This is a spot-on summary of fascism, and jesus christ, but it sounds familiar to this American.
It’s a gross political pathology, always doomed to failure, so how did it take over this country?
It feels like we need a diagnosis of Rapid Onset Fascism here, but I also know it’s been festering for a long time in a dunghill of racism and religious dogma and American exceptionalism and the myth of rugged individualism.
Meanwhile, Christopher Rufo has a plan.
Third, the president should direct federal agencies to create a hard-soft, or visible-invisible, approach to riot control. In public, the National Guard should mobilize with enough manpower to smother the protests and avoid protracted conflict or hand-to-hand combat, which carries with it the highest level of risk. At the same time, as we saw demonstrated in Portland, Oregon, during the George Floyd riots, the agencies should dispatch unmarked vans to follow key agitators and snatch them from the streets while the media are not looking. The most effective riot controlis to take movement leaders off the field, infiltrate their networks, disrupt the flow of funding, and roll them up in federal investigations. Denying the Left trained protest leaders now will create a strong precedent for the rest of the president’s term.
Does anyone have any objections to unmarked vans full of men wearing masks snatching people off the street? Anyone?
Yeah, he really nailed it.
Because a large chunk of Americans fear difference and change and will do anything to keep it from happening.
And thats the reason they are afraid of difference and change: These people have come to believe they are superior by virtue of being white Christian Americans, that society was perfect when they were in charge as their Gawd ordained. Now these godless degenerates show up and start talking about the slavery and genocide committed by their fellows whites, how we’re just another species of filthy ape and their religion isn’t true, and that we have to share THEIR money and resources with those who are lesser than them?
What else can such a person do besides lacing-up their jackboots and putting a despot into power who promises to return everything to as it should be and punish those who changed things in the first place?
Fascism offers the illusion of safety, stability and convention. It talks of times in the past when the country was great, the economy was strong and the people stood firm. And it always has a list of easy targets for who is too blame.
In many ways it’s the politics of “Every complex problem has a simple obvious wrong solution”. The economy is doing badly? Illegal aliens are too blame, it’s not a problem with capitalism or technology destabilizing the previous balance. Population is declining? Gay people are creating families that don’t have children, not a society that makes raising children hard. The political structure is corrupt? Look over there, an easily invaded country deserves it.
@2: Why are white supremacists the freaking LEAST SUPREME OF ANYTHING? Genuine question because I don’t trust those dipshidiots to lead flies to the smelliest pile of shit possible. As the kids these days say: these people are absolutely mid.
Given that pretty much every single aspect of this – the militarised policing, the El Salvador connection, the role of private data brokers, you name it – was featured in the classic Jello Biafra / DOA album “Last Scream of the Missing Neighbours” way back in 1990, I really don’t think it’s been that rapid. There are some minor differences in the forms (back then it was “crack”, now it’s “illegal immigration”), but the core elements have been in place for decades.
I see Driftglass over int the blogroll there, who’s basically just been running wall-to-wall “I’ve been telling you about exactly this shit literally for as long as blogs have existed – look, here’s something I wrote 20 years ago that might as well be today” posts for ages now.
PZ wrote: Does anyone have any objections to unmarked vans full of men wearing masks snatching people off the street? Anyone?
I reply: HELL YES, look at this:
‘What People Have Feared’: ICE Impersonator Zip-Tied Woman and Stole $1,000
“Any criminal can now put on a mask, say he is from ICE, and conduct any crime,” one group warned.
Jessica Corbett Jun 10, 2025 https://www.commondreams.org/philadelphia-immigration
No badge, no legitimate ID, refusal to identify self, face mask=legitimate target
Riverside County Sheriff was on Glenn Beck this morning promoting his run for governor, and one of his complaints against protestors is that some of them were treating his own department’s unmarked vans as if they were ICE vans, interfering with their usual enforcement duties.
And I’m like; “who the fuck’s fault do you think that is?”
Because a bunch of wealthy and powerful people decided that they needed more wealth and power in order to stay wealthy and powerful. They’re happy to gamble that the short-term advantages will outweigh the long-term disadvantages. Some of them even think that grabbing a few billion now is the right thing to do even though they are old enough that they are unlikely to live another five years; they’ll never be able to spend it (they already weren’t able to spend all the money they already had) except on securing more wealth and power.
Enough is never enough for them. Even if they have any real love for their children and grandchildren, they’re gambling that when the inevitable collapse and violent consequences strike it’ll be after they’ve died and after their children and grandchildren have been left enough money to be able to avoid ending up dangling from lampposts.
G. Gordon Liddy had similar plans to keep the 1972 Republican National Convention secure from protesters.
Even John Mitchell thought it was a bit excessive. Didn’t kick him out of his office, though, just told him to tone it down. I suppose that would qualify him as a moderate Republican these days, or maybe even a RINO.
“Democrats need to reach across the aisle.”
Fuck.
As one person I know said: democrats shouldn’t reach across the aisle except to lob a grenade at the repugs.
Always answer your rhetorical questions. My answer, the Dems sold us out again and again and again with their performative opposition.
hillaryrettig1, your claim is that the Democratic party is responsible for what the Republican party does.
Never mind the actual perpetrator, eh?
An interesting point of view, that is.
A bit like saying it’s the fault of the owners of the workplaces where ICE raided that ICE raided them with their performative opposition.
(Protester beaten up? Well, their fault, because of their performative opposition!)
@hillaryrettig1 #12
“LOOK WHAT YOU MADE ME DO!!!”
@2,3
Because humans will almost always choose the familiar, even when the familiar is objectively terrible.
It’s why abused kids don’t leave when they are older and why they often replicate their dysfunctional home environments as adults. It’s Harry Harlow’s wire monkey mother study writ large.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/bhharl.html
https://www.psychologicalscience.org/publications/observer/obsonline/harlows-classic-studies-revealed-the-importance-of-maternal-contact.html
This is why there are no public pools in the South.
Once the Jim Crow laws were struck down, the public pools were drained and closed. Because racist white people would rather swelter in the heat with no relief than share an otherwise plentiful resource with those deemed lesser.
It explains the MAGA mindset perfectly.
@12, hillaryrettig1 : “.My answer, the Dems sold us out again and again and again with their performative opposition.”
Your evidence for that extraordinary and victim blamung assertion would be ________ ?
Its somehow supposed to be the Democratic parties fault that Trump took over the Repugs and went full fascist?
That people like de facto Trump voter beholder here well, de facto voted for Trump when they had an alternative that was vastly better – but they were too willfully ignorant and hateful to see it?
That’s the Democratic parties fault?
Okay, how?
How so?
StevoR, I can tell you how.
HillaryR was pretty unambiguous.
The Democratic party was ineffective at preventing their loss at the election.
This is on them.
Therefore, it’s their fault that they lost.
Specifically, they lost because of their performative opposition.
That is, they performed the motions and seeming of an opposition, but they lost..
So. Their fault.
Principle at hand, clearly, is that the loser is to blame for the winner’s harmful actions.
We already knew Christopfer Rufo was an idiot.
This is both very illegal and dumb. It won’t work.
.1. We the citizens have a legal, constitutional right to assemble in public. That is to protest and demonstrate.
It’s right there in the FIrst Amendment to the US constitution.
.2. There is no such thing as “key agitators” at these protests and demonstrations.
The leadership of these demonstrations is mostly amorphous, every changing, and about as disorganized as they can be.
A group like “Antifa” is a myth. They more or less never existed.
It is a description of a common viewpoint rather than a secret club with party cards and dues.
.3. What creates and drives these protests and demonstrations are…the underlying causes.
Like Trump, the GOP, Fascism, ICE, and people like Christopher Rufo.
.4. Rufo: The most effective riot controlis to take movement leaders off the field, infiltrate their networks, disrupt the flow of funding, and roll them up in federal investigations.
The problems with this fascist idea are obvious.
It’s not illegal to be a centrists, Democrat, Progressive, or leftist. We’re here and the majority of the population. (Evil kooks like Rufo and Trump would like to make us illegal but as of now they haven’t gotten that far.)
These networks and funding don’t exist.
And, arresting random people on the streets won’t stop them. It will just make people even angrier.
.4. When you get the thugs and soldiers in these protests, you always read that…137 people were arrested by the LAPD or whatever.
Almost all of the time nothing happens to them.
Because it is not illegal to be in a protest or demonstration.
In Portland, the cops even tried to send some of these cases to trial.
It didn’t work. They almost always ended up not guilty.
The prosecutors don’t have the money or humanpower to bring cases to trial with zero evidence except that a group of thugs kidnapped someone walking down the street at night.
Christopher Rufo has always been stupid and that is never going to change.
@17 Ok, first off, there is enough evidence to suggest that someone definitely fucked with the numbers in the election – stuff like us knowing in certain places that people stated they voted for other candidates, or even the precious “third party” candidate in those districts, yet… somehow the numbers don’t add up. This is just a case, sadly, due to the corruption of people, including Trump, literally all but admitting that a) “they rigged the election”, b) this helped him win, but, “err, no, what I meant was people voted for me due to them rigging the election.” Mind, this can be taken also as, “rigging it by lying their asses off, so as to convince people to vote against the better candidate, then not being held accountable for literally openly lying”, which is, despite normal political rhetoric, is still not “technically” legal. You are at least supposed to put the band aid on of, “This is only an opinion by my supporters.”, not openly endorse the slander and libel.
Second, I have, and will continue to say this – when you have only two parties who have any effective ability to run for higher office, not just “local shit”, which a third party might win, what you end up with is people who “venue shop” their candidacy. Mind, this likely would happen if we had many robust parties, but its less serious. So, when one party spends 60+ years sliding, bit by bit, into insanity it is inevitable that those who agree with, say 50% of the same policies and stupid ideas, but absolutely can’t stand the other 50% of them, will “shop venues”, so they can get elected, by switching parties. After 60 years you then end up with one party that is 100% in the pocket of the rich, and evangelicals, and white nationalists, and every stripe of lunatic, and another party that is, say, 30% in the pocket of at least “some” of the same, but not all of them at the same time.
The reason this seems “performative” is for the same reason that the GOP is now 100% against even their own freaking party’s prior inventions, like the EPA, social security, etc. – because a lot of the people in the Democratic party are 100% pro-corporation, even if they hate evangelicals, or maybe they are 100% pro-religion, but hate economic inequity, etc. You can’t have a consistent freaking long term plan, or even a short term one, when 1/3rd of the people around you are openly apposed to 1/3rd of all the policy you want to implement to fix problems, so you end up, “compromising”. If you are exceptionally stupid, like Biden, and yeah, sadly Kamala also missed the boat on this, you also try to “compromise” with the crazies that have taken over the other party. This might work if you are conducting foreign policy, and have a 50 year plan to change the regime in some middle eastern country, where you can’t afford to just tell them outright to fuck off and not deal with them any more at all, but you don’t have the option, if you want to do that, of sanctioning them, blocking their imports and exports, patrolling the boarders, or working with other nations to curtail their madness. You have two, and only two, tool to deal with these people – trying to find some sort of false middle ground, and give something up in trade for a partial solution, or get enough seats in every part of the government you can for it to not matter, and flat out refuse to negotiate with them. But, if you are going to do the later you also need to be able to sell this to the f-ing American people. And the only thing the Democrats are worse at than actually sticking to a clear, long term, plan (or even coming up with on, unlike their opponents and their “projects”, or should we call them Progroms?), is bloody overcoming the 60 years of lies, and indoctrination, which the GOP has been using, all along, to poison not just the well, but the entire bloody water table, so that the public is absolutely on their side, instead of buying in to the bullshit.
Its damned hard to effectively govern when literally anything you do to help people leads to 24/7 false information being spread about what you just did, why its somehow bad, what dire outcome it will bring, and how the next fascist will “fix things” by undoing all of it, thereby, “saving America”.
@17. John Morales : “The Democratic party was ineffective at preventing their loss at the election.
This is on them.”
Is it though? They were beaten by a tiny margin – perhaps not even really beaten legitimately at all given voter suppression which they didn’t control.
They also aren’t that “ineffective” at winning elections given they won the 2020 one with Biden, won with Obama and, as noted, might really have won this time too and, if not, they certainly got within a tiny few %~age points of victory – robbed in part by the tiny percentage that voted for the third party spoilers.
The “performative” bit makes it sound as though they weren’t trying seriously to win, not doing the best they could, just going through the motions etc .. I do NOT think that is correct. I think they genuinely tried as hard as they could and worked extremely hard to attempt to win and very nearly – or actually – succeeded. (But were robbed by illegitimate means? Quite possibly.)
I’d like to know what makes hillaryrettig1 think the Democratic campaign was merely “performative” and, indeed, why she thinks they “sold out” – I would guess in her mind that may include things like trying to win centrists and even Repug votes because that upset her as a progressive yet I think it actually proves the exact opposite. It would have been more “performative” and less effective to have gone harder on being progressive and whipping up the base and thereby alienating those more to the political centre whether the progressives like that reality or not. To win elections, you need a maximum number of people to vote for you and that means reaching beyond your base. To only play to the base and ignore those in the middle is to be more “performative” and, actually, to condemn your party and candidate to losing if you really think about it.
Have you ever thought about that hillaryrettig1 – among others that seem to take this “They didn’t pander to me, me, me and tried to get other people I don’t like who don’t just share my views to vote for them as well so Boooooo!!” line?
One of the reasons they lost (if they really did) is that too many Democratic and leftwing voters and people didn’t unify strongly enough behind them and failed to see reason. To see, frex, that Trump would be vastly worse on Gaza – which, ofc, he’s now predictably – and as predicted by many – proven. Too many white-anted and undermined because they metaphorically couldn’t get a magical unicorn candidate that doesn’t exist and would probly lose anyhow if it did. Politics is infamously said to be the art of the possible and compromise and yet, well.
Which, obvs, is just wrong and ridiculously so. As I’m pretty sure you know and are making the point of noting given how you’ve phrased it.
PS. What was that law called again where everything is always the Democrats fault somehow no matter who actually is to blame for it and where everything bad the Repugs are is somehow the Dems fault? Murcs law? Merc’s law? Was mentioned in a post here a while ago memory serving but can’t seem to find again now..
Raven @18
I think that the authoritarian mind may be unable to conceive of leaderless collective action. Or they could just be aware of it and flat out lying.
Okay, I’ve been seeing a lot of discussion about this but nobody’s really brought up a rather large elephant in the room. Though maybe I missed it. Please show me if I had. But I notice weird reluctance to be more critical of Democrats even though they have demonstrated multiple times how much they support and condone what Israel’s doing.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20250429-biden-never-pressured-israel-for-ceasefire-as-israeli-officials-boast-of-exploiting-us-support/
https://mondoweiss.net/2024/08/harris-says-she-wont-stop-bidens-policy-of-sending-weapons-to-israel/
Biden never actually tried to get a ceasefire and Harris stated pretty unambiguously that she would continue arming Israel.
And no, I don’t support Trump and I didn’t want Trump to win. I’m frustrated that the Democrats couldn’t even commit to not arming a state doing genocide. I’m not trying to do a “gotcha,” I’m not trying to be cute. I’m asking people to see this and critically think about this.
(Lurker for a long time, wanted to comment too.)
I note that you mention only what Biden and Harris said, not any other Democrats, Chattycat. I already stated that, despite voting for her, and hoping she could then be persuaded to step away from some of Biden’s stupidity after, that her refusal to actually have a different stance on a number of issues irritated the hell out of me. I also know that there where definitely Democrats that didn’t like the issue with Israel and giving them arms, and would absolutely have preferred one of them was running. But, you can’t bet on a horse that isn’t in the race. And, yeah, while this was “technically” the “Democrats” endorsing such things, because they refused to put up anyone else as an option, its painting with a rather wide brush to say that the whole party was all for it, or that they wouldn’t have also tried to change her mind, once elected, and especially when it became increasingly obvious how disgusted their own constituents where over the choice. I also know that, unlike Trump, the crap, from bombing refugee camps, to killing aid workers, etc., is not something even the most pro-Israel Democrat (or at least I would hope), would have kept putting up with, once it became obvious just how unhinged their leadership was going to be. We sure as heck wouldn’t be, now, cutting off any avenue of retreat to the US, for refugees trying to flee, if they could, and not just from there, because they where not “white enough” for the idiot running our country.
But, as I said before, this is what you absolutely get when you have two parties, and only two parties, both of which are disinterested in weakening themselves by breaking up into smaller ones, with differing views, and thus a more diverse set of options, and the only requirement for becoming a Democrat has, over time, become, “Oh, their OK. At least they are not quite as racist, insanely religious, or fascist as the actual Republicans. Welcome!” Of course this attitude of, “At least they are not as bad.”, is a problem. There is a massive f-ing difference between trying to convince people that vote for crazy that they are voting wrong, and getting them to see that its OK, or perhaps actually better, to vote Democrat, vs. actually having no coherent ideology, because you have, over time, sold out your own ideals, as a party, to welcome in every, “Not as bad as the rest of them”, asshole that has jumped ship, because their prior party crossed just one too many lines towards flat out evil. Such people didn’t, themselves, stop being a problem, stop believing things that undermine Democratic ideals, or stop trying to screw people over, for their own benefit – they merely decided that they where happy being thugs, not outright villains, and switched sides (while utterly failing to comprehend, because no thugs/villain is ever the bad guy in their own head, that they are part of the damn problem). That the Democrat party itself can’t grasp that such people are still borderline villains, is the thing that truly annoys me.
Yet, for all of that, they are at least correct in that a thief, or some lesser thugs, is preferable to people that act like mob bosses, or worse. So, yeah, as a party… I agree with the frustration. I also, sadly, recognize that they where hit with a very short window to decide who to put up as an alternative candidate, and they utterly failed to comprehend that, for all the positive things about Biden’s term, its negatives vastly outweighed them, and picking someone who promised to continue “all” of those policies (and only started to realize far too late that this was stupid), even the bad ones, was flat out idiotic.
@23. chattycat : “Harris stated pretty unambiguously that she would continue arming Israel…”
She did? really? That’s news to me.
What isn’t news is that the
IsraelLikud & current Israeli govt wields enprmous power and influence and gets it’s opponents primary-ed and defeated eg Jamal Bowman & Cori Bush so politicians obvs aren’t gunna wanna say and do things they oppose. Becoxz grim political reality. For now,^ Lobby
@25 StevoR Hold on. You have been very adamant on how voting for Harris was the right thing to do…and you didn’t know what she said about this issue until I told you? This wasn’t hard to find info. It took less than ten seconds of Googling to find my source.