The lightning move toward autocracy

[Death 301]

As has been repeatedly warned about, Trump rapidly taking us into autocracy, where he will have ungodly power and minimized checks and balances.

Conservatives have whined about what they perceived as too much federal power yet remain blind to what it going on before our very eyes.

One of the first steps has been populated his cabinet with nodding heads who are largely nowhere near qualified to hold these positions.

Trump mostly has the House, Senate and Supreme Court in his back pocket and is slowly creating historic and immense power in the executive branch.

He has silenced health organizations at a time when a potential pandemic is brewing.

And now this:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/donald-trump-fires-independent-inspectors-144550632.html

He has purged watchdogs who help ensure balanced government.

What I expected to see in the coming days is a vindictive campaign to silence critics and go after the media entities that displease him.

With the Billionaire Buttbuddy Boys and their immense power, money and influence over media and social media, with misinformation and propagands designed to continue controlling the minds of those too weak to think for themselves.

This is right out of the playbook of dictators such as Hitler, and here is how he did it:

Quote

Hitler created a dictatorship in Germany by becoming Chancellor through legal means, then exploiting the Reichstag fire to pass the Enabling Act, which granted him sweeping powers to make laws without the Reichstag's approval, effectively eliminating opposition and consolidating his control as the "Führer" after President Hindenburg's death; he also used intimidation, violence, and propaganda to suppress dissent and establish a totalitarian regime. 

 

Key points:

• Legal Appointment:

  Hitler was initially appointed Chancellor in January 1933 through a democratic process, but quickly began manipulating the system to gain absolute power. 

   
• The Reichstag Fire:

  This event, which was likely staged by the Nazis, was used as a pretext to declare a state of emergency and restrict civil liberties. 

   
• The Enabling Act:

  This law, passed by the Reichstag under pressure, gave Hitler the power to make laws without parliamentary consent, effectively making him a dictator. 

   
• Eliminating Opposition:

  Hitler systematically removed political opponents by arresting communists, banning other parties, and purging dissenters within the Nazi Party. 

   
• Propaganda and Cult of Personality:

  The Nazi regime heavily relied on propaganda to promote Hitler as the "Führer" and cultivate a strong personal loyalty among the German people. 

Trump has already checked many of these boxes.

[5-Points 3,398]

2 minutes ago, Death said:

One of the first steps has been populated his cabinet with nodding heads who are largely nowhere near qualified to hold these positions.

 

Your newly found concern about this has been noted. And  at. 

 

[Death 301]

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-zenith-power-moves-quickly-take-over-washington-2025-01-25/?utm_source=newsshowcase&utm_medium=gnews&utm_campaign=CDAqDQgAKgYICjC3oAwwsCYwo_25Aw&utm_content=rundown&gaa_at=la&gaa_n=AerBZYO63CV-BsXX17k78uK4bzJTefbU-ZfY4og-HOw9fp2qOz9dtVuaA-dE6oABYMkXD9yhNb29uogZhnQtWBZIXhih&gaa_ts=67953089&gaa_sig=I4cRwEmLCwmAGZJ37VKumxqNwOxE64I5uO0edulqrtUG2Xr6_SLR8Z-lWoJ0YWjgVgK1GAvyg7wEEuSmIqrNmQ%3D%3D

More of the same.

[Death 301]

Just now, 5-Points said:

Your newly found concern about this has been noted. And  at. 

 

Outside of starting a silly thread here and there, when I start a thread like this, I do so with the intent of it being a long-running discussion topic. My Biden and Ukraine threads - and potentially the Bird Flu thread - are examples of this.

Whether and how Trump abuses all this power he's creating for himself is yet to be seen, and he already has launched his campaign of vindictiveness to go after his enemies.

Feel free to explain how this is different from how other countries went the route of oligarchies, autocracies and dictatorships.

I'll sit back and listen.

[Strike 5,221]

Congressman introduced a resolution to allow the President to serve three terms.  For the benefit of the country let's hope it passes.

[5-Points 3,398]

4 minutes ago, Death said:

Outside of starting a silly thread here and there, when I start a thread like this, I do so with the intent of it being a long-running discussion topic. My Biden and Ukraine threads - and potentially the Bird Flu thread - are examples of this.

Whether and how Trump abuses all this power he's creating for himself is yet to be seen, and he already has launched his campaign of vindictiveness to go after his enemies.

Feel free to explain how this is different from how other countries went the route of oligarchies, autocracies and dictatorships.

I'll sit back and listen.

I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill. 

Was Lloyd Austin a good choice for Sec. Def? He may have been "qualified" on paper but who leaves their post unmanned without a word to anybody about leaving and for how long? 

Every POTUS fills their cabinet with people they feel will carry out their agenda. Trump 2.0 is no different in that regard. Except this time, he knows there are no rules to the game other than those you choose to play by. He learned that lesson the hard way but he learned that lesson well. 

[CaptainObvious1 327]

More drama than a middle school girl

[edjr 6,578]

another trump thread

[5-Points 3,398]

4 minutes ago, edjr said:

another trump thread

 Four  More  Years!

[Maximum Overkill 1,743]

1 hour ago, Death said:

What I expected to see in the coming days is a vindictive campaign to silence critics and go after the media 

Done!  

[Maximum Overkill 1,743]

Can't wait till Kash Patel is confirmed 

[RaiderHaters Revenge 4,243]

Wahhhhhhhhh cry yourself to sleep little girl

[RLLD 4,143]

[Drizzay 699]

I don't know why Tampa has a hockey team.

[The Real timschochet 6,451]

While I think it’s important to keep a close eye on all this stuff I’m not especially concerned yet. I’m much more concerned about decisions with immediate consequences such as tariffs, the deportation plans, cutting off aid to Ukraine, etc. than I am about this stuff. 
 

I also hope his decisions with regard to the CDC and the WHO, which to me seem rooted in retribution over Covid, don’t come back to bite us, especially if the bird flu thing gets more serious…

[Maximum Overkill 1,743]

1 minute ago, The Real timschochet said:

especially if the bird flu thing gets more serious…

Vax up 

[The Real timschochet 6,451]

2 minutes ago, Maximum Overkill said:

Vax up 

We don’t have a vax for that 

[Maximum Overkill 1,743]

1 minute ago, The Real timschochet said:

We don’t have a vax for that 

Ohh my, we're all dead 

[Hardcore troubadour 14,963]

1 hour ago, Death said:

Outside of starting a silly thread here and there, when I start a thread like this, I do so with the intent of it being a long-running discussion topic. My Biden and Ukraine threads - and potentially the Bird Flu thread - are examples of this.

Whether and how Trump abuses all this power he's creating for himself is yet to be seen, and he already has launched his campaign of vindictiveness to go after his enemies.

Feel free to explain how this is different from how other countries went the route of oligarchies, autocracies and dictatorships.

I'll sit back and listen.

Look at me! I started a thread on a message board! People like me! They really like me!

[Death 301]

Not surpising that so many of you avoid an actual discussion and keep playing the tired "wah crying" card when I've detailed how closely Trump's actions follow the autocratic playbook.

Similarities also exist between now and The Gilded Age of the late 1800s. Like then, this administration will allow the wealth to get wealthier, particularly the likes of Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Ramaswamy and Trump himself, and the poor will experience even more economic hardships as they pay higher prices for food, gas, vehicles and other goods as the weight of who really pays tariffs falls upon them.

You guys should brush up on some facts and history, lest it repeat itself.

Your "quit crying" responses are shallow and drive me to double and triple down on this topic, pointing out the alarming signs when and where they pop up.

So far, everything has happened as I predicted it would, and if and when Trump starts trying to shut down the media he dislikes and doesn't kiss his ass, my points will be further underscored.

Stay tuned.

 

 

[Death 301]

15 minutes ago, Hardcore troubadour said:

Look at me! I started a thread on a message board! People like me! They really like me!

^^^^^^ Dumbly thinks I give a rat's ass whether I'm liked around here.

I've been a lightning rod for you clowns for more than four years, and now it has become a target-rich environment for point out things that stir up the MAGAturds like a freshly kicked fire-ant mound.

[Maximum Overkill 1,743]

2 minutes ago, Death said:

So far, everything has happened as I predicted it would,

Hey Genius, Trump told you he'd be doing all this, and he did. You're not special 

[Maximum Overkill 1,743]

2 minutes ago, Death said:

I've been a lightning rod for you clowns

I can't imagine why 

[EternalShinyAndChrome 3,855]

Who wants to tell the OP about Biden? 

Once again, the crying, hysterical, feces-throwing liberal monkey are accusing others of doing things they've already done! 

[Death 301]

Here's how it happened in Hungary:

https://forgeorganizing.org/article/5-lessons-hungary-how-fight-authoritarians/

Quote

March 13, 2024

5 Lessons From Hungary: How to Fight Authoritarians

Gordon Whitman

Share    Print this article

Elekes Andor

Lessons from a convening between pro-democracy organizers from the U.S. and Hungary. Gordon Whitman explains how grassroots organizations can adapt as authoritarians change the rules of the game, and how neoliberalism paves the path for dictators.

 

 

 

White Nationalist politicians and activists from the U.S. have beaten a path to Hungary, lionizing Viktor Orbán as a role model for crushing liberalism by any means necessary. But what can people organizing for multi-racial/multi-ethnic democracy in the U.S. and Hungary learn from each other? And what role can grassroots power-building play in countering authoritarian movements that aim to break democratic norms and institutions? 

 

To help answer these questions, U.S. organizers traveled to Budapest in June 2023 to compare notes with Hungarian organizers and activists. U.S. participants had a chance to see Hungary’s other side: grassroots organizations working to restore democracy, within a long Eastern European tradition of civic and labor organizing. This article explains how Viktor Orbán took and has held onto power, and offers five shared lessons for organizing for social change in the face of rising authoritarianism.

 

How Hungary became a poster child for authoritarianism

 

The end of the Soviet Union brought formal democracy to Hungary and other Eastern Europe countries, along with economic and social dislocation. Many Hungarians lost jobs and social benefits. Western governments preached civic participation –– often conceived as professionalized NGOs –– while demanding countries deregulate their economies and dismantle social welfare systems. 

 

Viktor Orbán was first elected Prime Minister in 1998. He replaced a government led by the Hungarian Socialist Party, which had embraced neo-liberal economic policies. After Orbán lost power four years later, in 2002, his conservative Fidesz party (Alliance of Young Democrats) invested in widespread civic organizing, albeit more top-down than is common among social justice organizers. Fidesz unified many Hungarians around a shared nationalist identity and agenda. These organizing efforts, combined with the failures of the incumbent government, helped Orbán regain power in 2010. His victory took place in the context of the 2008 global financial crisis, which caused many foreclosures in Hungary, and the larger failure of Western neoliberalism to deliver on its promises of economic prosperity. 

After regaining power in 2010, Orbán moved quickly to dominate ever-larger parts of Hungarian society. Over the past thirteen years, his regime has taken political control over the judicial system, media, universities, cultural institutions, churches, and economy. The government tells successful companies that they need to sell themselves at a favorable price to someone connected to the ruling party or be driven out of business. It provides capital and operating costs to churches aligned with the government.

Political scientists call Hungary a competitive authoritarian regime, in that elections happen and matter but take place under conditions where once-democratic institutions are structurally tilted to the regime in power. Something similar could be said about some U.S. states, such as Florida and Tennessee, which have seen a serious erosion of democratic norms. In Hungary, people engage in civic and political activity without repression. Opposition politicians and activists are routinely smeared by the government-aligned media, but they are not put in jail or threatened physically for speaking out against the regime, at least until now. Police rarely use violence to break up protests. Fidesz engages in vote buying and pressures people who are dependent on state jobs and workfare, but votes are fairly counted. 

 

[CaptainObvious1 327]

Rusty looking for an actual discussion?  Guy has 15 alias accounts and uses words a 7 year old would use like Clownzo and Magaturds. And admits he's only here to troll Trump supporters.  Spare me the bullcrap.

[5-Points 3,398]

15 minutes ago, Death said:

Not surpising that so many of you avoid an actual discussion and keep playing the tired "wah crying" card when I've detailed how closely Trump's actions follow the autocratic playbook.

Similarities also exist between now and The Gilded Age of the late 1800s. Like then, this administration will allow the wealth to get wealthier, particularly the likes of Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Ramaswamy and Trump himself, and the poor will experience even more economic hardships as they pay higher prices for food, gas, vehicles and other goods as the weight of who really pays tariffs falls upon them.

You guys should brush up on some facts and history, lest it repeat itself.

Your "quit crying" responses are shallow and drive me to double and triple down on this topic, pointing out the alarming signs when and where they pop up.

So far, everything has happened as I predicted it would, and if and when Trump starts trying to shut down the media he dislikes and doesn't kiss his ass, my points will be further underscored.

Stay tuned.

 

 

Trump was wealthy before he ever took office. Unlike your heroes Obama, Biden and Harris. In fact, Trump lost money last time around. 

Save your pearl clutching for another forearm. 

[Patented Phil 1,469]

2 hours ago, Death said:

As has been repeatedly warned about, Trump rapidly taking us into autocracy, where he will have ungodly power and minimized checks and balances.

Conservatives have whined about what they perceived as too much federal power yet remain blind to what it going on before our very eyes.

One of the first steps has been populated his cabinet with nodding heads who are largely nowhere near qualified to hold these positions.

Trump mostly has the House, Senate and Supreme Court in his back pocket and is slowly creating historic and immense power in the executive branch.

He has silenced health organizations at a time when a potential pandemic is brewing.

And now this:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/donald-trump-fires-independent-inspectors-144550632.html

He has purged watchdogs who help ensure balanced government.

What I expected to see in the coming days is a vindictive campaign to silence critics and go after the media entities that displease him.

With the Billionaire Buttbuddy Boys and their immense power, money and influence over media and social media, with misinformation and propagands designed to continue controlling the minds of those too weak to think for themselves.

This is right out of the playbook of dictators such as Hitler, and here is how he did it:

Trump has already checked many of these boxes.

From your lips to God’s ears.

Unfortunately it won’t come to pass.  Autocrats are ideologues, and Trump is too much of a pragmatist.

[Death 301]

13 minutes ago, Maximum Overkill said:

Hey Genius, Trump told you he'd be doing all this, and he did. You're not special 

If you believe our executive branch should have near-absolute power and our country needs a largely one-party system, you're about as anti-American as it gets. If this is what you want, you're a fascist, plain and simple. 

Our founding fathers created a system of checks and balances that is in peril because Trump and his cronies studied the authoritarian playbook and taking the steps that countries such as Hungary.

White Christian nationalism at its finest.

[5-Points 3,398]

3 minutes ago, Death said:

Here's how it happened in Hungary:

https://forgeorganizing.org/article/5-lessons-hungary-how-fight-authoritarians/

his regime has taken political control over the judicial system, media, universities, cultural institutions, churches, and economy. 

You've just described the American Democrat party to a T. HTH

 

 

 

 

 

[CaptainObvious1 327]

2 minutes ago, Death said:

If you believe our executive branch should have near-absolute power and our country needs a largely one-party system, you're about as anti-American as it gets. If this is what you want, you're a fascist, plain and simple. 

Our founding fathers created a system of checks and balances that is in peril because Trump and his cronies studied the authoritarian playbook and taking the steps that countries such as Hungary.

White Christian nationalism at its finest.

We have two parties.  One of them won the elections.  Make your own party better.

[EternalShinyAndChrome 3,855]

Anyone remember when that ghey dude started a thread about Autocracy w/out realizing his own party was doing it this entire time? 

Yeah, me too. 

[Strike 5,221]

This thread is a lightning move towards dumbocracy.

[Death 301]

5 minutes ago, CaptainObvious1 said:

Rusty looking for an actual discussion?  Guy has 15 alias accounts and uses words a 7 year old would use like Clownzo and Magaturds. And admits he's only here to troll Trump supporters.  Spare me the bullcrap.

I want to make the points I want to make in one thread and not have to deal with the ongoing Trump thread diahrrea.

There has been little to nothing in the way of intelligent and well-educated responses to my points.

This administration represents the greatest threat to our democracy since the Civil War, and you and your ilk would like nothing more than an unbalanced, one-party system, no checks and balances to executive-branch power, censorship of media that doesn't say the kinds of things that you like, oligarchs running the country and controlling the message, and Trump as our forever president.

 

[CaptainObvious1 327]

4 minutes ago, Death said:

I want to make the points I want to make in one thread and not have to deal with the ongoing Trump thread diahrrea.

There has been little to nothing in the way of intelligent and well-educated responses to my points.

This administration represents the greatest threat to our democracy since the Civil War, and you and your ilk would like nothing more than an unbalanced, one-party system, no checks and balances to executive-branch power, censorship of media that doesn't say the kinds of things that you like, oligarchs running the country and controlling the message, and Trump as our forever president.

 

Yeah, no one takes your seriously.  Perhaps stop trolling 20 other threads if you want to be taken seriously here.  Your hitler comparisons are troll bait anyway.

[EternalShinyAndChrome 3,855]

6 minutes ago, Strike said:

This thread is a lightning move towards dumbocracy.

It's got to be a new speed record, no?

[5-Points 3,398]

5 minutes ago, Death said:

I want to make the points I want to make in one thread and not have to deal with the ongoing Trump thread diahrrea.

There has been little to nothing in the way of intelligent and well-educated responses to my points.

This administration represents the greatest threat to our democracy since the Civil War, and you and your ilk would like nothing more than an unbalanced, one-party system, no checks and balances to executive-branch power, censorship of media that doesn't say the kinds of things that you like, oligarchs running the country and controlling the message, and Trump as our forever president.

 

You want to regurgitate tired talking points. America has spoken and they overwhelmingly voted for Trump. You wanna know why? It's because we are all tired of the left doing all of the things you're accusing Trump of doing. 

Take your medicine, son. 

[Strike 5,221]

1 minute ago, EternalShinyAndChrome said:

It's got to be a new speed record, no?

Trump broke so many Libs, Rusty in particular.  So sad.

[Maximum Overkill 1,743]

2 minutes ago, Death said:

want to make the points I want to make in one thread and not have to deal with the ongoing Trump thread diahrrea.

Your Party has lost their way. Too caught up in Wokeness, DEI and Gender to see what's real. 

Want to see the difference between the parties? Just watch Trump schooling the Dems at the Roundtable in LA last night. DEMOCRATS were cheering Trump, thanking him for being there and listening. You'll never say it though would you? And since when is deporting Violent Illegal Immigrants a bad thing for America? Every Dem in here is against it, why?  So don't give me your BS, YOU ARE THE PROBLEM. 

That's the difference between the parties. You can't admit anything. 

[Frozenbeernuts 2,117]

Is it just me, or are liberals sounding like a bunch of lunatic conspiracy theorists? Conspiracy after conspiracy with these people.