Trump’s list of enemies is not theoretical
There’s already a judiciary subcommittee on the “weaponisation of the federal government” in Congress to investigate the “censorship industrial complex” – the idea that big tech is “censoring” Republican voices. For the past 18 months, it’s been subpoena-ing academics. Last week, Elon Musk tweeted that the next stage would be “prosecutions”. A friend of mine, an Ivy League professor on the list, texts to say the day will shortly come “where I will have to decide whether to stay or go”.
Trump’s list of enemies is not theoretical. It already exists. My friend is on it. In 2022, Trump announced a “day one” executive order instructing “the Department of Justice to investigate all parties involved in the new online censorship regime … and to aggressively prosecute any and all crimes identified”. And my friends in other countries know exactly where this leads.
Another message arrives from Maria Ressa, the Nobel prize-winning Filipino journalist. In the Philippines, the government is modelled on the US one and she writes about what happened when President Duterte controlled all three branches of it. “It took six months after he took office for our institutions to crumble.” And then she was arrested.
What we did during the first wave of disruption, 2016-24, won’t work now. Can you “weaponise” social media when social media is the weapon? Remember the philosopher Marshall McLuhan – “the medium is the message”? Well the medium now is Musk. The world’s richest man bought a global communication platform and is now the shadow head of state of what was the world’s greatest superpower. That’s the message. Have you got it yet?
I’ve got something.
I’m not sure about the Guardian’s spin on all of this.
But I am absolutely sure that there’s an organized movement among right wing conservatives to shake up the cultural landscape.
It has not escaped the attention of right wing and religious conservatives that they’re being left out of the cultural conversation even though they tend to win votes (because old people vote more than young people do). The culture has swung left even though the old money and a big chunk of the electorate still leans right.
There’s a very organized movement to translate the right’s political power into cultural power. This is proposed to happen via (supposedly, in their mission statements) short-term reductions in civil liberties. Get elected on populist platforms, then forcibly shut down the gender studies classes in school; forcibly shut down the far-left media outlets, etc. But do so (supposedly) in the name of long-term liberty. The far right wants to win elections so it can (supposedly temporarily) impose anti-democratic policies, but only briefly, and only to correct against the “imbalance” of liberal extremism in the culture. And then (supposedly), they would restore the status quo and make democracy normal again.
This is Viktor Orban’s publicly stated philosophy for Hungary, and it’s the same with far-right figures across Europe. Trump is very much connected to the same network of lunatics, and you hear echoes of this master plan in his “dictator on day one” rhetoric, for example.
It’s all bullshit, any way you look at it. No one ever relinquishes dictatorial power after a day. And the reasons they seize it in the first place are never noble. And the populace don’t agree with their far right ideas about women’s rights and gay rights and all the rest. (Except maybe trans. Always the exception.)
The right are absolutely drunk on their anger at leftist overreach, and I at least agree that leftist overreach is a thing. But hoo boy, I think their crazy ideas about temporary dictatorships are fucking dumb as shit. It’s far more dangerous for the far right to gain unmitigated control of the levers of power, if even half their plans for cultural rollback could feasibly happen. They cling to dangerously naive ideas that should have been relegated to history in the middle of the last century.
Surely a typo. Under what authority was Drumpf issuing executive orders in 2022? If journalists/publishers can’t get basic facts right, is it any wonder they are being ignored as people turn to Xwitter and Fox?
Rev, it’s not a typo. It’s merely badly worded. The announcement was in 2022, but everything which follows was a promise.
In 2022, Trump announced that, when he was elected president again, he would issue a “day one” executive order etc.
It’s time to get a VPN, subscribe to offshore social media services, and keep your American ones limited to pictures of puppies and kittens, I think. During the Iran uprising we were encouraged to change our locales to Tehran in order to create white noise for the protection of Iranis who were planning protests. I am not sure if our overseas friends, or those to the north and south of us, will cooperate in doing something similar, but it’s worth asking.
I’ve talked to Greg Laden about interviewing Timothy Snyder for our podcast, regarding his book “On Freedom.” I hope to be able to report that we will have it up before the Inauguration and the Day One.
Thanks tigger, that makes more sense.