As the daughter of a man who left Cuba before the revolution and could never go home again, I second your puzzlement at Americans' willing embrace of a loss of freedom. But I can't help but see what ignorance and poor education have done to the ability of many to even recognize these conditions being forced upon us.
Trump's handlers know that Congress and the courts move far too slowly to prevent most of their power grabs. Witness court rulings that allow illegal measures to remain in place, doing irreparable damage day by day, until another court does or does not decide to concur or overturn their ruling. We voters are sitting ducks in this process, being stuck with our awareness and frustrated by our powerlessness.
Again I suggest that in these extraordinary times the DNC take the job of coordinating an effective response among our elected officials that voters can support from the sidelines. The inertia is compounding the damage to our democracy and to our mental health.
I constantly remember teachers in elementary school, warning us that we much be vigilant so that our country never becomes like Soviet Russia. We heard how the government ran everything, how groceries were scarce, how people were sick, and how friends and families informed on each other, to the government. Nobody could trust anybody else - not friend, not child, not parent. This was back when we were practicing duck and cover and hiding under our desks during the air raid drills.
Now, the country is rushing headlong into the abyss of what those teachers were warning us against. And I'm sure that if there is an afterlife at all, Nikita is there laughing, and saying, "I told them we would bury them." He didn't expect that we would help the process along, by burying ourselves to please a manbaby, cowardly quisling from Queens and the oligarchs that pull his strings.
Just last week I was explaining to my 92 year-old (liberal) mother how much of what Trump and his administration are doing reeks of communism, although not as thoroughly as you have cataloged in this edifying piece. Well done.
It's amazing to me though that the mainstream political media hasn't -- or refuses to -- make the connection, and probably will not, no matter how glaring it becomes. They are a highly conditioned group and can only process the charge of communism being made from the right, at the left.
As I read the following quote regarding old Stalin messaging, I couldn't help but think of the GOP trickle down theory of economics that has not worked for 40÷ years. "Stalin justified the suffering he imposed by arguing that “not a single important step has been taken” since the Russian revolution “which did not involve certain sacrifices ... which will be more than compensated for in the near future”—a future that of course never came."
Your comment is related to mine! Why isn't all of this being shouted, described, warned about? When will the tipping point occur? Hopefully before it's not to late, or maybe it already is.
I don't want a country described as communist or similar--and this scares me. I want things mostly as they were but with Republicans and Democrats actually trying to mostly work with each other for the good of our country and people. It appears as though the Republican Congresspeople have been turned to the bad side and no longer care anymore.
As the daughter of a man who left Cuba before the revolution and could never go home again, I second your puzzlement at Americans' willing embrace of a loss of freedom. But I can't help but see what ignorance and poor education have done to the ability of many to even recognize these conditions being forced upon us.
Trump's handlers know that Congress and the courts move far too slowly to prevent most of their power grabs. Witness court rulings that allow illegal measures to remain in place, doing irreparable damage day by day, until another court does or does not decide to concur or overturn their ruling. We voters are sitting ducks in this process, being stuck with our awareness and frustrated by our powerlessness.
Again I suggest that in these extraordinary times the DNC take the job of coordinating an effective response among our elected officials that voters can support from the sidelines. The inertia is compounding the damage to our democracy and to our mental health.
I constantly remember teachers in elementary school, warning us that we much be vigilant so that our country never becomes like Soviet Russia. We heard how the government ran everything, how groceries were scarce, how people were sick, and how friends and families informed on each other, to the government. Nobody could trust anybody else - not friend, not child, not parent. This was back when we were practicing duck and cover and hiding under our desks during the air raid drills.
Now, the country is rushing headlong into the abyss of what those teachers were warning us against. And I'm sure that if there is an afterlife at all, Nikita is there laughing, and saying, "I told them we would bury them." He didn't expect that we would help the process along, by burying ourselves to please a manbaby, cowardly quisling from Queens and the oligarchs that pull his strings.
Just last week I was explaining to my 92 year-old (liberal) mother how much of what Trump and his administration are doing reeks of communism, although not as thoroughly as you have cataloged in this edifying piece. Well done.
It's amazing to me though that the mainstream political media hasn't -- or refuses to -- make the connection, and probably will not, no matter how glaring it becomes. They are a highly conditioned group and can only process the charge of communism being made from the right, at the left.
So all of this is written down (in this post and elsewhere), so it's knowable. Why aren't the Ds shouting about this?
Sadly, the Ds are not good at organized, clear, simple, & powerful communication.
As I read the following quote regarding old Stalin messaging, I couldn't help but think of the GOP trickle down theory of economics that has not worked for 40÷ years. "Stalin justified the suffering he imposed by arguing that “not a single important step has been taken” since the Russian revolution “which did not involve certain sacrifices ... which will be more than compensated for in the near future”—a future that of course never came."
I keep thinking, how much more do we have to witness before the brutal truth is impossible to acknowledge??
Your comment is related to mine! Why isn't all of this being shouted, described, warned about? When will the tipping point occur? Hopefully before it's not to late, or maybe it already is.
I don't want a country described as communist or similar--and this scares me. I want things mostly as they were but with Republicans and Democrats actually trying to mostly work with each other for the good of our country and people. It appears as though the Republican Congresspeople have been turned to the bad side and no longer care anymore.