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Government Of The Bullies, For The Billionaires

Published by Tom Sullivan on February 21, 2025

Time to get loud

Republicans are about to find themselves on the back foot. Keep them there.

Donald Trump is remarkably unpopular and sinking lower in public perception, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow told viewers Thursday night. Polls show the freshly minted president-felon-Russophile is historically unpopular (video link above).

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/-can-t-stand-him-from-policy-to-personnel-trump-scores-historically-low-poll-numbers-232558149721

Elon Musk may get a rousing welcome for entering CPAC waving around a chainsaw (this is the age of WWE political theater, after all), but he’s not popular with Americans by a wide margin.

Another poll shows Americans hate the unelected weirdo being involved in their government at this high level.

And a third poll shows they are concerned about what he’s doing mucking about in their private data and their Social Security.

People also worry that Musk’s IRS layoffs may delay those tax refunds they’re looking forward to spending. It’s one thing to lay off “faceless bureaucrats.” They may not pay so much attention to Beltway politics, but don’t mess with their money.

The public does not like what either Trump or Musk are doing to their country. They absolutely hate “government of the bullies, for the billionaires” [timestamp 18:20-19:30]. Anat Shenker-Osorio presented that message on Thursday to The.Ink’s Anand Giridharadas in “An *actual* plan to beat fascism.”

Trump (and the billionaires who love him) is “coming for your life and your livelihood, ASO continues. “He is coming for your freedom. He is coming for your privacy. He is coming for your information. And he is conducting a hostile takeover of our government so he can take our money.” That’s the message we should be spreading. Ditch the Constitution and rule of law messaging.

For ordinary, non-blog-readers to get what’s happening, our message has to be personal. And hoo-boy, once people realize it’s that personal, they get hot and bothered in a big way. Yes Newsweek is crap, but this headline is a zinger. Donald Trump Called ‘Megalomaniac’ By Angry Locals at Republican Town Hall:

President Donald Trump faced intense criticism from local residents during a town hall meeting for Republican Representative Rich McCormick in his Georgia district on Thursday, with one person labeling him a “megalomaniac.”

During the town hall meeting, many constituents harshly criticized the Republican lawmaker for backing the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), particularly its plan for massive federal layoffs and budget cuts.

https://twitter.com/daveweigel/status/1892724926164918287

That story is everywhere online this morning. Help spread it even farther.

That was a red congressional district in Georgia. This is another in Wisconsin:

A testy town hall hosted by Wisconsin Republican Congressman Scott Fitzgerald.

The pushback came from constituents in West Bend demanding answers to the Trump administration’s effort to slash government spending and a diplomatic shift on the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Mary Sylvester asked about the role and responsibility of Congress. “We need three branches of government, not one. When will you stand up and say that’s enough?”

Michael Wittig is concerned with Elon Musk’s role in the Trump administration—he held a sign that read “Presidents are not kings.”

Your goal, Giridharadas summarized, is to “increase the perception of people around you about the number of people who feel this way” [timestamp 29:15]. Spread these stories around your social media feeds all weekend so everyone else wants what what these people in Georgia and Wisconsin are having.

There are more such town halls today in Hickory, NC, and Gainsville, GA. (And those are just the ones I see because of where I live.)

Update:

View on Threads

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What Did You Do?

Published by Tom Sullivan on February 21, 2025

It’s that time

Marc Elias tries to make clear how serious this moment is for our country. But it’s hard for an attorney, even an excellent one. It’s not their training.

Maybe a storyteller instead. Familiar stories of ordinary people, minding their own business, wanting to be left alone, but reaching a turning point:

THE BELLY OF THE WHALE. The hero completely severs their connection to the “safe” world they left behind. In this stage, the hero makes the commitment to fully engage with the journey and transformation of self.

It’s that time.

In future generations, when your children and grandchildren look back on this moment, they are not going to ask about the price of eggs. They are going to ask you what you did. Not what you felt. Not what you paid. But what you did. And I want to be able to say I did everything I possibly could.

— Marc Elias (@marcelias.bsky.social) 2025-02-20T23:37:38.595Z

Be as serious as those looking to destroy you.

https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1892758058058527004

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Elon Goes To CPAC

Published by digby on February 20, 2025

He’s clearly high as a kite:

Oh God, this is just embarrassing:

Trump has delegated the domestic agenda to this freak while he golfs and cosplays Napoleon on the world stage.

Here is the caliber of commentary from him when he’s not swinging a chainsaw around and babbling gibberish:

It’s full blown idiocracy. I just didn’t realize it would be run by the richest man in the world who is demented. I should have known.

Oh, by the way, there’s this too:

Singer Grimes sent out a panicked message on social media to Elon Musk about their child’s ‘medical crisis’ as the ‘First Buddy’ wielded a chainsaw onstage at CPAC with Javier Millei.

Grimes – real name Claire Elise Boucher – is the mother of three of Musk’s 13 known children. Conservative influencer Ashley St. Clair claimed to birth number 13 in a statement last week. 

In a since deleted post to Musk-owned X Grimes responded to a tweet Musk made Wednesday with more pressing matters regarding one of their offspring.

‘Plz respond about our child’s medical crisis. I am sorry to do this publicly but it is no longer acceptable to ignore this situation. This requires immediate attention,’ the Canadian singer wrote. 

She clarified that Musk didn’t even have to respond to her but could contact her through a third party.  

‘If you don’t want to talk to me can you please designate or hire someone who can so that we can move forward on solving this. This is urgent, Elon.’

St. Clair complained publicly last week that Musk won’t respond to her about questions concerning their newborn. Seems he’s got other priorities.

Atrocities Of The Day

Published by digby on February 20, 2025

Trump’s eager embrace of Vladimir Putin is still startling even though we were well warned in advance. He’s just such a sucker, so bizarrely needy, so insanely shallow and stupid.

A reminder of what’s awaiting Ukraine if Trump’s iridiculous attempt at getting the Nobel Peace Prize actually comes to pass:

Bucha, a suburb of 37,000 about 20 miles northwest of the capital, Kyiv, has become a notorious symbol of Russian brutality. The Russians took it over within days of invading in February 2022, and in the month that followed, they killed more than 400 civilians, Ukrainian officials say, leading to global accusations of war crimes.

Images from that time ricocheted around the world: The priest left dead in a garage, his mouth open. The church choir singer and his family, their limbs cut off, their bodies burned. The woman shot dead pushing her bicycle home on Yablunska Street.

On Wednesday, many in Bucha seemed to be struggling to take in Mr. Trump’s comments. When the Biden administration was in power, the United States was Ukraine’s most powerful ally. Now they had many questions: Was Mr. Trump just speaking off the cuff? Was the United States really siding with Russia, a pariah on the world stage?

I can only imagine the despair they must be feeling. They know very well that the retributions from the Russians if they are allowed to prevail are going to be horrific. One woman who saw her husband shot right in front of her during the Russian occupation of the town said she was worried that in the end, “they will say that the Russians are fine. The thing I’m most afraid of is that they will say we are guilty ourselves. That we are guilty of killing ourselves.”

She’s not wrong to worry. That’s what Trump is already saying. He’s backed up by the brainwashed Americans that support him:

That’s not the only horror story I’m afraid. This one is equally shocking:

Getting worse every day:

Nearly 100 migrants, recently deported by the United States to Panama where they had been locked in a hotel, were loaded onto buses Tuesday night and moved to a detention camp on the outskirts of the jungle, several of the migrants said.

It is unclear how long the group, which was deported under the Trump administration’s sweeping effort to expel unauthorized migrants, will be detained at the jungle camp.

Conditions at the site are primitive, the detainees said. Diseases, including dengue are endemic to the region, and the government has denied access to journalists and aid organizations.

“It looks like a zoo, there are fenced cages,” said one deportee, Artemis Ghasemzadeh, a 27-year-old migrant from Iran, after arriving at the camp following a four-hour drive from Panama City. “They gave us a stale piece of bread. We are sitting on the floor.”

The group includes eight children, according to a person with knowledge of the situation who was not authorized to speak on the record. Lawyers have said it is illegal to detain people in Panama for more than 24 hours without a court order.

This was done after intense pressure from the Trump administration, using the threats over the canal, to take these migrants whose home countries will not take them (China, Iran, Afghanistan.) and if they end up doing it, the migrants will almost certainly be killed.

Today they sent another planeload to Costa Rica. And that’s in addition to the thousands that are being sent to Guantanamo.

We really are perilously close to 1939 here.

The Wrecking Ball Is Not Popular

Published by digby on February 20, 2025

The Washington Post/Ipsos poll is not good news for Trumpmusk:

President Donald Trump has opened his second term with a flurry of actions designed to radically disrupt and shrink the federal bureaucracy, but reviews from Americans are mixed to negative on many of his specific initiatives, and 57 percent say he has exceeded his authority since taking office, according to a Washington Post-Ipsos poll.

Overall, 43 percent of Americans say they support what the president has done during his first month in office, with 48 percent saying they oppose. Those who strongly oppose outnumber those who strongly support by 37 percent to 27 percent.

This is important:

Americans also are clear what the president should do if a federal court rules that he has done something illegal. More than 8 in 10 say he should follow the court ruling. That includes more than 9 in 10 Democrats along with roughly 8 in 10 Republicans and independents.

They are working overtime to propagandize their base, which is all they care about, into believing that the president is a king and there is no institution, law or norm, including the U.S. Constitution, that can tell him what to do. So far, it appears that they have only convinced 20% of them that this is right. We’ll see how that goes over the next few months as these cases make their way through the courts.

A majority of Americans believe the Supreme Court will try to stop Trump if he goes beyond his authority, but when asked whether Republicans in Congress will try to stop him if that happens, a majority say that Republican lawmakers are likely to go along with what Trump wants to do.

I suspect that 40% who think the Supreme Court will go along with Trump includes a whole lot of Democrats.

I’m surprised that there still exists a third of Americans who don’t realize that the GOP congress is nothing but Trump’s eager harem of sycophants and shills. Where have they been?

He is not getting great numbers on any issue. (In the CNN Poll he’s doing waaaay worse on the economy.)

People don’t like him or think he’s good at the job. And Musk is even worse:

On two personal attributes, most Americans say Trump is not “honest and trustworthy” (62 percent), while they are divided over whether he “has the mental sharpness it takes to effectively serve as president” — 47 percent say he does, and 50 percent say he does not.

Assessments of Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur who oversees the effort to reshape the executive branch of government, are more negative than those of the president. The poll finds 34 percent saying they approve of the way Musk is handling his job, with 49 percent disapproving and 14 percent not sure.

Even the DEI stuff isn’t really popular which kind of surprises me. I thought that was the one thing that might get more popular support mainly because I think many white people don’t like it and some of those who do think it’s a trivial issue. Wrong: “Overall, 46 percent approve of what Trump has ordered on DEI, while 49 percent disapprove.”

A larger majority really doesn’t like this DOGE bullshit. Around 60% oppose shutting down USAID, laying off large numbers of federal workers, and 2 out of 3 are against shutting down the health agencies ability to communicate without going through a Trump hack.

How about the tariffs? Again, 60% don’t like the tariffs on Canada and Mexico while 50% are fine with the 10% tariffs on China. About 70% say these actions will cause prices to go higher. And they are very pessimistic that Trump is going to make anything better despite his promises to improve the economy on “day one.”

[O]verall impressions of the economy remain distinctly negative, with 73 percent saying the economy is either “not so good” or “poor” and 26 percent rating it “good” or “excellent.” The percentage rating it as poor has dropped from 33 percent in August and 42 percent in September 2023 to 21 percent now.

Pessimism prevails on specific aspects of the economy, with over 9 in 10 expressing negative views about food prices, about 3 in 4 feeling negative about gas and energy prices, more than 7 in 10 dour about the incomes of average Americans, and a majority even giving negative reviews about the unemployment rate, which has held steady around 4 percent in recent months.

If that’s all about “vibes” then Trump’s wrecking ball isn’t making anyone feel better about anything.

Just wait until the unemployment numbers come in next month.

Update — CNN has one too with similar results:

 A broad majority feel the president isn’t doing enough to address the high prices of everyday goods. And 52% say he’s gone too far in using his presidential power, with similar majorities wary of his push to shutter federal agencies and elevate Elon Musk to a prominent role in his efforts to reshape the government.

[…]

Americans divide on Trump’s performance in office thus far, with 47% approving and 52% disapproving, below the start-of-term ratings for any recent presidency other than his own.

Most adults nationwide, 55%, say that Trump has not paid enough attention to the country’s most important problems and 62% feel he has not gone far enough in trying to reduce the price of everyday goods. Sizable shares across party lines share the latter view, including 47% of Republicans, 65% of independents and 73% of Democrats. In CNN’s January polling, the economy eclipsed all other issues as Americans’ top concern.

More describe themselves as pessimistic or afraid when looking ahead to the rest of Trump’s second term (54%) than say they feel enthusiastic or optimistic about it (46%). In December, 52% were on the positive side, 48% negative. Notably, the share saying they feel “afraid” has climbed 6 points to 35%, rising by a roughly equal share across partisan lines.

Don’t Hold Back, JD

Published by Tom Sullivan on February 20, 2025

We won’t either

For a man so obssessed with defending free speech that last week he scolded Munich Security Conference partners for shunning neo-Nazis and for their governments trying to curb the spread of “so-called misinformation,” JD Vance is caught censoring his own speech at CPAC this morning.

“If you’re running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you,” Vance warned the Munich conference last week about not engaging opponents.

Clearly not. Not when members of Vance’s own U.S. party are “scared shitless about death threats and Gestapo-like stuff” from members of his own party. And while DOGE is busy purging political opponents from government jobs under the pretext of improving “efficiency” and eliminating “fraud” the DOGEes have yet to formally document with anything more substantive than Elon Musk tweets.

Here’s Vance being shy about what he really means this morning at CPAC while discussing immigration.

More fully:

You have to allow free speech to debate this stuff. You have to stop doing things to the populations of the world. You’ve got to give the populations of the world the opportunity to speak up and say, no more of this BS. We want borders. We want sovereignty. We want to be able to speak our own mind in our own country. 

What’s stopping him/them? Team MAGA has been pretty blunt on immigration in this country. And they’re teaching their children to speak their little minds as well:

Jocelynn Rojo Carranza took her life after experiencing months of relentless bullying from her sixth grade classmates over her family’s immigration status, with some students even threatening to contact U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

On February 3, Carranza’s single mother, Marbella Carranza, received a call notifying her that her daughter had attempted to take her life inside the family’s home in Gainesville, Texas. Her 11-year-old daughter was rushed to an intensive care unit in Dallas but died on February 8, according to a GoFundMe page.

What Vance wants for himself and MAGAstan is the freedom to express noxious beliefs, especially cruel ones. Mr. Victimhood has that freedom already, as does his dictator-curious boss. What Vance demands — not in so many words — is the freedom to express noxious beliefs without other Americans using their free speech to brand him for it as a Peter Thiel-owned, white-nationalist bigot. He wants a freedom of speech that’s more equal for some barnyard animals than others. He wants the same thing Christian nationalists want from their First Amendment freedom of religion: freedom for me but not for thee.

Vance claims western civilization is broken and needs rebuilding, but he doesn’t have the guts to explain in plain English how he thinks it’s broken, what or who broke it, and what immigration has to do with that.

Please, JD, use your threatened freedom of speech to explain it to us in detail. Don’t hold back. But don’t expect us to either.

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Those Leopards Are Just So Damn Hungry

Published by digby on February 20, 2025

Fox News host Jesse Watters made an on-air plea that the Trump administration be “less callous” when implementing when laying off federal employees after a military veteran friend was “DOGE’d” in Elon Musk’s Pentagon cuts.

A report on Wednesday revealed that the Pentagon had provided the Trump administration with a list of probationary employees who could be targeted in the next wave of federal workforce reductions.

Watters took to the air on The Five to raise the case of his friend, a veteran of 20 years, who was months into a new role at the Pentagon and still under probation but discovered this week that his job was set to be terminated as part of DOGE’s initiatives.

“Let me tell you a story about Chris. Chris was a guy I met at a shooting event in New Jersey,” Watters began…. a 20-year veteran of the U.S. Military, one of the guys who has killed a lot of bad guys. Put his life on the line. He punched out after 20 years of working for the Pentagon. And he’s only been there a few months, so his probationary period he just found out he’s probably going to get laid off. He’s going to get DOGE’d.”

The host added: “He texted me and said: ‘Jesse, this is not good. I’m really sad. I’m upset.’ This guy is not a DEI consultant. He is not a climate consultant. This guy is a veteran. So when you’re talking about DOGE-ing people, veterans should get priority. Because if you’re going to go out there and kill enemies, put your life on the line, you should not be in the same category as people that are doing DEI.”

I’ll bet he voted for Trump…

Just wait Jesse. They’ll be coming for you too.

As ye sow, losers:

“These are the heirs of the Greatest Generation, and they turned out to be the worst generation,” says Stuart Stevens, who served as a chief strategist on Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign and has since left the GOP, joining the anti-Trump Lincoln Project as a senior adviser. “It’s tempting to compare Republicans to Prussian aristocrats in 1930s Germany. But Prussian aristocrats were more responsible. They were dealing with civil unrest and the threat of a communist takeover. Republicans today have historically low unemployment, a record stock market. What’s their excuse?”

Political survival is one. Senate and House Republicans know Trump will orchestrate the running of a primary challenger backed by Elon Musk’s unlimited resources if a member defies him. But this is not the whole story of Republican subservience to the president. In private, Republicans talk about their fear that Trump might incite his MAGA followers to commit political violence against them if they don’t rubber-stamp his actions.

“They’re scared shitless about death threats and Gestapo-like stuff,” a former member of Trump’s first administration tells me.

According to one source with direct knowledge of the events, North Carolina senator Thom Tillis told people that the FBI warned him about “credible death threats” when he was considering voting against Pete Hegseth’s nomination for defense secretary. Tillis ultimately provided the crucial 50th vote to confirm the former Fox & Friends host to lead the Pentagon. According to the source, Tillis has said that if people want to understand Trump, they should read the 2006 book Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work. (When asked for comment for this story, a spokesperson for Tillis said it was false that the senator had recommended the book in that capacity. The FBI said it had no comment.)

They are all millionaires. They can afford security. They are pathetic.

How It’s Going Over There

Published by digby on February 20, 2025

Over here:

Meanwhile:

He is completely out of it:

A Pathological Liar, Part Infinity

Published by Tom Sullivan on February 20, 2025

Sellouts are selling out

https://x.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1892326356496646457

The Lincoln Project poses, “@realDonaldTrump if you truly believe Zelensky is a dictator, then why aren’t you kissing his ass like you do all the others?”

Before we get to more ass-kissing, John Harwood states what we all know: “Trump lies about every single thing” because “he’s psychologically unable to tell the truth.”

It’s not even worth debunking, although photographic evidence does.

“We are one news cycle away from Trump giving military aid to Russia,” the Lincoln Project also posted on Wednesday, presumably not in all seriousness. But who can say with the speed at which King Donald is climbing into Vladimir Putin’s pants?

Trump is selling out Ukraine, NATO, and now, not unexpectedly, the United Nations:

Every reporter today should be asking every Congressional Republican why they're OK siding with Putin and walking away from NATO and democracy.

— The Lincoln Project (@lincolnproject.us) 2025-02-20T14:39:04.974Z

Here’s the Reuters blurb:

LONDON/GENEVA/BERLIN, Feb 20 (Reuters) – The U.S. is refusing to co-sponsor a draft U.N. resolution marking three years since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine that backs Kyiv’s territorial integrity and condemns Russian aggression, three diplomatic sources told Reuters, in a potential stark shift by Ukraine’s most powerful Western ally.

The step appears to mirror a widening rift between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and U.S. President Donald Trump, who is trying to rapidly end the war in Ukraine and whose team has held talks with Russia without the involvement of Kyiv.

 

 
View on Threads

 

Get busy saving your democratic republic while there’s still something left of it.

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Trump Is A Russian Puppet

Published by Tom Sullivan on February 20, 2025

“What can I do today?”

The news out of Washington, D.C. and Europe is so insane that let’s start with someone who’s not cowed by the Musk-Trump coup: New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

“Every day our job is to wake up and say what can I do today?”

“There is no act too small.”

You might want to watch that several more times.

Meanwhile, Republicans in control(?) of Congress are running scared, too concerned for their political survival to dedicate any of their waking hours to saving their republic (or their European allies) from the Russian puppet sitting in the Oval Office.

“Senate and House Republicans know Trump will orchestrate the running of a primary challenger backed by Elon Musk’s unlimited resources if a member defies him.,” Gabriel Sherman writes at Vanity Fair.

“In private, Republicans talk about their fear that Trump might incite his MAGA followers to commit political violence against them if they don’t rubber-stamp his actions,” Sherman continues:

“They’re scared shitless about death threats and Gestapo-like stuff,” a former member of Trump’s first administration tells me.

According to one source with direct knowledge of the events, North Carolina senator Thom Tillis told people that the FBI warned him about “credible death threats” when he was considering voting against Pete Hegseth’s nomination for defense secretary. Tillis ultimately provided the crucial 50th vote to confirm the former Fox & Friends host to lead the Pentagon. According to the source, Tillis has said that if people want to understand Trump, they should read the 2006 book Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work. (When asked for comment for this story, a spokesperson for Tillis said it was false that the senator had recommended the book in that capacity. The FBI said it had no comment.)

“In that capacity” is a non-denial for those playing along at home.

Watch Senate Armed Services Chairman Roger Wicker of Mississippi speak out against Vladimir Putin’s aggressions in Ukraine while being careful, very careful, not to step on the toes of the Russian puppet in the White House who is sucking up to Putin in negotiations that exclude Ukraine.

“Putin is a war criminal who should be in jail for the rest of his life, if not executed,” Wicker told CNN’s Manu Raju on Tuesday.

Raju tweets:

Wicker added: “Vladimir Putin has violated every tenant of international law and should be indicted and prosecuted and jailed, possibly executed.”

On his concerns about the strength of the NATO alliance: “I think the best way for a European war to be avoided that would eventually cause us to become involved, is to ensure that the rule of law that’s been observed for 70 years in Europe be enforced and protected. That’s why we have NATO. That’s why the European Union exists.”

On his criticism of Hegseth for taking Ukraine/NATO membership off table before talks began: “I made a statement about that. And let me just say, Secretary Hegseth and I spoke while he was in Poland and I was in Munich. I think to the extent that his subsequent statement was somewhat of a walk back, that was a favorable development. But Pete Hegseth and I are getting along fine.”

Wicker turns away as Raju asks about Donald Trump’s undercutting NATO.

The New York Times reports on Republican dithering;

While some Republicans have expressed dismay at Mr. Trump’s moves and statements, there has been no concerted effort to challenge him from G.O.P. leaders or senators who play pivotal roles in overseeing military and foreign policy in Congress.

Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the majority leader, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and others will not cross Trump on his efforts to wreck the western alliance. Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa “simply shrugged her shoulders” over Trump’s hopes to meet in person with Putin.

The spineless continue to be spineless:

Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, once called Mr. Putin a “thug” and a war criminal, saying he “needs to be dealt with.” But shortly after Mr. Trump announced that Mr. Putin had extended an invitation for the president to travel to Moscow, Mr. Graham changed his tune substantially.

“I don’t care if they meet Putin in Cleveland,” he said in recent days of plans to hold high-level talks between the White House and the Kremlin. “I don’t care if they talk, I don’t care if they go on vacation. It doesn’t matter to me what you do as long as you get it right.”

Constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe tweeted in response to the Times article, “These cowardly puppets would’ve stayed mute if their guy had blamed Poland for Germany’s 1939 invasion — something not even Adolf Hitler dared to do”

Democrats as a party are having difficulty mounting any effective counter either to Trump’s efforts to gut NATO or to Elon Musk’s efforts to gut federal agencies and replace the Constitution with a Yarvin-inspired broligarchy.

God help us, but another billionaire is one of the few Democrats with words of encouragement.

If you are looking for elected Leaders outside the beltway who are leading with courage, resilience, and powerful messaging – look at @govpritzker.illinois.gov 🔥

— Murshed Zaheed (@murshedz.bsky.social) 2025-02-20T04:43:55.933Z

From Pritzker’s Bluesky thread:

The root that tears apart your foundation begins as a seed of distrust, hate, and blame.

The seed that grew into a dictatorship in Europe didn’t arrive overnight.

It started with everyday Germans mad about inflation and looking for someone to blame.

I’m watching alongside Illinoisans what’s happening in our country right now with dread.

The authoritarian playbook is laid bare: they point to a group of people who don’t look like you and tell you to blame them for your problems.

What comes next?

My oath is to the Constitution of our state and of our country.

We don’t have kings in America – and I don’t intend to bend the knee to one.

I am not speaking up in service to my ambitions — but in deference to my obligations.

It took the Nazis one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours, and 40 minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic.

When the fire starts to burn, every good person better be ready to man a post with a bucket of water if you want to stop it from raging out of control.

Tyranny requires your fear and your silence and your compliance.

Democracy requires your courage.

So gather your justice and humanity, Illinois, and do not let despair overcome us when our country needs us the most.

“We’re in trouble,” I told my mother after Trump’s reelection. I get a lot wrong. I wasn’t wrong about that.

Update: Added the Ruth Ben-Ghiat tweet. (It’s not replicated on Bluesky.)

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