Posted by nickcotter 3/29/2025
Yes. As someone else remarked online, there is a world of difference between an effectively zero chance of this terrible outcome, and a non-zero chance.
It's a change in kind not in degree, and people will react to that.
Protests need to be taking place. This isn't a bi partisan issue but a constitutional crisis that will destroy our country if we do not overturn these illegal EOs.
April 5th come support the national protest.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Now the administration is staffed entirely with maga loyalists and Trump has appointed a substantial portion of the entire federal judiciary, up to creating a supermajority in the supreme court. The barriers are gone.
So now we get the white house deliberately messaging the suffering of others. Kristi Noem in front of prisoners in El Salvador. Tweets of people in shackles or AI images of people weeping while being arrested, presented to the glee of adoring fans. "We love hurting these people" is the message.
Some were tired of the media ignoring stories like the Biden laptop story.
Others wanted more details on Hunters $500k no show Ukrainian job. Or disliked that Trump was tried on novel charges.
Personally, I think the way Hollywood has been weaponized is worth overthrowing. That’s a giant propaganda machine.
Institutions like NPR, which had 87 directors that are Democrats and no Republicans. Doesn’t seem right, does it?
So not everybody is alarmed. It’s only dark if you’re on one side of the political spectrum.
The endless litigation in the laptop case against Hunter Biden wasn't enough? Every media company must also cover it if MAGA says so?
> Others wanted more details on Hunters $500k no show Ukrainian job
Hunter Biden does not and has not held any position in public office, but regardless a House Republican investigation into the Biden family found no wrongdoing[0].
I'm sorry that you feel persecuted when your side just got control of all three branches of government, had the richest man in the world buy Twitter to help you win, and also controls the largest cable news network in the country.
The story was suppressed at the FBI's insistence until after the election. They were spreading that it was Russian disinformation to ensure it wouldn't harm the Democrats, including getting social media sites to remove posts about it.
> "We want to emphasize that we do not know if the emails, provided to the New York Post by President Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, are genuine or not, and that we do not have evidence of Russian involvement—just that our experience makes us deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case," the letter said.[0]
> called up Twitter in the early morning hours of September 9, 2019, officials had what they believed was a serious issue to report: Famous model Chrissy Teigen had just called President Donald Trump “a pussy ass bitch” on Twitter — and the White House wanted the tweet to come down.[1]
> That exchange — revealed during Wednesday’s House Oversight Committee hearing on Twitter by Rep. Gerry Connolly — and others like it are nowhere to be found in Elon Musk’s “Twitter Files” releases, which have focused almost exclusively on requests from Democrats and the feds to the social media company. The newly empowered Republican majority in the House of Representatives is now devoting significant resources and time to investigating this supposed “collusion” between liberal politicians and Twitter.[1]
[0]: https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000175-4393-d7aa-af77-579f9...
[1]: https://www.congress.gov/118/meeting/house/115286/documents/...
Taxpayer funded Politico also went live with headlines "Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say".
The reveal was shut down fast by the Biden white-house.
https://intelligence.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?Docu...
"Furthermore, officials within the CIA recognized at the time that the Hunter Biden statement was political and would hurt the Agency. The signatories’ decision to leverage their former intelligence community titles to promote a narrative about foreign election interference improperly embroiled the Agency in domestic politics. This report underscores the potential dangers of a politicized intelligence community."
You'll never see me defending our intelligence apparatus and I agree that it's bad they involved themselves. But, government agents can submit strongly worded letters all they want. It doesn't mean anything.
Chat logs, published just this Tuesday by the House Judiciary Committee on X, show that the gag order extended to an FBI analyst who attempted to alert social media companies that the laptop was authentic—before these companies moved to censor the story’s spread.
Plese read the thread at: https://x.com/intent/like?tweet_id=1907098412652052870
Nutshell: So, the FBI under Biden stated that the laptop story had all the signs of a Russian misinformation op. When an agent wanted to correct the record and mention that the laptop was genuine, he was made to shut up. If this isn't explicit partisan interference during an election period, the there is no standard of evidence that will convince you.
What is next?
- Maybe punish citizens for their views that do not align with the state sanctioned perspective, rather than just Green Card and immigrants. In this case, I expect some type of black list that deals economic damage to those on it. I can imagine some type of wide ranging social media bans for those on the list.
- Further erode the rule of law and empower the president as a unity power. Or alternatively marketed, deal with corrupt judges who want to upend the will of a democratically elected leader.
This play book has happened so many times recently, Putin in Russia, Netanyahu is doing it in Israel right now, Erdoğan in Turkey.
It seems this is where the US is headed and I do not see any off ramps in the need term.
Yes, but it is shifting. The recent special elections are good data points, though special elections draw very motivated voters.
To your point, I think media bans will be next (Trump has floated many times). If they can ban all media except Fox and X, MAGAs will be able to lie with impunity continuing to control the narrative.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/03/27/demo...
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/gop-anxiety-persi...
Legitimately people are asking for a King. Right wing, supposed to be ultra-Americans are asking for a king.
As long as he promises to make their bank accounts grow, and make their perceived enemies suffer, they want a king.
I am absolutely astounded by what's going on around me right now
They have given up on the "make their bank accounts grow" thing. The tariff tax and stock market sliding down doesn't appear to bother them. Neither does the fact that he promised to make their groceries cheaper in one day. And the opposite is happening.
Making the perceived enemies suffer is the big thing. "I may not have enough to feed my family, but if you make marginalized people I don't like suffer, you have my support."
So long as he hurts the right people, they love him.
It's because they blame their current status on "the other". Why can't they get a job? Because a foreigner "stole" it. Why is government aid failing to keep up? Because the bad people that don't deserve it are draining their deserved benefit.
But further, their religious texts say times will get tough before their Messiah comes back, so if Trump makes them personally suffer "well, hopefully Jesus will be back soon".
Republican state governors and legislators have drank the Trump Kool aid, Democrats need trump to run against to stay in office.
The people are fat and lazy and either comfortable or uncomfortable enough not to have spare time.
It's a fucking train wreck. Nothing means anything and everything is bullshit.
What they want is mostly fair representation in media, entertainment, and politics. Look no further than Saturday Night Live to understand how conservatives are misrepresented and liberals are given a free pass. Fix that and people will generally be more satisfied.
Here's an issue I have, it's that if you dig into the backstory of 90% of the people claiming this narrative, it's not what happened. They aren't "cancelled for their opinions" but instead they are making decisions that lead to their blackball.
Consider the case of Judy Mikovits. She likes to claim that she was fired for her wild ideas. But that's not why. She was fired because she was stealing a colleagues mail, got put on probation, and then had her understudy steal her laptop (which she never returned).
Her firing has nothing to do with bad thought.
I encourage you to point out other examples because they all tend to end like this. It's compelling to have a "I was cancelled" story.
But also, this just isn't the same. These "cancelled" people are pretty much all on the podcast/media train. Some of them making a decent chunk of change. That's completely different from having a van with masked strangers pull up, grab you off the street, and then ultimately imprison you who knows where with no access to a lawyer. Potentially ending with you being sent to an El Salvadoran death camp.
These are not the same thing.
They simply don't exist.
What does exist are people using their 15 minutes to play the victim and spin a new career in media.
Are you referring for instance to Claudine Gay? It seems to fit, IMHO.
This still is not how you do things.
For starters, if they are terrorists, then they should be locked up in our jails, not deported where they can continue to plan attacks.
But before we do that, shouldn't we have a trial? You know, the whole "innocent until proven guilty" thing? How do we know, for example, that this isn't just a case of mistaken identity? Or a zealous ICE agent? Heck, how do we know that this isn't some agent getting back at his girlfriend?
That's why we have courts and trials.
When you are welcomed at someone's house, you don't start going around by lecturing them on how to run their house.
They are free to support Hamas, just not in the US as students.
They absolutely are free to support Hamas (with words and assembly, not with financing). The 1st Amendment has no exemption for "except if it's pro-bad-guy" nor for "except if you're a student" nor for "except if you're not a US citizen."
> When you are welcomed at someone's house, you don't start going around by lecturing them on how to run their house.
We're not talking about a guest in a house. We're talking about a person in the US's jurisdiction. Our Constitution explicitly protects their right to do this.
The 1st Amendment's Free Speech protection is not limited to citizens, nor is the 5th Amendment's Due Process protection. The 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause makes that totally unambiguous: if you are within US jurisdiction, you have Constitutional rights.
But ok, then let's say they said or wrote wrong words. How do we know that actually happened? Trust ICE? How do we know they were on Visas? How do we know ICE didn't abduct the wrong people?
You haven't gotten around the problem of no due process.
Doesn't sound very free. Nor legal.
Cool, so are all the people criticizing Trump and his group of idiots not allowed to do so?
Again, you are free to speak your mind. Just, that, if I invited you to dinner at my home and you start criticizing everything I'll gently ask you to leave and go have dinner elsewhere.
Non-citizens have 1st Amendment rights in the United States. They also have Due Process rights. People, even non-citizens, are absolutely allowed to have and share legitimately abhorrent views on any topic they want.