Trump II never even tried to build the mass consent necessary for authoritarian consolidation, they just assumed it was there because they won the popular vote
Replies
Plus the conditions weren’t bad enough. People accept authoritarianism when there’s massive chaos/disorder and/or collapsing economies. Neither of those exist here; we’re a fraying country with too many guns, and the economy is way too unequal, but not ‘30’s Germany or ‘90’s Russia.
sep 2, 2025, 11:45 pm • 6 0 • view
That's where social media comes in. You may look outside and everything's fine but you can go online and find a hellscape.
sep 2, 2025, 11:55 pm • 6 0 • view
Or watch RW media
sep 3, 2025, 1:47 am • 0 0 • view
six of one, half dozen of the other (except this fine place, of course)
sep 3, 2025, 1:57 am • 1 0 • view
Of course
sep 3, 2025, 2:15 am • 0 0 • view
Won by a tiny margin!
sep 2, 2025, 6:19 pm • 1 0 • view
I want to be optimistic but I'm just waitng for Stephen Miller to start spouting off about how 'deep state jurors' are undermining the rule of law and that's why he has no choice but to roll out military tribunals; which I'm sure he's been dying to do anyway and planning to do no matter what.
sep 3, 2025, 12:05 am • 1 0 • view
They're also bumping up against some of the baseline limitations of a democratic legal system -- namely, the right to a trial by jury, which can ultimately negate authoritarian overreach. Logic of the Magna Carta strikes again.
sep 2, 2025, 6:01 pm • 17 0 • view
He did not win popular vote. 49.8%
sep 2, 2025, 11:41 pm • 0 0 • view
And they didn't win the popular vote.
sep 2, 2025, 11:37 pm • 0 0 • view
when you don't have an ideological stranglehold on the security services or a population-proportionately-sized paramilitary, that's a problem
sep 2, 2025, 5:55 pm • 161 4 • view
Thank GOODNESS for "problems"
sep 2, 2025, 6:11 pm • 6 0 • view
Excited to eventually escalate that problem to A Problem
sep 3, 2025, 12:05 am • 0 0 • view
2024 was the Revenge of the Bosses bsky.app/profile/croa...
sep 2, 2025, 10:01 pm • 163 19 • view
It’s amazing how “The Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional” became conservative orthodoxy so quickly. They probably always believed it, but now they have no problem just mask off admitting it
sep 2, 2025, 11:42 pm • 32 1 • view
They’re building out the stranglehold you describe. That’s a problem.
sep 2, 2025, 11:47 pm • 0 0 • view
Basically this is why it will fail because eventually that will come back to bite the entire admin in the ass more the longer it goes on
sep 2, 2025, 10:44 pm • 1 1 • view
They did not win a majority ,so it's ridiculous for them to pretend they have a mandate
sep 2, 2025, 10:03 pm • 0 0 • view
That’s like 49.8% of people who felt like/could vote I remember Rush Limbaugh celebrating the fact that Bill Clinton didn’t get 50% of the popular vote in 1996
sep 2, 2025, 11:41 pm • 3 0 • view
everyone who fried their brains on X thinks that the election was an enabling act
sep 2, 2025, 11:38 pm • 159 8 • view
thing is, though, it's the "movement conservative" institutions that have been waiting for this moment. FedSoc, Heritage, extremist Catholics, Claremont. People want to make this about Trump, but the blue-chip institutions of the American right have been preparing for this moment for a long time.
sep 2, 2025, 11:47 pm • 4 0 • view
Unfortunately this admin is operating like it was an enabling act and getting away with most of it.
sep 2, 2025, 11:49 pm • 0 0 • view
I'm still working this through, but in terms of how the admin approaches authoritarianism, I think we see a similar inability to pass the marshmallow test in this admin as we did last time. in trump 1, he folded often because people would tell him no and he wouldn't have the focus to override them.
sep 2, 2025, 11:43 pm • 68 6 • view
this time, everyone who told him no is gone, but he's incapable of doing the work to consolidate power before playing dictator
sep 2, 2025, 11:43 pm • 81 9 • view
A lifetime of laziness and getting away DOES eventually have a price.
sep 3, 2025, 1:44 am • 4 0 • view
Unfortunately it seems that a lot of elites made the exact same calculation.
sep 2, 2025, 5:59 pm • 8 0 • view
I think this also explains why there's a desire for voter ID despise evidence suggesting that actually implementing that will hurt Republicans. They actually think that all opposition is fake.
sep 2, 2025, 6:06 pm • 25 0 • view
the Nixon-era "we are the silent majority" are the words written on the scroll embedded in their golem heads, they cannot NOT believe it
sep 2, 2025, 10:54 pm • 15 0 • view
I have to wonder if these judges are even issuing jury instructions the way they used to or if they hate this shit so much they're like "you know what, do what you feel."
sep 2, 2025, 7:55 pm • 0 0 • view
This is one of the many reasons I think if we're going to only make WWII regime comparisons (which we shouldn't) Vichy is the much better comparison than the Third Reich which did actually have a majority to at least a sizable plurality of the German public behind it for a significant chunk
sep 2, 2025, 5:57 pm • 26 0 • view
of its lifespan.
sep 2, 2025, 5:57 pm • 9 0 • view
Vichy had wide support/acceptance until the occupation of the Unoccupied Zone and the institution of obligatory STO labor service in Germany in late 42/early 43.
sep 2, 2025, 11:50 pm • 0 0 • view
This is entirely compatible with my point which is that Trump was trading on a very short honey moon that was going to be wrecked by other factors (tho in this case the initial factors are regime caused which was not true of Vichy as you point out, tho it would be true Vichy late into the regime).
sep 3, 2025, 12:42 am • 0 0 • view
And also just the broader point that it’s better to compare to France which had a much longer and more firm small d democratic tradition than Germany. Yes there are obvious and quite big differences and that’s why I said we shouldn’t just be comparing to WWII era European regimes
sep 3, 2025, 12:42 am • 0 0 • view
But if we are going to do that Vichy is better than the third reich.
sep 3, 2025, 12:42 am • 0 0 • view
It really feels like institutions just waited for excuse to demolish New Deal no matter the consequences for the state and nation.
sep 2, 2025, 6:11 pm • 70 5 • view
these people only think they need to serve the people that voted for them, not the whole country.
sep 2, 2025, 11:38 pm • 0 0 • view
The dream scenario is that America avoids full facism because the people who pushed it here were too venal and lazy to really commit to it when there was easy grift to be had
sep 2, 2025, 9:58 pm • 14 0 • view
Trump II: "we're up by 12 million" and never checks the vote count later.
sep 2, 2025, 6:04 pm • 11 0 • view
I feel like a smaller Woke 2 priority needs to be California having *some* preliminary results earlier to prevent all the ridiculous popular vote discourse before CA came in from sticking permanently
sep 2, 2025, 7:22 pm • 9 0 • view
they *barely* won the popular vote. to turn 23% of the population voting for you into "i'm a king!!" requires a level of innumeracy and arrogance that is breathtaking to behold
sep 2, 2025, 11:56 pm • 3 0 • view
And not even a majority of people! Just "more people than Harris"!
sep 2, 2025, 5:55 pm • 5 0 • view
I don’t mean to be rude, but this is how authoritarian consolidation works, and how fascism always works. They don’t build mass consent, they say the leader embodies the will of the people. It was spelled out in clearest terms by Nazi legal philosopher Carl Schmitt.
sep 3, 2025, 12:32 am • 0 0 • view
I think you're overthinking the actions of a guy who doesn't do a lot of thinking.
sep 2, 2025, 10:09 pm • 1 0 • view
They weren't the only ones. If you never saw the actual results and just went off how the media, business leaders, and even a lot of elected Democrats talked and acted, you'd think Trump put up Reagan '84 numbers.
sep 2, 2025, 6:10 pm • 29 0 • view
More people voted AGAINST Trump in 2024 than FOR him. He got like 49% of the vote
sep 3, 2025, 12:38 am • 5 0 • view
He didn’t even win a majority! But the elites that thought he was gauche last time decided they didn’t like how uppity workers got during the Biden administration, so they’ve been backing him to the hilt.
sep 3, 2025, 12:22 am • 5 0 • view
Everyone believed there was suddenly an ideological majority for Trumpism because the people who follow politics are all very unusual. What actually happened is the dumbest people in America decided they were mad and hit the "I'm Mad" button without knowing or caring what it would do.
sep 2, 2025, 7:04 pm • 326 54 • view
The return of the Confederates.
sep 2, 2025, 9:59 pm • 1 0 • view
1000% People who follow politics & the attending issues simply cannot conceive of the fact that 1/3 of voters *cannot name the current VP*.
sep 2, 2025, 11:02 pm • 3 0 • view
sep 2, 2025, 9:57 pm • 30 3 • view
I think a lot of people, especially in media, ran the mandate script after the election. And I think a big midterm loss would trigger a loss of mandate/lame duck script. Just have to hang on til then…
sep 2, 2025, 10:06 pm • 6 0 • view
Also there were/are forces at play that do nothing but work to make them madder, keep them mad all the time.
sep 2, 2025, 11:57 pm • 1 0 • view
Turns out they don't really like the output of the "I'm Mad" button all that much either
sep 2, 2025, 7:04 pm • 156 6 • view
Problem is, sometimes the I'm Mad button actually helps. It got us FDR. You can figure out whether it'll help beforehand if you pay attention, but most Americans do not.
sep 2, 2025, 10:06 pm • 9 1 • view
They don't seem to really care one way or the other really.
sep 2, 2025, 10:31 pm • 0 0 • view
Maybe we should have an "I'm Mad" button that doesn't blow up the world and kill millions of people
sep 2, 2025, 8:26 pm • 38 0 • view
You know what, maybe you’re onto something here. As an option on the presidential ballot every four years, you can choose to fill in the bubble for “I’m Mad.” We count them and publish the results, your voice is heard, and no harm done. It’s like channeling lightning into the ground.
sep 2, 2025, 10:47 pm • 17 0 • view
Maybe now is not the time for that.
sep 2, 2025, 11:44 pm • 0 0 • view
Trump III will not repeat that mistake.
sep 2, 2025, 11:38 pm • 0 0 • view
Popular vote was won by Stayed at Home!
sep 2, 2025, 11:45 pm • 1 0 • view
I don't think they give a fuck about mass consent. I have never seen anything that would lead me to believe they aren't just going to do whatever they want. Who's going to stop them? Why wouldn't they?
sep 3, 2025, 12:33 am • 2 0 • view
Unsure they even care; they’ve got a supine congress and outright supportive scotus.
sep 2, 2025, 10:05 pm • 1 0 • view
I mean to be fair, it's not like our elite institutions and MSM were in a hurry to disprove that.
sep 2, 2025, 8:15 pm • 2 0 • view
What popular vote?
sep 3, 2025, 1:35 am • 0 0 • view
>50% of the voting public voted for someone OTHER than Trump, let's not forget that.
sep 3, 2025, 1:59 am • 1 0 • view
In fairness, engagement with our media institutions would have encouraged this interpretation as well.
sep 2, 2025, 11:27 pm • 0 0 • view
I mean, it’s working out for them so
sep 3, 2025, 1:34 pm • 0 0 • view