In the same vein. Threats against ABC reporter.
Our bull goose loony.
I was going to say that Trump already has the copyright on “Truth Social”, but I checked first.
It turns out that the Patent and Trademark Office rejected his application back in 2022. Maybe he appealed and got it, I didn’t chase that down.
Of course, a new P&T director might reverse that decision.
Should rename it “Pravda Social.”
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This is pretty nuts:
Wasn’t a comment about Trump. Wasn’t a comment about Kirk. It was a comment about the Ministry of Truth’s story about the killer’s motives.
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The US is in serious danger now.
You are already an illiberal democracy at this point in time that is now careening into a full-blown autocracy.
Elections won’t matter at that point. They will work around them.
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This part is important:
The abrupt decision by the network, which is owned by the Walt Disney Company, came hours after the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, assailed Mr. Kimmel’s remarks and suggested that his regulatory agency might take action against ABC because of them.
This wasn’t “employer fires employee”. This is “chief regulator tells employer to fire employee or lose your gov’t license”.
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People have limits, and Trump is testing those limits. Don’t know if this is what will break Americans. but if not, he won’t stop, and it will happen. His approval ratings is approaching record lows. Unemployment will not stay below 4.5% for long. The market will stop hitting record highs. His remaining support is fragile and the only thing he has left is increasingly extreme moves like this to hold on to power. This is prime for a black swan collapse.
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I’d love to believe that you are right.
If we could run an election on the question “Trump or someone else”, the “someone” might have a good chance.
Unfortunately, there has to be a contender, and that will be a Democrat, and the Ds aren’t popular: Democratic Party Favorability | RealClearPolling
He doesn’t need the country to support him if he use the power of the state to crush dissent.
Case in point:
I think we have too many outlets in place for Trump to do much more than make a dent. It’s extremely problematic that he’s picking off individuals, but he will need to wholesale cut off the flow of information. There will always be money to set up a new channel.
What has a better chance of happening, Trump achieving that, or Trump hitting a tipping point on what the public will tolerate?
The universities, media, sports teams and corporations have all folded. What’s left?
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Millions of pissed-off individuals.
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I have no doubt there are millions. In fact, there are tens of millions.
In 2024, that wasn’t enough.
Given the gerrymandered maps, Trump won’t even need half the votes to maintain control of Congress in 2026. How many people who voted for Trump or other Rs in 2024 will need to admit to themselves that they made a mistake and change side?
Given another two years of Congress, WH, and SC, I’m sure we will not have a fair vote in 2028. How overwhelming would the actual sentiment need to be to overcome that?
I’m answering those questions with “I don’t think enough people will change sides.”
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New War on Terror announced.
The last one went so great, we’re turning it inward on the populace now.
I’m sure there are millions. In fact, I’m sure there are tens of millions. In 2024 that wasn’t enough.
Given the gerrymandered maps, Trump won’t even need half the votes to maintain control of Congress in 2026. How many people who voted for Trump or other Rs in 2024 will need to admit to themselves that they made a mistake and change side?
Given another two years of Congress, WH, and SC, I’m sure we will not have a fair vote in 2028. How overwhelming will the actual sentiment need to be to overcome that?
I’m answering those questions with “I don’t think enough people will change sides.”
Sure, I hope I’m wrong. But the vast power of the federal gov’t wriggled one little finger and Kimmel got fired. Every other business that owns a platform is going to notice. I think the news that people who aren’t political junkies get is going to be strongly biased.
Yes, Trump will win a 50/50 contest (2016). Trump will still lose a 55/45 contest (2018).
2016 Republicans had a 40 seat edge compared with 2024 Republicans who have a 5 seat edge, even though the voting results for Congress were within a few points.
Republicans in Texas are banking on the voting patterns from the 2024 election to gerrymander the state. They packed the blue urban cores into districts and combined suburban areas with rural areas to create Trump +10/+20 districts. Suburban voters in Atlanta have put Georgia in play.
Their entire strategy is based on voting pattern from Trump elections against female competitors. It will fail.
They are turning. I’m seeing social media posts, in NC specifically of all places, from people I never thought would do so, openly state regret. If we actually have an actual vote that isn’t fraudulent.
That being said…Dems can absolutely still eff it up. Again.
In the special elections that have been held so far this year, we have seen examples where districts that have been reliably red flipped blue.
While gerrymandering antics, if not constrained by the courts, can offset some of that, it seems likely that Dear Leader would need to take more extreme action to avoid the D’s reclaiming the House in 2027. (And gerrymandering could actually backfire, given that to get more red districts, you have to dilute the concentration of red voters.)
I haven’t looked at which Senate seats are up in 2026 to have an informed opinion on what might happen there. And also, when looking at Congressional elections, we do have to acknowledge Democrats’ knack for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
But I wasn’t thinking specifically of elections when I referenced “millions of pissed-off individuals”. While national institutions are caving to Dear Leader’s demands, a nontrivial minority of people are not.
I’ve been saying that the US has been in a cold civil war for the past several years. While I doubt that conditions will deteriorate to a fully hot repeat of the early 1860’s, I can easily imagine conditions deteriorating to something comparable to or perhaps even a little worse than the disorder of the civil rights and Vietnam protest era.
Unfortunately, I think it’s going to take something like that to shock the country out of the rut and general downward path that we’ve been on. I don’t look forward to that…but I think it has to get worse before there’s a realistic hope of it really getting better (for at least a few decades).