand the likely outcome of any background investigation of a killer: If he’s white and conservative, it will be forgotten among the thousands of examples we have of such shooters; if he’s Muslim/minority/trans, we won’t hear the end of it for a long time, if ever."

#Trump #fascism #authoritarianism #Epstein #military #PoliticsofDistraction #PoliticsofTheater
/12

"Trump is desperate, as he grows more unpopular, his government fails and his powers ebb, to find ways to make him feel STRONG and POWERFUL and MANLY. It is almost impossible to imagine something more authoritarian, more illiberal, more mad - & more dangerous - than the use of the military on our streets to fight a fictional enemy in an imaginary war."

~ Simon Rosenberg

#Trump #fascism #authoritarianism #Epstein #military #PoliticsofDistraction #PoliticsofTheater
/13

https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/we-must-keep-the-military-off-our

@wdlindsy

This is exactly right. Trump gins up a hysteria about illegal immigrants while ignoring the real threats, the existential threats that our country faces, not least of all from Trump himself.

Are Republicans blind? Do they so fear brown and black people? Do they really fear trans people in bathrooms? Do they love their money more than their country?

@Dave_Goldsmith @wdlindsy

Trump's corrupt GOP didn't get into power without help.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/trumps-flurry-pardons-include-campaign-contributors/story?id=122313284

https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/biggest-donors

Billionaire dynasties fund Project 2025

https://www.desmog.com/2024/08/14/project-2025-billionaire-donor-heritage-foundation-donald-trump-jd-vance-charles-koch-peter-coors/

Bradley, Koch, Coors, Scaife Mellon, Seid & Uihlein bought the Jan 6 coup attempt, tried again & succeeded in 2024.

The only way to get 147 traitorous election deniers in 2020 was megadonors.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/01/07/us/elections/electoral-college-biden-objectors.html

Larry Ellison participated in calls on the Jan 6 plot & helped vet "loyalists"

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