Ohhh, it feels like time for an e-hubski badtime story :D! So sorry about all of this. The Big Lie is arguably the most refined progression of Trumpism so far, but MAGA’s also kinda always been a version of: “I know I won. I deserved to win, because I’m righteous, and if I seemed to lose, it’s because you cheated. You cheated because you’re evil, which means that I should cheat harder because I’m not evil, and I deserve to win. I’ve always won, because good always wins, and I’m good. Frankly, I’m scared about what I might have to do to you next in the name of goodness.” Fascism is so infantile. It’s wild. It is the simplest thing. Primal. And we thought we’d found ways to make sure it couldn’t happen again, or that we’d learned our lesson. lol. The history books will probably say of America that at the moment of the most extreme wealth inequality ever, we had the fascist revolution required to sustain and further that inequality. It doesn’t matter that most of Trump’s base will almost certainly see further economic erosion under Trump or whoever. Fascism is a feeling. A soft, warm comfort blanket. Like, hey, The Big Lie. The combination of social media, Trump, and Murdoch (and others) is too much. Fox is currently shitting bricks and slandering the new disinformation effort announcement by DHS. In my deepest fantasy, DHS plans to investigate financial ties between media and oligarchs, foreign and domestic, right wing and left, I don’t care. I don’t know how else they plan to determine what is or is not willful disinformation except by proving foreign funding from hostile countries. And, again, because this is a fantasy, the DOJ brings charges against some interesting people, all before 2025. The 2000 race in Florida was rough, and I think the democrats had some legitimate technical/procedural concerns, and uhhhh the Bush(es) conflict of interest looks very, very bad. But now, maybe we should all really appreciate Al Gore’s gracefully conceding the race. Even if Trump dies in prison, DeSantis or whoever will take over the brand, and the movement is super unlikely to de-radicalize. They’ll quickly need another carnival barker, though, DeSantis is pretty boring. Giullfoyle? Candace Owens? Palin II? Shouldn’t be long before the movement no longer really needs a strong voting base anyway, obviously a seizure of voting materials and procedures and related local offices is already in the works by people who “feel” that the last election was stolen. And they feel like it’s their turn to do some revenge stealing. It’s possible that 2020 was the last election that we definitively knew what the outcome was for almost every office. If we can’t tell whether Trump legitimately wins 2024 or not, Trumpism will be to blame, and Trump will congratulate himself and begin moving back into the White House. Recent stories suggesting an awareness of Mike Pence to a potential plot among the secret service to whisk him away in a car and prevent him from certifying the vote on J6 bode poorly. Surely you’ve seen a Timothy Snyder interview or two. This one is fascinating now, five years later. And the most hardcore Trumpists did, in fact, try to gaslight us on J6, blaming it on Antifa terrorists and FBI provocateurs to use it as justification for whatever they needed; delaying the vote, deflecting blame, hell maybe Marjorie Taylor Greene’s suggestion of declaring “Marshall Law”. It all seemed ludicrous at the time, but it’s been pretty mainstreamed since. When a guy like Snyder has a model, makes a prediction, and the prediction comes almost exactly to pass, it’s hard to ignore his continued five-alarm-fire outlook on American politics. So far, the recent string of catastrophes (covid, global warming looming, Ukraine/inflation, even the insurrection itself) have been used to successfully divide and radicalize us more. What will it take to force the introspection required for Americans to abandon our homegrown fascism? Fucking yikes. ['X0Oo_am_Unitoinz'_e-hubski_bAdtimes_dairy_oO0X'] post 10/??