From a dehumanizing deportation game to the AfD’s school agenda, the right is remaking identity. The states are our wall — if they defend culture, too.
What a strange question that headline is! What the founders apparently considered democracy was founded on an obvious culture of cruelty: slavery. Eventually the cruelty of slavery gave way to the cruelty of Jim Crow, and neither cruelty nor racism went away when Jim Crow did. Capital often displayed cruelty to labor, men had free rein to treat women however they wanted, children had virtually no rights, and so on. Democracy managed not only to survive but to expand enough to mitigate and even abolish some of the publicly sanctioned aspects of that cruelty.
Concentration camps. Lynching. Corruption. Huge restrictions on voting. No democracy is NOT managing to survive. It's on life support, and a significant portion of the government want to pull the plug.
In George Washington’s farewell address he warned of despotism as to what IMO is what currently is happening in our nation.
Washington wrote that intense political factionalism and the erosion of constitutional boundaries would eventually lead to a permanent despotism. He stated that the "alternate domination of one faction over another" creates a "frightful despotism" that wearies people through constant disorder and misery. This chaos inclines citizens to seek safety and rest in the absolute power of a single person. That a clever and ambitious leader from a dominant faction then seizes absolute control, destroying public freedom for personal elevation. When one branch of government takes over the powers of another, it consolidates all power into one place, creating a "real despotism" regardless of the nominal form of government.
This is why we ALL need to VOTE. To lance this Trump boil because this infection of even the still 29% of voters need to hear this loudly as well as the current majority in Congress and the corrupt six on SCOTUS.. it’s just the beginning..
The White House put out a video game!!!! Video games. Gold wall decorations. Lavish remodels. All sitting on top of war, cruelty, and corruption. What kind of upside down world is this? (Rhetorical Question) Evil boys playing an evil game and trying desperately to smother any semblance of what American has been and the Constitution.
I understand that approximately 40% of the population who vote are diehard Rump supporters. This is a high number that includes the country's hypocritical white Christian (the Apostles are spinning in their graves) nationalists. This means that cruelty, racism, mysogeny have been ingrained in an astonishingly-sizable portion of the population for a very long time. Pass all the Pollyanna policies you want, these characteristics will nonetheless remain embedded in our country long after Rump is gone. These are the actual haters of America & everything it stands for not the brown-skinned immigrants who cherish what this country stands for.
Call it what it is: the administration and the Heritage Foundation are rife with Nazi ideology. White Supremacists, Christian Nationalists. Instead of turning folks against the Jews, they are using the immigrants, black and brown to spit their vile on. They take all the jobs; they are not very intelligent; they are going to take over the White race. Its all designed to cause the whites to hate and turn on the immigrants. Some were ok with the closed borders and the ICE Gestapo, ramming into citizens' vehicles, pepper spraying, murdering, apprehending, incarcerating and deporting folks. Some representatives voted to fund these criminals and now we have some representatives complaining the are attacking their race. Eventually, they will change the curriculum in the education ministry; they will be pushing the White Supremacist agenda. AfD controls Saxony-Anhalt’s schools; the Trump administration does not control American schools. Yet. Give them time. Pete Hegseth is already doing it in the military.
We lose the discussion/argument when we engage in maga conversation rather than something more fact based. The opposition gets away with what it does because we engage them at the level they choose. In my opinion, the only place to start is with the Enlightenment principles that we founded the nation on. Fundamentally this means Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. The Bill of Rights enshrines these things. We need to talk much more about the First, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments plus 13, 14, 15 alas these days to drive the conversation. If we don’t we just feed ourselves into the other side’s propaganda machine.
I believe that German immigration policies are enacted on the state level. It's a decentralized system. So if the right-wingers in Saxony-Anhalt want to set up mini-concentration camps for migrants, they can probably do so.
Much as I hate to compliment a Harvard professor, I confess that this is extremely well written and spot on the long-term issue. Bravo.
Princeton 1964
What a strange question that headline is! What the founders apparently considered democracy was founded on an obvious culture of cruelty: slavery. Eventually the cruelty of slavery gave way to the cruelty of Jim Crow, and neither cruelty nor racism went away when Jim Crow did. Capital often displayed cruelty to labor, men had free rein to treat women however they wanted, children had virtually no rights, and so on. Democracy managed not only to survive but to expand enough to mitigate and even abolish some of the publicly sanctioned aspects of that cruelty.
Concentration camps. Lynching. Corruption. Huge restrictions on voting. No democracy is NOT managing to survive. It's on life support, and a significant portion of the government want to pull the plug.
In George Washington’s farewell address he warned of despotism as to what IMO is what currently is happening in our nation.
Washington wrote that intense political factionalism and the erosion of constitutional boundaries would eventually lead to a permanent despotism. He stated that the "alternate domination of one faction over another" creates a "frightful despotism" that wearies people through constant disorder and misery. This chaos inclines citizens to seek safety and rest in the absolute power of a single person. That a clever and ambitious leader from a dominant faction then seizes absolute control, destroying public freedom for personal elevation. When one branch of government takes over the powers of another, it consolidates all power into one place, creating a "real despotism" regardless of the nominal form of government.
This is why we ALL need to VOTE. To lance this Trump boil because this infection of even the still 29% of voters need to hear this loudly as well as the current majority in Congress and the corrupt six on SCOTUS.. it’s just the beginning..
https://share.google/XYGYMVN5wHrRRKy5a
The White House put out a video game!!!! Video games. Gold wall decorations. Lavish remodels. All sitting on top of war, cruelty, and corruption. What kind of upside down world is this? (Rhetorical Question) Evil boys playing an evil game and trying desperately to smother any semblance of what American has been and the Constitution.
Thank you for sharing your insights.
I understand that approximately 40% of the population who vote are diehard Rump supporters. This is a high number that includes the country's hypocritical white Christian (the Apostles are spinning in their graves) nationalists. This means that cruelty, racism, mysogeny have been ingrained in an astonishingly-sizable portion of the population for a very long time. Pass all the Pollyanna policies you want, these characteristics will nonetheless remain embedded in our country long after Rump is gone. These are the actual haters of America & everything it stands for not the brown-skinned immigrants who cherish what this country stands for.
The WH putting out any video game, much less the one they did, is one of the most sickening things I have heard.
Call it what it is: the administration and the Heritage Foundation are rife with Nazi ideology. White Supremacists, Christian Nationalists. Instead of turning folks against the Jews, they are using the immigrants, black and brown to spit their vile on. They take all the jobs; they are not very intelligent; they are going to take over the White race. Its all designed to cause the whites to hate and turn on the immigrants. Some were ok with the closed borders and the ICE Gestapo, ramming into citizens' vehicles, pepper spraying, murdering, apprehending, incarcerating and deporting folks. Some representatives voted to fund these criminals and now we have some representatives complaining the are attacking their race. Eventually, they will change the curriculum in the education ministry; they will be pushing the White Supremacist agenda. AfD controls Saxony-Anhalt’s schools; the Trump administration does not control American schools. Yet. Give them time. Pete Hegseth is already doing it in the military.
Excellent!
We lose the discussion/argument when we engage in maga conversation rather than something more fact based. The opposition gets away with what it does because we engage them at the level they choose. In my opinion, the only place to start is with the Enlightenment principles that we founded the nation on. Fundamentally this means Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. The Bill of Rights enshrines these things. We need to talk much more about the First, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments plus 13, 14, 15 alas these days to drive the conversation. If we don’t we just feed ourselves into the other side’s propaganda machine.
Yes, but it will take cruelty to accomplish it. I don't think the democratic party has the guys to do what will take.
I believe that German immigration policies are enacted on the state level. It's a decentralized system. So if the right-wingers in Saxony-Anhalt want to set up mini-concentration camps for migrants, they can probably do so.