We've had fuckups in the White House before, but never a president who seemed so deliberately intent on being a fuckup. It's been said before, but if these people were actual agents of an enemy power seeking to divide, dismantle and destroy the USA they wouldn't be doing anything different.

What DHS pulled in Chicago on Tuesday is wildly unconstitutional. They smashed down almost every door in the building, dragged entire families into the street, and detained people for hours ("Kavanaugh stops"). Ms. Fisher was held for five hours and another senior citizen was held for three hours.

The word that keeps running through my head about this administration (among others) is "adolescent." These are people with a little boy's idea of what sounds manly.

This is the thing elected dems seem unable to swallow. There is no realistic modus vivendi where somehow remain a functioning liberal democracy after 3 years of Trump. He is removed or we become Azerbaijan. Removal is ultimately the only goal that matters.

Lol

its weird that the president brags about inflicting pain on american citizens and cities right?

This is some straight-up Pogrom. Children dragged off in the night, no warrants, no proof... guilty until proven innocent, and seizure of goods to boot. chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/...

I’ve been looking around for the most credulous mid-campaign piece about Trump’s obviously fatuous Project 2025 disavowal, and I think it might be this one from Politico. www.politico.com/news/magazin...

Your occasional reminder that Russ Vought, who is claiming the right to fire civil servants for whatever reason he sees it, once refused to quit a political appointment position even after Trump had lost.

We must recognize how precarious this moment is. But we must not perpetuate the Trumpists’ assertions of strength and dominance. For now, the gap between their authoritarian aspirations and the reality of U.S. society remains significant. That’s where the counter can yet happen.

It doesn’t mean they will ultimately succeed. But they are trying. And, frankly, if it were all happening elsewhere, away from exceptionalist assumptions that “It cannot happen here,” we would have no trouble recognizing how disastrously far they have already come in just a few short months.

This is a regime at war: With large segments of the population, with pluralistic democracy and American society as it actually exists. They are not looking to reform or compromise, they desire to destroy, conquer, and dominate.

Wrote about this a while ago: About the fascistic myth of Trump’s special connection to “real America” and the “authentic” Volk - the bedrock of this extremist ethno-religious movement that is now controlling the government of the United States.

This whole pathetic tirade of a speech was so unhinged: A purely grievance-driven rant against gender and racial equality, delivered by a completely unqualified man who is convinced it is his prerogative to rule and dominate in all spheres of life. The embodiment of Trumpism as a political project.

This. Free speech on campus was never as endangered by so-called "cancel culture" as critics claimed - and this is why you'll notice how rarely they cite a specific EXAMPLE. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

As ADL is demonstrating, it’s not possible to be a little pro-fascist. They will always ask for more, always demand total support, and lash out at those who don’t give it. Always.

And children are dying from lack of access to medicine because he spent a weekend “feeding USAID into the woodchipper”

So at the same time the Trump regime claims it's fighting antisemitism (which was always a lie) it's now saying it will deny citizenship (or visas?) to "globalists" which is mostly used in their crowd as a barely coded euphemism for "Jews"

These people are absolute trash.

Maybe he really believes that hazing recruits harder in basic will produce good results, but what he's going to get is worse leaders, poor morale and discipline, and lower readiness - and the flag officers whose time he wasted today have already thought about this a lot

This is the thing they'll never understand about "wokeness" or "political correctness" - huge organizations didn't implement these policies because of "cancel culture" or secret communists, they did it to stay competitive and viable. It's what people wanted

Something our glorious Secretary of War does not seem to have considered is that the reason military PT and grooming standards, plus policies for EEO and abuse reporting, are the way they are is because they're necessary for recruitment and retention

Right wingers in 2017: Dumb libs think words are violence Right wingers in 2025: Words are violence and we're going to throw you in jail for saying the wrong ones, which is terrorism bsky.app/profile/atru...

"CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss" is the exact same deal as "Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth"

my latest is expanding on the observation that your view of the politics of opposition to the administration depend largely on your view of the election (gift link)

the president of the united states wants to use the american military to kill american citizens on american soil. that's the whole story!

Which explains today's bizarre event, which was a ham handed effort to get public buy in from the Armed Forces brass for the siezure of power. Trump must certainly be unhappy they didn't applaud enthusiastically. Mass firings of generals could plausibly be in the offing.

This is absolutely a lie. There is no reason shutdowns trigger layoffs. They never have before. Trump is simply using the shutdown as an excuse to take federal employees hostages and to further gut the government. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/shutdown-h...

Let me a bit clearer about what I mean here: I don’t think we’re on the verge of a coup, the US military is way too professional and steeped in a democratic culture for that to be the case. But if we’re ever to be on the path that eventually makes it possible, this is exactly what it looks like.

Absolutely. Demanding physical and ideological conformity among the troops is an important step toward claiming that anyone (military or civilian) voicing disagreement is undermining national security.

that's exactly right. the clear goal in mind is to deploy the us military against domestic "enemies," meaning political opponents and people who just disagree.

The endgame for all of this is constructing a military that will obey orders when ordered to fire on citizens. That's the throughline to half of what Trump is doing.

Trying to imagine any of the higher ranking military people I've ever encountered taking kindly to being told that they kill people and break things for a living

Expanded my close read of today's Trump Terror Memo, with help from @audiosand.bsky.social & and unnamed federal-adjacent employee. slowcivilwar.substack.com/p/rubber-glu...

I talked this week with Chris Hayes and Anand Giradahadras, highlight was Chris mentioning No Kings protests on October 18th. Free speech is action not spectacle. Please join in. www.nokings.org

Speak truth to power, and other thoughts about a difficult week in the US (from Friday, Sept. 19) (Audio) snyder.substack.com/p/speak-trut...

Judging by their speeches, neither Trump nor Hegseth has paid the slightest attention to how actual wars are being fought in the actual world. The “war fighting” and “lethality” they plan is inside their own country and comes from conflicts inside their own minds.

this guy has no idea what the american military is (the most sophisticated logistics operation ever assembled in human history)

1/ DEVELOPING: A journalist was rushed to New York-Presbyterian Hospital following another incident with an ICE agent at 26 Federal Plaza, an immigration court in NYC. The last I heard, he was getting X-rays for his lower back.

I think the Trump admin assumed no one would try to find out who the people on the boats they blew up really were

The Trump administration is trying to detain & deport some green card holders because of past crimes or political activity. We urge all green card holders to learn what the law says about who can be deported & make a safety plan if you might be at risk. Read our guide: www.nilc.org/resources/gr...

Nick Valencia, who has been doing amazing reporting, just wrote about this: “These Are Abductions.” Newlywed Husband Says Wife Taken During Green Card Interview open.substack.com/pub/nickvale...

“My biggest issue is the fact that Substack insists on actively supporting leading far-right activists and propagandists like Christopher Rufo, Curtis Yarvin, and Richard Hanania – not only platforming, but actively promoting them as important thinkers.”

Basically: What Starmer is doing – and what so many Democrats and Democratic operatives/consultants in the U.S. want to emulate – isn’t helping the center-left win elections, but is instead moving public opinion to the Right, which helps ethno-nationalist movements and parties. It’s stupid.

A disaster that Starmer insists on ignoring the mountain of empirical evidence from across "Western" democracies that adopting rightwing positions and frameworks only ever helps the Right win legitimacy and votes. An utter disaster that so many Democrats in the U.S. insist on doing Starmerism.

The video is... something else. This ICE agent has zero training. Stuffing the gun in his belt, so of course it falls out? What restraining hold was he even trying to do? Why did he point the gun at the crowd? Everyone who played a role in putting this guy on the street needs to be fired.

NEW: ICE agents violently arrested a man in a busy Hyattsville, MD intersection this week, at one point brandishing guns and pointing them at bystanders. I spoke to multiple witnesses—including a local priest whose church is a sanctuary for undocumented people: www.thehandbasket.co/p/ice-agents...

"We are not alone. There are more of us than there are of them. And we have the chance in the months ahead to prove that our collective power can overcome this hateful regime." www.americaamerica.news/p/to-feel-le...