This absolutely would have worked in Texas, and pretty much anywhere along the Sun Belt It's a political op without thinking through second- and third-order consequences bsky.app/profile/figm...
Replies
Texas cities are blue. Voting districts are gerrymandered to return red results.
jun 8, 2025, 5:37 am • 0 0 • view
A few things: ➡️ Too early to hope bad video alone will be enough. No one's going to be persuaded in November 2026 ➡️ "Lawlessness against ICE" means diddly when juxtaposed with "self-induced recession and mass unemployment" bsky.app/profile/that...
jun 7, 2025, 9:08 pm • 453 29 • view
One day @wolmanj.bsky.social's time will come! bsky.app/profile/exdi...
jun 7, 2025, 9:17 pm • 324 15 • view
If the economy improves and it's still happening in 2026, agreed If either of those things don't happen, likely has zero political effect bsky.app/profile/dave...
jun 7, 2025, 9:20 pm • 262 9 • view
Two things are true: ➡️ People writ large are *desperate* for life to be normal. It's why you don't see more people protesting, b/c they're hoping and praying that any day now things will be normal again ➡️ Legitimacy is still important to authoritarian regimes
jun 7, 2025, 9:22 pm • 754 89 • view
That said, people who are desperate for life to be normal also reach a level where they get the MOST mad that it doesn't stop and join in.
jun 7, 2025, 9:23 pm • 3 0 • view
I don’t think that’s why they aren’t protesting, tbh. 44% of America works in low-wage hourly jobs. The kind of jobs that fire you for one absence. That happens, there goes your healthcare, your transportation, your home. People caring for families don’t feel like they can risk that.
jun 7, 2025, 11:54 pm • 0 0 • view
When you get a critical mass of people who think normalcy isn't coming, things snowball When you get a critical mass of people who decide the government is not legitimate, things snowball So regime incentive is to back down if things approach a breaking point
jun 7, 2025, 9:23 pm • 685 86 • view
The media and Democrats will do absolutely everything they can to preserve the illusion of normalcy, ie support the fascist clampdown.
jun 7, 2025, 9:41 pm • 0 0 • view
That holds true except for when societal arsonists are in charge.
jun 7, 2025, 9:25 pm • 0 0 • view
There's a fine line between running Romania for 34 years with an iron fist and state TV broadcasting a crowd of "supporters" no longer afraid of booing your speech, and crossing it ends in your show trial and execution 4 days later.
jun 7, 2025, 11:16 pm • 50 8 • view
I saw that speech on the evening news as the uprising was underway. The look on Ceaușescu's face when they started booing is priceless.
jun 7, 2025, 11:32 pm • 15 0 • view
Do you have a pic?
jun 8, 2025, 1:34 am • 1 0 • view
On video here, from about 1:20. m.youtube.com/watch?v=TcRW...
jun 8, 2025, 1:49 am • 3 0 • view
Not the video I remember seeing. It had a moment where Ceaușescu is loudly booed by the crowd, and looks up, startled and afraid. Might be a different speech, or maybe my memory of something that happened 36 years ago is faulty.
jun 8, 2025, 2:11 pm • 1 0 • view
He drove his dog around the city in a limo, too. I'm sure that really got under their skins.
jun 7, 2025, 11:32 pm • 2 0 • view
These guys took all the wrong lessons from 2020. It’s impressive.
jun 7, 2025, 9:24 pm • 5 0 • view
Gradually, then suddenly.
jun 7, 2025, 10:05 pm • 1 0 • view
(It's why I expect Trump will, eventually, back off the economy-nuking tariff idiocy. He's not going to have a choice)
jun 7, 2025, 9:24 pm • 405 13 • view
He'll back off after it's too late. It may already be too late.
jun 7, 2025, 9:29 pm • 1 0 • view
If only we had a witty phrase for Trump consistently backing off.
jun 7, 2025, 11:27 pm • 0 0 • view
The problem with doing pogroms is not knowing how regime actions affect the decisionmaking of millions of other independent actors Guess right, and your repression continues unchecked Guess wrong, and you're strung up feet first from a lamppost as you're pelted with rocks
jun 7, 2025, 9:25 pm • 514 46 • view
Make Piazzale Loreto Great Again?
jun 9, 2025, 7:27 pm • 1 0 • view
You can impose order by military force, and with enough of it you'll succeed. But it gets very exhausting very quickly, and there's a reason authoritarian regimes often end up aiming their military outward.
jun 7, 2025, 9:26 pm • 60 7 • view
MAGA isn't voting for Dems anyway, regardless of how many protests there are The only people who matter at the voting booth are your own voters and the sliver of persuadables in the middle. Today isn't going to push any of them away 17 months from now bsky.app/profile/that...
jun 7, 2025, 9:28 pm • 422 30 • view
But maybe for the midterms?
jun 8, 2025, 1:04 am • 0 0 • view
I HAVE to believe the MAGA #’s are sinking. It’s the only thing that’s going to save us! Trump’s screwed them. I think pissed off MAGAs will fight back at the ballot box with a huge Fuck You to Trump & his bullshit! (I HOPE so anyway! 🤷🏻♀️🙏🏻)
jun 7, 2025, 11:28 pm • 1 0 • view
I know Trump supporters, and I avoid getting into specifics with them on politics, but I do get the sense you're right. They won't go Dem, but I think a significant number at this point will skip voting or go 3rd party.
jun 7, 2025, 10:18 pm • 2 0 • view
also: you can’t per se turn them into leftists, but you can make them demobilised. they can be driven to shirk away
jun 7, 2025, 9:30 pm • 13 0 • view
Particularly this time around when everyone knows that ICE are the people the protestors really hate. Cops sorta do solidarity with other cops, but if you're an LAPD officer and you keep catching bricks with your face because ICE is being stupid, there's a point where you wonder if it's worth it.
jun 8, 2025, 12:37 am • 5 0 • view
The military could barely pacify Kabul, at tremendous cost in lives, money, and munitions That was only ~4M people, and much looser rules of engagement The military won't be able to pacify Los Angeles bsky.app/profile/mmwr...
jun 7, 2025, 9:40 pm • 517 63 • view
Correct. The area of Kabul is 106 square miles. The area of LA County is 4,700 square miles. Paramount (the site of today's ICE action) is in LA County not the City of LA. This place is too HUUUUGE to pacify.
jun 8, 2025, 7:39 am • 1 1 • view
Although mentioning the national guard does bring up something important Smart blue state governors should have very serious conversations with the commanders of their state national guard
jun 7, 2025, 9:41 pm • 7 1 • view
Not to mention, they didn’t sign up to get deployed against their fellow Americans.
jun 7, 2025, 9:41 pm • 7 0 • view
The argument "they're going to send in the military" is shorthand for "the military will go door to door killing people and will saturation bomb cities with air power", which is 1. Unlikely, 2. the sort of thing that causes previously uninvolved citizens to form militias backed by rival governments.
jun 7, 2025, 10:32 pm • 86 5 • view
Also, traditionally, few things are as damaging to morale as being deployed against your population. And, good luck doing anything at all with soldiers that are engaging in malicious compliance.
jun 8, 2025, 4:10 am • 3 0 • view
No. But it's in line with Trump's insistence on targeting California and Stephen Miller's demand to raid Home Depots, so it's a reasonable conclusion there was intent IMO bsky.app/profile/just...
jun 7, 2025, 9:43 pm • 341 25 • view
Even if by some miracle they did manage it there’s still the entire. Rest. Of the country.
jun 7, 2025, 9:41 pm • 2 0 • view
Ahh, pretty sure the rules of engagement were not looser in Kabul, but outside that, yes to the rest. (Happy to be corrected though)
jun 7, 2025, 9:48 pm • 2 0 • view
🤘
jun 8, 2025, 4:38 am • 0 0 • view
Also with a far Far lower risk of defection to boot
jun 7, 2025, 9:42 pm • 1 0 • view
Assessment and Action: breakdown on the LA military deployment and how it follows the authoritarian playbook. It includes concrete steps we can take now. 🔗 lfitzhugh.substack.com/p/the-author...
jun 8, 2025, 3:21 am • 0 0 • view
They did ok in '92.
jun 8, 2025, 3:34 am • 0 0 • view
Except that Afghanis had less compunction about hurting an American. And American troops had less than non-zero hesitance to smack down Afghanis. So that comparison doesn't translate to the greater LA area.
jun 7, 2025, 11:22 pm • 0 0 • view
This is also assuming that if shit goes full Posse Comitatus the odds of LA being the only city they would need to visit are pretty slim.
jun 7, 2025, 9:42 pm • 45 2 • view
They have sworn an oath to defend the constitution. Will they even obey an insurrectionist who holds them and their values in open contempt?
jun 8, 2025, 12:02 am • 0 0 • view
And I’m once again reminding folks MAGA is very loud but also (relatively) quite small
jun 8, 2025, 4:05 pm • 0 0 • view
I don’t think there are any more persuadables to the right of Dems at this point. What they need to do is stop actively driving away their own base.
jun 7, 2025, 11:20 pm • 0 0 • view
This isnt even just what they voted for. They **like** what they see, regardless of what happens to them in the future.
jun 7, 2025, 9:30 pm • 6 0 • view
Right. We don’t need them to vote Dem per se. Them staying home is still helpful.
jun 7, 2025, 10:08 pm • 3 0 • view
Trump won because more voters showed up for him in certain states than did non-voters either due to complacency, indifference, or disdain. There is no conspiracy. Just disengagement and suppression. All Tvoters are write-offs as turnout energy has higher ROI from new and newish + some comp/indiff.
jun 7, 2025, 9:56 pm • 3 0 • view
Threaten me with a good time, lol
jun 7, 2025, 9:33 pm • 0 0 • view
I get the impression he still thinks high tariffs are *good* for the economy in the long run, if they get a chance to be actually put in place permanently, he's just waiting for Wall Street to stop overreacting, perhaps when they get burned by timing a TACO Trade wrongly, and stop crashing at once.
jun 7, 2025, 9:54 pm • 3 0 • view
He is and has been—but that’s also just making things worse by straight up weakening the dollar. And normally some might argue that a weak dollar means increased exports, but reciprocal tariffs are taking care of that. It’s just a weak dollar. (…maybe a good time to buy oil tho?)
jun 8, 2025, 4:03 pm • 0 0 • view
you may be underestimating the narcissism involved
jun 8, 2025, 7:24 am • 0 0 • view
You better not back down. Our democracy house of cards will collapse if you do. It is incumbent for every lover of democracy to pick up his/her oar and help us row this democracy boat up the stream and help us fight the autocracy waves that are trying to make us fail. RESIST!!!
jun 7, 2025, 9:42 pm • 0 0 • view
The vast majority of Trumper actions AFAICT is done with an underlying belief that you can't *really* break things Just keep doing these things that don't blow against you because they never will, you will never reach a tipping point (nevermind if you've already hit the trust thermocline)
jun 8, 2025, 12:44 am • 2 0 • view
TBF this is how Trump has mostly lived his life, bend or break the law and get away with it because trying to hold him to account is more trouble than actually prosecuting him
jun 8, 2025, 12:44 am • 1 0 • view
> who think normalcy isn't coming *for them* That’s the rub. In Kabul, in the colour revolutions, in the Arab Spring, people had something at stake. If Trump can persuade middle class white people that they’re safe and everything is fine, he’s safe. And he has Fox, OAN, etc to sell that message.
jun 7, 2025, 9:52 pm • 0 0 • view
Important third point: the people who want normalcy blame the admin, not the protestors, for the current chaos.
jun 7, 2025, 9:23 pm • 7 0 • view
I hope so but that’s not what happened after 1968
jun 7, 2025, 11:07 pm • 0 0 • view
There's a cause and effect thing that I think people are missing here in their comparisons to the pro "law and order" backlash in summer 2020. In 2020, the feds and riot cops showed up after rioting started. Today, the riots are literally only happening because the armed, masked feds are there.
jun 7, 2025, 9:25 pm • 10 1 • view
Seems like this would make a difference in how ordinary people respond right?
jun 7, 2025, 9:25 pm • 2 0 • view
They'll believe what the news tells them
jun 7, 2025, 9:43 pm • 0 0 • view
People wanted 2019 back, instead they're going to get 2020 on repeat except this time completely self-inflicted and managed by even more incompetence. Don't think that's going to play well with the wider public.
jun 7, 2025, 9:32 pm • 4 1 • view
Legitimacy to whom?
jun 7, 2025, 11:18 pm • 0 0 • view
The Minneapolis/LA things this past week now are definitely illustrating this, but also that 2020 had some effects of people preparing. If they keep poking, they're gonna find the tipping point *again* and the communities are better organized for protests and support now.
jun 7, 2025, 9:25 pm • 5 0 • view
As you have pointed out, the decision to select L.A. as the location to initiate this major crackdown was a significant mistake. Repeated events of this kind, particularly in blue cities, will compound the error.
jun 7, 2025, 9:32 pm • 0 0 • view
I was just saying, the 3A association might need to start limbering up
jun 7, 2025, 9:23 pm • 0 0 • view
True, if this remains an isolated incident. But if this initiates a series of similar events, it will have a significant affect on November 2026 elections.
jun 7, 2025, 9:19 pm • 5 0 • view
The 2020 protests and Trump’s abuse of force helped get lots of Dems elected (even if they then forgot abt that)
jun 8, 2025, 1:25 am • 4 0 • view
IMHO, it really seems like Stephen Miller wants to recreate Nazi Germany (or at least some other form of fascist state like Russia or Hungary) without having the weaknesses in the system to exploit, the proportional manpower to do it with, or the years of power consolidation required.
jun 7, 2025, 9:15 pm • 2 0 • view
Except MAGA is completely unaware of things we all are. They live in a bubble where the biggest news, until today, was that Biden was replaced with a clone & his staff signed all the laws to cover it up.
jun 7, 2025, 9:26 pm • 6 0 • view
War is policy by other means and these dipshits in gov don’t understand either
jun 8, 2025, 3:51 pm • 0 0 • view
Let's hurt a blue state's economy and make liberals cry. So we raid LA? That will work out fine.
jun 7, 2025, 9:07 pm • 0 0 • view
Don’t try this shit in North Texas or Houston, though. DFW has as many guns as the rest of Texas, but we don’t like MAGA. And the feds don’t actually want to test Houston gangs.
jun 7, 2025, 9:13 pm • 5 0 • view
Texas doesn't want to lose their access to low-wage immigrant labor. www.texastribune.org/2025/06/05/t...
jun 8, 2025, 11:52 pm • 4 0 • view
Their problem in Texas would be offending the right wing employers of undocumented people they would arrest--also accidentally arresting right wing hispanic millionaires, etc. Lots of Mexicans in Texas who've been there since before the Texas Republic. Not all of them Democrats.
jun 10, 2025, 11:26 pm • 3 0 • view
Dallas maybe, but Houston (most diverse city in the country) would rise up. Suspect they also didn’t do this in Texas since a lot of Texans would shoot back
jun 7, 2025, 9:32 pm • 2 0 • view
FYI the population of LA county is equal to the entire state of NJ (the most densely populated) and 1/2 the sq mileage
jun 7, 2025, 9:07 pm • 2 0 • view
I'm thinking they're just trying to lay the groundwork to occupy blue states with the military
jun 7, 2025, 9:07 pm • 1 0 • view
The military does not have the manpower to occupy California let alone every Blue state.
jun 7, 2025, 9:11 pm • 9 0 • view