The United States' descent into fascism

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Clover
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Feb 14 2025, 4:44 PM

Pre-election
Before Donald Trump was elected president, his campaign website included the following in his "Trump Republican Platform" (https://rncplatform.donaldjtrump.com/):

Quote:4. Strict Vetting
Republicans will use existing Federal Law to keep foreign Christian-hating Communists, Marxists, and Socialists out of America. Those who join our Country must love our Country. We will use extreme vetting to ensure that jihadists and jihadist sympathizers are not admitted.

This article implies that "Christian-hating Communists, Marxists, and Socialists" are "foreign" and overall reeks of Christian Nationalism (as does most of the document).

February 10 2025
[Youtube Video from Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes] "Ongoing Coup | Attorney General Kris Mayes": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrE0DOEcbRE

Transcript of Ongoing Coup | Attorney General Kris Mayes I'm Attorney General Kris Mayes. The actions of the Trump administration in the last three weeks can only be described as dictatorial and authoritarian. Every day, nearly every hour, there is some new action or executive order that makes a mockery of the rule of law and the Constitution itself.

This weekend, Vice President JD Vance posted a statement saying that judges aren't allowed to control the executive's "legitimate power." That is a complete affront to the system of checks and balances inherent in our Constitution.

The independent judiciary acts as a check on executive overreach. In the United States, we appeal rulings we disagree with. We don't ignore court orders or threaten judges with impeachment when a ruling goes the way we don't like.

I want to be as direct and clear as I can be: There is an undemocratic administration in power, and they appear hellbent on undoing 250 years of adherence to the rule of law in this nation. It is an incredibly dangerous moment, and it is all the more dangerous if people don't understand what is happening. There is an ongoing coup against the Constitution of the United States happening as we speak.

Congress authorizes the work of federal agencies and allocates funding to them. The elected representatives of the people are supposed to exercise oversight to ensure that these agencies operate within the bounds of the law, serve the public interest, and are held accountable for how they use taxpayer dollars. But today, Congress is nowhere to be found.

Donald Trump has grabbed the power of Congress and handed it to an unelected billionaire and a group of teenage hackers. The richest man in the world is now running roughshod over the authority of federal agencies, in violation of the rule of law and the Constitution.

Republicans hold majorities in the House and the Senate. They could pass the administration's policies through Congress and send Trump legislation to sign. But they know the American people don't support what's happening. They don't support eliminating the Department of Education. They don't support canceling funding for law enforcement and public safety. They don't support canceling healthcare funding.

So instead, Donald Trump has decided the Constitution doesn't matter, and he has handed power to Elon Musk to do whatever he wants without accountability, without oversight, and without the consent of the people.

The way we make change in this country is through the law, either in the courts or in Congress. But when those processes are undermined, when the rule of law is ignored, manipulated, or twisted to serve the whims of an unelected billionaire, it's an assault on the very foundation of our democratic republic.

In every case we have brought against the Trump administration so far, from birthright citizenship to the illegal spending freeze. We have blocked the president's lawless actions. So, I will continue to challenge the illegal actions of the Trump administration in court, and we will continue to win.

But it is time for every American patriot to stand up, speak out, and defend our democratic processes. Because the moment we allow them to be eroded is the moment that we risk losing the freedoms and justice they were built to protect—and that countless Americans have fought and sacrificed to defend.

February 14 2025
Trump admin pulls hundreds of videos from CFPB’s YouTube channel: https://www.theverge.com/news/613567/trump-youtube-videos-cfpb

Quote:Nearly 400 videos that were posted on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s YouTube page have been removed, as the Trump administration continues to pare back the agency, including its team of skilled technologists.

The CFPB YouTube page, which has 15,000 subscribers and was created in 2011, has had every one of its videos removed as of Friday. An archived version of the page shows that as recently as February 8th, it hosted 386 videos. The archived page shows videos with titles like “Five tips for when you can’t pay your bills,” “How do I dispute an error on my credit report?” and “How can I improve my credit scores?”

https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1iqxfo4/trump_admin_pulls_hundreds_of_videos_from_cfpbs/

Elon Musk’s DOGE Shares Classified U.S. Intel With Entire World: https://newrepublic.com/post/191580/elon-musk-doge-classified-us-intel-data-website

Quote:Elon Musk’s overhaul of the federal government seems to have hit a snag: His Department of Government Efficiency posted classified information on its website.

Musk’s team posted information about the staff and size of a U.S. intelligence agency on their new website, HuffPost reports. DOGE has been criticized for the level of access into sensitive government departments, including the Treasury Department, but how they got the classified information isn’t clear.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Foodforthought/comments/1iq2ca1/elon_musks_doge_shares_classified_us_intel_with/mcwjzql/

February 15 2025
White House bans Associated Press from accessing Oval Office and Air Force One: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/global-trends/white-house-bans-associated-press-from-accessing-oval-office-and-air-force-one/articleshow/118295084.cms

Quote:The White House on Friday announced that it has indefinitely banned The Associated Press (AP) from accessing the Oval Office and Air Force One indefinitely, CNN reported. The news agency was singled out by the White House earlier this week over its use of the words: "Gulf of Mexico."

Donald Trump Tweets "He who saves his Country does not violate any Law."
https://bsky.app/profile/jamellebouie.net/post/3liaehy3rq22n
https://www.reddit.com/r/law/comments/1iq9enx/trump_posted_just_now_he_who_saves_his_country/

February 17 2025
Elon Musk Says ’60 Minutes’ Staffers ‘Deserve a Long Prison Sentence’ — In Response to Show’s Interview With a GOP DOGE Critic https://www.mediaite.com/news/elon-musk-says-60-minutes-staffers-deserve-a-long-prison-sentence-in-response-to-shows-interview-with-a-gop-doge-critic/

Quote:“President Trump says USAID is rife with fraud. But Andrew Natsios, a Republican former administrator of USAID, calls that ‘utter nonsense.’ Natsios says USAID is ‘the most accountable aid agency in the world,’” read the 60 Minutes post, which linked to a clip from the show’s interview with Natsios. Natsios has been a prominent defender of USAID as a key national security tool around the world and has publicly refuted Musk’s claim that DOGE needed to shutter the agency to stop widespread fraud and wasteful spending.

Musk replied and wrote, “60 Minutes are the biggest liars in the world! They engaged in deliberate deception to interfere with the last election. They deserve a long prison sentence.”

Inspired by today's news of "The Associated Press has been officially banned from covering the Oval Office and Air Force One": https://reddit.com/r/law/comments/1iplmo1/the_associated_press_has_been_officially_banned/

CriticalEngineering Anybody else remember 2009?

https://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/23/us/politics/23fox.html

https://www.rcfp.org/white-house-attempted-shut-out-fox-news-reporter/

https://www.npr.org/2009/10/14/113803593/obama-administration-takes-on-fox-news

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2011/07/16/138168227/new-emails-shed-light-on-2009-fox-white-house-spat

Basically Fox was being awful, the White House decided to block them from a pool interview, and all the other press refused to participate unless Fox was allowed back because of the precedent. They stood up for Steve Doocy, but they’re silent now.

https://www.reddit.com/r/law/comments/1iplmo1/comment/mct879c/

Related to the Project 2025 Status Post-Election thread, but it's easier to just catalog events as they happen instead of trying to spend time tying them directly to P2025 agenda items.

I got a bit of a backlog to catch up on since the 20 days Trump has been in office...

Edited Feb 17 2025, 7:48 PM by Clover.

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Clover

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Feb 14 2025, 4:44 PM #1

Pre-election
Before Donald Trump was elected president, his campaign website included the following in his "Trump Republican Platform" (https://rncplatform.donaldjtrump.com/):

Quote:4. Strict Vetting
Republicans will use existing Federal Law to keep foreign Christian-hating Communists, Marxists, and Socialists out of America. Those who join our Country must love our Country. We will use extreme vetting to ensure that jihadists and jihadist sympathizers are not admitted.

Transcript of Ongoing Coup | Attorney General Kris Mayes I'm Attorney General Kris Mayes. The actions of the Trump administration in the last three weeks can only be described as dictatorial and authoritarian. Every day, nearly every hour, there is some new action or executive order that makes a mockery of the rule of law and the Constitution itself.

This weekend, Vice President JD Vance posted a statement saying that judges aren't allowed to control the executive's "legitimate power." That is a complete affront to the system of checks and balances inherent in our Constitution.

The independent judiciary acts as a check on executive overreach. In the United States, we appeal rulings we disagree with. We don't ignore court orders or threaten judges with impeachment when a ruling goes the way we don't like.

I want to be as direct and clear as I can be: There is an undemocratic administration in power, and they appear hellbent on undoing 250 years of adherence to the rule of law in this nation. It is an incredibly dangerous moment, and it is all the more dangerous if people don't understand what is happening. There is an ongoing coup against the Constitution of the United States happening as we speak.

Congress authorizes the work of federal agencies and allocates funding to them. The elected representatives of the people are supposed to exercise oversight to ensure that these agencies operate within the bounds of the law, serve the public interest, and are held accountable for how they use taxpayer dollars. But today, Congress is nowhere to be found.

Donald Trump has grabbed the power of Congress and handed it to an unelected billionaire and a group of teenage hackers. The richest man in the world is now running roughshod over the authority of federal agencies, in violation of the rule of law and the Constitution.

Republicans hold majorities in the House and the Senate. They could pass the administration's policies through Congress and send Trump legislation to sign. But they know the American people don't support what's happening. They don't support eliminating the Department of Education. They don't support canceling funding for law enforcement and public safety. They don't support canceling healthcare funding.

So instead, Donald Trump has decided the Constitution doesn't matter, and he has handed power to Elon Musk to do whatever he wants without accountability, without oversight, and without the consent of the people.

The way we make change in this country is through the law, either in the courts or in Congress. But when those processes are undermined, when the rule of law is ignored, manipulated, or twisted to serve the whims of an unelected billionaire, it's an assault on the very foundation of our democratic republic.

In every case we have brought against the Trump administration so far, from birthright citizenship to the illegal spending freeze. We have blocked the president's lawless actions. So, I will continue to challenge the illegal actions of the Trump administration in court, and we will continue to win.

But it is time for every American patriot to stand up, speak out, and defend our democratic processes. Because the moment we allow them to be eroded is the moment that we risk losing the freedoms and justice they were built to protect—and that countless Americans have fought and sacrificed to defend.

February 14 2025
Trump admin pulls hundreds of videos from CFPB’s YouTube channel: https://www.theverge.com/news/613567/trump-youtube-videos-cfpb

Quote:Nearly 400 videos that were posted on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s YouTube page have been removed, as the Trump administration continues to pare back the agency, including its team of skilled technologists.

The CFPB YouTube page, which has 15,000 subscribers and was created in 2011, has had every one of its videos removed as of Friday. An archived version of the page shows that as recently as February 8th, it hosted 386 videos. The archived page shows videos with titles like “Five tips for when you can’t pay your bills,” “How do I dispute an error on my credit report?” and “How can I improve my credit scores?”

Quote:Elon Musk’s overhaul of the federal government seems to have hit a snag: His Department of Government Efficiency posted classified information on its website.

Musk’s team posted information about the staff and size of a U.S. intelligence agency on their new website, HuffPost reports. DOGE has been criticized for the level of access into sensitive government departments, including the Treasury Department, but how they got the classified information isn’t clear.

Quote:The White House on Friday announced that it has indefinitely banned The Associated Press (AP) from accessing the Oval Office and Air Force One indefinitely, CNN reported. The news agency was singled out by the White House earlier this week over its use of the words: "Gulf of Mexico."

Quote:“President Trump says USAID is rife with fraud. But Andrew Natsios, a Republican former administrator of USAID, calls that ‘utter nonsense.’ Natsios says USAID is ‘the most accountable aid agency in the world,’” read the 60 Minutes post, which linked to a clip from the show’s interview with Natsios. Natsios has been a prominent defender of USAID as a key national security tool around the world and has publicly refuted Musk’s claim that DOGE needed to shutter the agency to stop widespread fraud and wasteful spending.

Musk replied and wrote, “60 Minutes are the biggest liars in the world! They engaged in deliberate deception to interfere with the last election. They deserve a long prison sentence.”

CriticalEngineering Anybody else remember 2009?

https://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/23/us/politics/23fox.html

https://www.rcfp.org/white-house-attempted-shut-out-fox-news-reporter/

https://www.npr.org/2009/10/14/113803593/obama-administration-takes-on-fox-news

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2011/07/16/138168227/new-emails-shed-light-on-2009-fox-white-house-spat

Basically Fox was being awful, the White House decided to block them from a pool interview, and all the other press refused to participate unless Fox was allowed back because of the precedent. They stood up for Steve Doocy, but they’re silent now.

Kozlik's regular member account. 🍀🐐

Clover
Kozlik's regular account 🍀🐐

636

Feb 16 2025, 11:50 PM

The Path to American Authoritarianism:
What Comes After Democratic Breakdown: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/path-american-authoritarianism-trump

February 11 2025.

Quote:The second Trump administration may violate basic civil liberties in ways that unambiguously subvert democracy. The president, for example, could order the army to shoot protesters, as he reportedly wanted to do during his first term. He could also fulfill his campaign promise to launch the “largest deportation operation in American history,” targeting millions of people in an abuse-ridden process that would inevitably lead to the mistaken detention of thousands of U.S. citizens.

Quote:For one, Trump has revived his first-term effort to weaken the civil service by reinstating Schedule F, an executive order that allows the president to exempt tens of thousands of government employees from civil service protections in jobs deemed to be “of a confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating character.” If implemented, the decree will transform tens of thousands of civil servants into “at will” employees who can easily be replaced with political allies. The number of partisan appointees, already higher in the U.S. government than in most established democracies, could increase more than tenfold. The Heritage Foundation and other right-wing groups have spent millions of dollars recruiting and vetting an army of up to 54,000 loyalists to fill government positions. These changes could have a broader chilling effect across the government, discouraging public officials from questioning the president. Finally, Trump’s declaration that he would fire the director of the FBI, Christopher Wray, and the director of the IRS, Danny Werfel, before the end of their terms led both to resign, paving the way for their replacement by loyalists with little experience in their respective agencies.

Once key agencies such as the Justice Department, the FBI, and the IRS have been packed with loyalists, governments can harness them for three antidemocratic ends: investigating and prosecuting rivals, co-opting civil society, and shielding allies from prosecution.

Quote:Trump has repeatedly declared his intention to prosecute his rivals, including former Republican Representative Liz Cheney and other lawmakers who served on the House committee that investigated the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. In December 2024, House Republicans called for an FBI investigation into Cheney. The first Trump administration’s efforts to weaponize the Justice Department were largely thwarted from within, so this time, Trump sought appointees who shared his goal of pursuing perceived enemies. His nominee for attorney general, Pam Bondi, has declared that Trump’s “prosecutors will be prosecuted,” and his choice for FBI director, Kash Patel, has repeatedly called for the prosecution of Trump’s rivals. In 2023, Patel even published a book featuring an “enemies list” of public officials to be targeted.

Quote:A similar pattern is emerging in the media sector. Nearly all major U.S. media outlets—ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, The Washington Post—are owned and operated by larger parent corporations. Although Trump cannot carry out his threat to withhold licenses from national television networks because they are not licensed nationally, he can pressure media outlets by pressuring their corporate owners. The Washington Post, for instance, is controlled by Jeff Bezos, whose largest company, Amazon, competes for major federal contracts. Likewise, the owner of The Los Angeles Times, Patrick Soon-Shiong, sells medical products subject to review by the Food and Drug Administration. Ahead of the 2024 presidential election, both men overruled their papers’ planned endorsements of Kamala Harris.

Quote:The United States experienced a marked rise in far-right violence during the first Trump administration. Threats against members of Congress increased more than tenfold. These threats had consequences: according to Republican Senator Mitt Romney, fear of Trump supporters’ violence dissuaded some Republican senators from voting for Trump’s impeachment after the January 6, 2021, attack.

By most measures, political violence subsided after January 2021, in part because hundreds of participants in the January 6 attack were convicted and imprisoned. But Trump’s pardon of nearly all the January 6 insurrectionists on returning to office has sent a message that violent or antidemocratic actors will be protected under his administration. Such signals encourage violent extremism, which means that during Trump’s second term, critics of the government and independent journalists will almost certainly face more frequent threats and even outright attacks.

Quote:This process of self-sidelining may not attract much public attention, but it can be highly consequential. Facing looming investigations, promising politicians—Republicans and Democrats alike—leave public life. CEOs seeking government contracts, tariff waivers, or favorable antitrust rulings stop contributing to Democratic candidates, funding civil rights or democracy initiatives, and investing in independent media. News outlets whose owners worry about lawsuits or government harassment rein in their investigative teams and their most aggressive reporters. Editors engage in self-censorship, softening headlines and opting not to run stories critical of the government. And university leaders fearing government investigations, funding cuts, or punitive endowment taxes crack down on campus protest, remove or demote outspoken professors, and remain silent in the face of growing authoritarianism.

Quote:The depletion of societal opposition may be worse than it appears. We can observe when key players sideline themselves—when politicians retire, university presidents resign, or media outlets change their programming and personnel. But it is harder to see the opposition that might have materialized in a less threatening environment but never did—the young lawyers who decide not to run for office; the aspiring young writers who decide not to become journalists; the potential whistleblowers who decide not to speak out; the countless citizens who decide not to join a protest or volunteer for a campaign.

Edited Feb 16 2025, 11:59 PM by Clover.

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Clover

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Feb 16 2025, 11:50 PM #2

The Path to American Authoritarianism:
What Comes After Democratic Breakdown: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/path-american-authoritarianism-trump

February 11 2025.

Quote:The second Trump administration may violate basic civil liberties in ways that unambiguously subvert democracy. The president, for example, could order the army to shoot protesters, as he reportedly wanted to do during his first term. He could also fulfill his campaign promise to launch the “largest deportation operation in American history,” targeting millions of people in an abuse-ridden process that would inevitably lead to the mistaken detention of thousands of U.S. citizens.

Quote:For one, Trump has revived his first-term effort to weaken the civil service by reinstating Schedule F, an executive order that allows the president to exempt tens of thousands of government employees from civil service protections in jobs deemed to be “of a confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating character.” If implemented, the decree will transform tens of thousands of civil servants into “at will” employees who can easily be replaced with political allies. The number of partisan appointees, already higher in the U.S. government than in most established democracies, could increase more than tenfold. The Heritage Foundation and other right-wing groups have spent millions of dollars recruiting and vetting an army of up to 54,000 loyalists to fill government positions. These changes could have a broader chilling effect across the government, discouraging public officials from questioning the president. Finally, Trump’s declaration that he would fire the director of the FBI, Christopher Wray, and the director of the IRS, Danny Werfel, before the end of their terms led both to resign, paving the way for their replacement by loyalists with little experience in their respective agencies.

Once key agencies such as the Justice Department, the FBI, and the IRS have been packed with loyalists, governments can harness them for three antidemocratic ends: investigating and prosecuting rivals, co-opting civil society, and shielding allies from prosecution.

Quote:Trump has repeatedly declared his intention to prosecute his rivals, including former Republican Representative Liz Cheney and other lawmakers who served on the House committee that investigated the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. In December 2024, House Republicans called for an FBI investigation into Cheney. The first Trump administration’s efforts to weaponize the Justice Department were largely thwarted from within, so this time, Trump sought appointees who shared his goal of pursuing perceived enemies. His nominee for attorney general, Pam Bondi, has declared that Trump’s “prosecutors will be prosecuted,” and his choice for FBI director, Kash Patel, has repeatedly called for the prosecution of Trump’s rivals. In 2023, Patel even published a book featuring an “enemies list” of public officials to be targeted.

Quote:A similar pattern is emerging in the media sector. Nearly all major U.S. media outlets—ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, The Washington Post—are owned and operated by larger parent corporations. Although Trump cannot carry out his threat to withhold licenses from national television networks because they are not licensed nationally, he can pressure media outlets by pressuring their corporate owners. The Washington Post, for instance, is controlled by Jeff Bezos, whose largest company, Amazon, competes for major federal contracts. Likewise, the owner of The Los Angeles Times, Patrick Soon-Shiong, sells medical products subject to review by the Food and Drug Administration. Ahead of the 2024 presidential election, both men overruled their papers’ planned endorsements of Kamala Harris.

Quote:The United States experienced a marked rise in far-right violence during the first Trump administration. Threats against members of Congress increased more than tenfold. These threats had consequences: according to Republican Senator Mitt Romney, fear of Trump supporters’ violence dissuaded some Republican senators from voting for Trump’s impeachment after the January 6, 2021, attack.

By most measures, political violence subsided after January 2021, in part because hundreds of participants in the January 6 attack were convicted and imprisoned. But Trump’s pardon of nearly all the January 6 insurrectionists on returning to office has sent a message that violent or antidemocratic actors will be protected under his administration. Such signals encourage violent extremism, which means that during Trump’s second term, critics of the government and independent journalists will almost certainly face more frequent threats and even outright attacks.

Quote:This process of self-sidelining may not attract much public attention, but it can be highly consequential. Facing looming investigations, promising politicians—Republicans and Democrats alike—leave public life. CEOs seeking government contracts, tariff waivers, or favorable antitrust rulings stop contributing to Democratic candidates, funding civil rights or democracy initiatives, and investing in independent media. News outlets whose owners worry about lawsuits or government harassment rein in their investigative teams and their most aggressive reporters. Editors engage in self-censorship, softening headlines and opting not to run stories critical of the government. And university leaders fearing government investigations, funding cuts, or punitive endowment taxes crack down on campus protest, remove or demote outspoken professors, and remain silent in the face of growing authoritarianism.

Quote:The depletion of societal opposition may be worse than it appears. We can observe when key players sideline themselves—when politicians retire, university presidents resign, or media outlets change their programming and personnel. But it is harder to see the opposition that might have materialized in a less threatening environment but never did—the young lawyers who decide not to run for office; the aspiring young writers who decide not to become journalists; the potential whistleblowers who decide not to speak out; the countless citizens who decide not to join a protest or volunteer for a campaign.

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drdee

Feb 17 2025, 12:45 AM

Great article, thanks for sharing. I appreciate the authors drawing on history and other countries to understand what's happening and why. I think they leave out two important things though, and obviously I'm not enough of an expert to have any idea how they'd affect the analysis. First social media and control of information - I think we all need a better understanding of Foucault's analysis of power (I wish I could share a paper I gave about this years ago!) to appreciate how much our actions depend on the 'information environment' we live in, and that we don't need to see outright control of others' actions to guide people to behave in ways that seem perfectly sensible given the information available to them. Second, the Democrats' refusal to abandon luxury beliefs and therefore their continued determination to throw in their lot with cultural and intellectual elites instead of the working class (or even 'middle class') whose support they should be able to rely on.

drdee

Feb 17 2025, 12:45 AM #3

Elsacat

153

Feb 17 2025, 10:13 AM

Sometimes I think Democrats pride themselves on the "honesty" of openly throwing their lot in with luxury beliefs and elites. Republicans are good at playing to the non-elite audience and then giving them the finger and catering to the powerful elite, while pushing their own weirdo luxury beliefs. Republicans just seem to be better politicians, better at saying one thing and doing another, and somehow not losing most of their support.

The obvious answer is "Democrats should learn from Republicans and copy those strategies, be more like them" but the obvious answer isn't always a good answer. Just ask any woman who discovered that certain behaviors in the workplace don't go over well when women do them, because the women will get slammed as abrasive, overly competitive or ambitious, unlikeable, not a team player, etc. while the men thrive. "Learn and copy" doesn't translate when there's some base expectation that only one group of people gets to act like that.

So, what's the answer? Hell if I know. If I did know, I'd probably run for office.

Elsacat

Feb 17 2025, 10:13 AM #4

drdee

Feb 17 2025, 10:53 AM

I don't know, maybe I'm just dumb but I'd suggest devising and promoting policies that help most of the people. (But 'most of the people' aren't who's paying for any political campaign so I guess that's not a financially viable plan. And 'most of the people' don't control what most of the people hear and know.)

drdee

Feb 17 2025, 10:53 AM #5

Clover
Kozlik's regular account 🍀🐐

636

Feb 17 2025, 7:15 PM

(Feb 17 2025, 12:45 AM)drdee First social media and control of information - I think we all need a better understanding of Foucault's analysis of power (I wish I could share a paper I gave about this years ago!) to appreciate how much our actions depend on the 'information environment' we live in, and that we don't need to see outright control of others' actions to guide people to behave in ways that seem perfectly sensible given the information available to them.

That Foucault stuff sounds really cool. I'd love to learn more about it. Especially in the context of social media.

Another thing I wonder about in regards to the new age of constant connection through smartphones/internet, is Popper's "Paradox of Tolerance" and how his paradox from the 1940s relates and is applicable to the new information age we live in. Especially because I recall his paradox said that the tolerance must stop short of advocating for violence -- that was his limit of tolerance. Eighty-ish years later, would this tolerance limit of his still be the case? (I have been wanting to make another post, a discussion post, on this topic at some point.)

(Feb 17 2025, 10:13 AM)Elsacat The obvious answer is "Democrats should learn from Republicans and copy those strategies, be more like them" but the obvious answer isn't always a good answer. Just ask any woman who discovered that certain behaviors in the workplace don't go over well when women do them, because the women will get slammed as abrasive, overly competitive or ambitious, unlikeable, not a team player, etc. while the men thrive. "Learn and copy" doesn't translate when there's some base expectation that only one group of people gets to act like that.

That's a really good way to put it. The same "strategies" just don't work. (At the same time, I think whatever the hell the out-of-touch Dem party is doing now isn't really cutting it either. Snubbing AOC and Bernie? Idk what I'm supposed to believe on what most Americans want, I no longer trust any political views or analyses on political views promoted on social media, but I bet most Americans would be interested in a party that advocates for healthcare for all, living wages, wealth taxes, etc.)

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Clover

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Feb 17 2025, 7:15 PM #6

(Feb 17 2025, 12:45 AM)drdee First social media and control of information - I think we all need a better understanding of Foucault's analysis of power (I wish I could share a paper I gave about this years ago!) to appreciate how much our actions depend on the 'information environment' we live in, and that we don't need to see outright control of others' actions to guide people to behave in ways that seem perfectly sensible given the information available to them.

(Feb 17 2025, 10:13 AM)Elsacat The obvious answer is "Democrats should learn from Republicans and copy those strategies, be more like them" but the obvious answer isn't always a good answer. Just ask any woman who discovered that certain behaviors in the workplace don't go over well when women do them, because the women will get slammed as abrasive, overly competitive or ambitious, unlikeable, not a team player, etc. while the men thrive. "Learn and copy" doesn't translate when there's some base expectation that only one group of people gets to act like that.

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drdee

Feb 18 2025, 1:52 AM

Well the salient part is this:

In this conversation ‘power’ means ‘the ability to get other people to do what you want them to, even if they don’t want to.’ There are of course all sorts of ways to exercise this ability; someone in my Tarot class recently suggested that the four Minor Arcana suits – wands, swords, cups and coins – could be used to represent some of them: inspired leadership, physical force/military power, appeal to emotions, and paying someone, for example.

Foucault points out that there’s a whole other way to exercise power which doesn’t involve directly engaging with the person/people whose actions you want to control. If you shape their ‘information environment’ – control what comes into their senses and minds – then you indirectly control their actions. If all the news and fictional media they see portray ‘young Black males’ as subhuman criminals, you don’t need to tell white women to keep their children from playing with Black boys, or police to shoot a Black boy when they’d have taken a little more time to investigate a situation involving a white boy. If you control the ‘messages’ in news and media, and social media, you don’t have to worry about controlling people’s behaviour. Normal people typically act perfectly rationally and sensibly according to what they know and understand - so if you control what they know and understand you can just step away and let everything play its course without having to force any behaviour on anyone. And the bonus is that your power is completely invisible to the people you’re controlling – no police or guards or guns, or even visible leaders giving orders.

Edited Feb 18 2025, 6:02 AM by drdee.

drdee

Feb 18 2025, 1:52 AM #7

Clover
Kozlik's regular account 🍀🐐

636

Feb 18 2025, 12:41 PM

(Feb 18 2025, 1:52 AM)drdee Foucault points out that there’s a whole other way to exercise power which doesn’t involve directly engaging with the person/people whose actions you want to control. If you shape their ‘information environment’ – control what comes into their senses and minds – then you indirectly control their actions. If all the news and fictional media they see portray ‘young Black males’ as subhuman criminals, you don’t need to tell white women to keep their children from playing with Black boys, or police to shoot a Black boy when they’d have taken a little more time to investigate a situation involving a white boy. If you control the ‘messages’ in news and media, and social media, you don’t have to worry about controlling people’s behaviour. Normal people typically act perfectly rationally and sensibly according to what they know and understand - so if you control what they know and understand you can just step away and let everything play its course without having to force any behaviour on anyone. And the bonus is that your power is completely invisible to the people you’re controlling – no police or guards or guns, or even visible leaders giving orders.

Well shit. Sounds like all my current fears about social media controlled by billionaires and/or authoritarian governments fit perfectly with this. Sigh.

Kozlik's regular member account. 🍀🐐

Clover

Kozlik's regular account 🍀🐐

Feb 18 2025, 12:41 PM #8

(Feb 18 2025, 1:52 AM)drdee Foucault points out that there’s a whole other way to exercise power which doesn’t involve directly engaging with the person/people whose actions you want to control. If you shape their ‘information environment’ – control what comes into their senses and minds – then you indirectly control their actions. If all the news and fictional media they see portray ‘young Black males’ as subhuman criminals, you don’t need to tell white women to keep their children from playing with Black boys, or police to shoot a Black boy when they’d have taken a little more time to investigate a situation involving a white boy. If you control the ‘messages’ in news and media, and social media, you don’t have to worry about controlling people’s behaviour. Normal people typically act perfectly rationally and sensibly according to what they know and understand - so if you control what they know and understand you can just step away and let everything play its course without having to force any behaviour on anyone. And the bonus is that your power is completely invisible to the people you’re controlling – no police or guards or guns, or even visible leaders giving orders.

Well shit. Sounds like all my current fears about social media controlled by billionaires and/or authoritarian governments fit perfectly with this. Sigh.

Kozlik's regular member account. 🍀🐐

YesYourNigel

113

Feb 18 2025, 8:41 PM

(Feb 18 2025, 1:52 AM)drdee If you shape their ‘information environment’ – control what comes into their senses and minds – then you indirectly control their actions. Normal people typically act perfectly rationally and sensibly according to what they know and understand - so if you control what they know and understand you can just step away and let everything play its course without having to force any behaviour on anyone.

I disagree heavily with this premise - people are not rational creatures at all. They are willfully stupid and obtuse and easily lead astray not by any kind of reason, but purely by charisma and authority.

I found periwinkle's breakdown of the last elections very informative, basically that it makes no sense how anyone can believe that a multi-millionaire who encouraged an attempted coup and is unashamedly promoting the interests of the rich is "fighting for the people and democracy", certainly in comparison to the Democrats whose messaging at least tries to focus on the rights of the common people and the disenfranchised. But they do. The facts are there, they are known, but they are simply not reaching them, no matter how obvious.

But really, look no further than women's rights to observe the degree of wilful stupidity people are capable of. Everyone knows women get preyed on and screwed over by men. It's not secret, in fact it's often proudly celebrated. Men aren't even embarrassed or trying to hide it or be subtle about it - give them 5 minutes and they'll start using slurs, gendered stereotypes and talk about porn. One of their favourite retorts is "You should be grateful that we're not abusing you as badly as in Saudi Arabia". No one in the world is genuinely surprised that women get assaulted, creeped on and subjugated by men on a daily basis. If you never read the news, you can open them any day and there'll be some case of brutal male violence over women. Even if you don't, you'll either be told to keep safe, or act like it's a given that men will assault women. Everybody knows this. All the people with authority, even in traditionally female professions? Men. Why? How? How can you look at these discrepancies and not wonder what's causing this lopsidedness? How can you both receive a lifetime of messaging that women are meant for makeup or fashion or cooking or teaching, and not ask why is it that even there, men are somehow, against all odds, simply the best of the best?

And I know all about wilful stupidity - I was a NotLikeOtherGirls first and foremost who thought feminism was a bad word because men didn't like to hear it. It had nothing to do with ignorance - I knew I and other women were treated differently and that this was wrong, but I lied through my teeth that the stars must've aligned to make it so and it can't possibly be the patriarchal system creating such consistency. Deep down I knew it didn't make sense. I always had a voice asking questions and reaching different answers. But I didn't let myself listen to it.

Even after I stopped chasing male approval, it took me finding r/GC and radical feminism to stop pushing libfem rubbish and allow myself to look past the mountains of liberal bullshit I've been trained to parrot (things like "men are also victims" "maleloneliness crisis :,(" "porn good" etc.). It literally just took seeing a pack of people take basic tenets of (actual) feminism for granted for me to wake up and actually listen to that voice telling me it was all bullshit. It wasn't any new facts, any new revelations, new connections, nothing, just lack of peer pressure to keep pretending and pandering to delusional premises. So, no, people are not guided by logical information, they are guided by shallow knee-jerk reactions. If logical information has "enemy" written all over it, or would be shameful to say, then it's wrong and bad and faulty. That's it.

To be clear, I'm not saying people can't be reasoned with, but merely giving them the facts and the truth is not going to make them reach obvious and undeniable logical conclusions.

Edited Feb 19 2025, 10:00 AM by YesYourNigel.

I refuse to debate two obvious facts: 1. the patriarchy exists 2. and that's a bad thing

YesYourNigel

Feb 18 2025, 8:41 PM #9

(Feb 18 2025, 1:52 AM)drdee If you shape their ‘information environment’ – control what comes into their senses and minds – then you indirectly control their actions. Normal people typically act perfectly rationally and sensibly according to what they know and understand - so if you control what they know and understand you can just step away and let everything play its course without having to force any behaviour on anyone.

I refuse to debate two obvious facts: 1. the patriarchy exists 2. and that's a bad thing

Colibri

Feb 19 2025, 3:25 PM

#10

Trump just called himself a king, and then the White House account repeated it.

https://x.com/RpsAgainstTrump/status/1892288587250405492
https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/1892295984928993698

Colibri

Feb 19 2025, 3:25 PM #10

Trump just called himself a king, and then the White House account repeated it.

https://x.com/RpsAgainstTrump/status/1892288587250405492
https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/1892295984928993698

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