American Politics

[SkStu]

To be fair, it looks like that tattoo guide predates the current administration!

[Razors left peg]

Trump deploying the National Guard and mobilizing the Marines in LA against the will of the Governor of California is a dangerous and scary reach of powers that is a foresight of whats to come it seems. This weekend there is a military parade in Washington DC where Trump has already said that protestors will be met with massive force. There are protests planned for all over the country this weekend, the Governor of Texas has already mobilized the National Guard there to quell the protests. This is escalating extremely quickly.

ICE are acting like the Gestapo snatching people off the streets, and yet when people exercise their right to protest, like is allowed in any democracy, they are threatened with the Marines on the streets. If Trump is allowed to get away with over ruling the Governor on this I think its fairly clear whats to come. Election time I would expect to see the Military on the streets enforcing Trump running for his 3rd term, which he is already talking about.

This country feels like it is on the precipice right now

[joey B]

And they look like they’re about to start a war with Iran aswell so there’s that!

[pineapple stu]

Isn't that the plot of Threads, the 80s BBC nuclear war film often rated as one of the scariest films ever made?

[Razors left peg]

Isn't that the plot of Threads, the 80s BBC nuclear war film often rated as one of the scariest films ever made?

No idea but the real life stuff right now is scary enough

[Eminence Grise]

A bit similar alright, and Threads might look a bit hoaky with its early '80 SFX but it still has impact. It's online and worth a watch.

Trump is acting like the bully joining a new school - find the biggest kid in the yard and punch him in the face. If there's no retaliation or the kid is softer than he looks, it's a win. A blind man on a galloping horse could have predicted that Trump would pick a fight with a sanctuary city, so he could send in the troops, and the two most prominent are probably LA and New York, but he was never going to go after NY. The last week has the feel of a Fort Sumter moment...

I was chatting with a colleague recently about the parallels between the 1930s and where we are today and what I thought would be short enough list kept expanding...

1. Recent global pandemic: Spanish Flu / Covid 19
2. Junk science: eugenics and Rassenhygiene (racial hygiene) / RFK anti-vax as policy
3. Economic recession and consequences: post-war economies (mass unemployment, debt) Great Depression / 2007 Crash, Covid economic effects
4. Religious bigotry: Antisemitism / Islamophobia
5. Expansionist leader reuniting perceived national or owned territory: Hitler (Czechoslovakia and Austria) / Trump (Panama)
6. Expansionism and imperialist land grabs: Mussolini (Ethiopia) / Trump (Greenland, Canada, not counting Gaza, a property punt)
7. Fascist leader in thrall to an exemplar dictator: Mussolini – Hitler/ Trump – Putin
8. Private political armies: Brownshirts, Blackshirts / Proudboys, Oathkeepers
9. Glorification of criminal activities as legitimate insurrection and lionising of participants, including pardons: Munich Putsch / Capitol Hill riots.
10. State-sanctioned police terrorism against protest: creation of Gestapo / use of ICE
11. New media and propaganda channels: radio and cinema / social media and comms apps
12. Bypassing parliamentary processes: Hitler ruling by decree / US president’s executive orders (so routinely [ab]used it's hard to point the finger at Trump alone)
13. Purge of public services: Hitler (Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service, 1933) / Musk (DOGE)
14. Purge of universities: removal of non-conforming staff, book-burning / removal of nonconforming staff, programmes that challenge the state closed, restrictions on library stocks, withdrawal of federal funding
15. A handbook for totalitarianism: Mein Kampf / Project 2025

Dark times…

[Eminence Grise]

Just reopened this page and I see I've 1939 thanks. Hopefully not an omen...

[joey B]

The Middle East has been set alight this evening….

[pineapple stu]

A bit similar alright, and Threads might look a bit hoaky with its early '80 SFX but it still has impact. It's online and worth a watch.

Trump is acting like the bully joining a new school - find the biggest kid in the yard and punch him in the face. If there's no retaliation or the kid is softer than he looks, it's a win. A blind man on a galloping horse could have predicted that Trump would pick a fight with a sanctuary city, so he could send in the troops, and the two most prominent are probably LA and New York, but he was never going to go after NY. The last week has the feel of a Fort Sumter moment...

I was chatting with a colleague recently about the parallels between the 1930s and where we are today and what I thought would be short enough list kept expanding...

1. Recent global pandemic: Spanish Flu / Covid 19
2. Junk science: eugenics and Rassenhygiene (racial hygiene) / RFK anti-vax as policy
3. Economic recession and consequences: post-war economies (mass unemployment, debt) Great Depression / 2007 Crash, Covid economic effects
4. Religious bigotry: Antisemitism / Islamophobia
5. Expansionist leader reuniting perceived national or owned territory: Hitler (Czechoslovakia and Austria) / Trump (Panama)
6. Expansionism and imperialist land grabs: Mussolini (Ethiopia) / Trump (Greenland, Canada, not counting Gaza, a property punt)
7. Fascist leader in thrall to an exemplar dictator: Mussolini – Hitler/ Trump – Putin
8. Private political armies: Brownshirts, Blackshirts / Proudboys, Oathkeepers
9. Glorification of criminal activities as legitimate insurrection and lionising of participants, including pardons: Munich Putsch / Capitol Hill riots.
10. State-sanctioned police terrorism against protest: creation of Gestapo / use of ICE
11. New media and propaganda channels: radio and cinema / social media and comms apps
12. Bypassing parliamentary processes: Hitler ruling by decree / US president’s executive orders (so routinely [ab]used it's hard to point the finger at Trump alone)
13. Purge of public services: Hitler (Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service, 1933) / Musk (DOGE)
14. Purge of universities: removal of non-conforming staff, book-burning / removal of nonconforming staff, programmes that challenge the state closed, restrictions on library stocks, withdrawal of federal funding
15. A handbook for totalitarianism: Mein Kampf / Project 2025

Dark times…

Yep. A US Senator arrested yesterday in LA for asking questions - not entirely sure of the backdrop (was he entitled to just barge in and enter for example), but it's not a great look.

I know you have social media in there, but you could probably add in the rise of activism and divisive identity politics (including racist ideologies such as Critical Race Theory/white privilege/white fragility). That sort of stuff is just not helpful. Social media also helps this sort of stuff cross borders really quickly, and activists then don't pick up on the fact the message can have lost all meaning in the cultural transfer.

I'd be wary of drawing a parallel between 1930s anti-semitism and current islamophobia by the way. Conservative Islam is racist, homophobic and misogynistic, among other criticisms. It's the core of people's protests when Qatar/Saudi Arabia win major sporting events for example - but there's an extreme hypocrisy when comments about those same cultural issues of Islam in the West are dismissed as islamophobia. There's a serious discussion needed about Islam's place in the West given upcoming demographic changes, and the attempts to stifle that debate by effectively calling it racism also contribute to societal tensions I think.

The Middle East has been set alight this evening….

Christ - Netanyahu makes Putin look like a pussy cat. Sky News' report is headed "This is the moment the Middle East has been waiting for". Echoes of another piece of 1980s nuclear popular culture - "This is what we're waiting for/This is it boys, this is war"