I look at it as "the beginning of the end." It's crossing the event horizon in a black hole.
The GOP has successfully created an alternate fictional reality for the majority of voters, but once free press has been suppressed, there can't be competing realities. There's almost certainly no going back because the state propaganda at that point is the only game in town, and no oppositional narrative can take hold.
Yes, kissing the ring for sure. I knew Zuck was gone as soon as he called Trump "badass" and that he "couldn't vote for a democrat" after the first assassination attempt.
Dude stood there and by his luck the bullet missed. This wasn't some courageous action, this was "standing there until the secret service tackled me." What exactly was "badass" about it?
Yeah, I mean, obviously this is not a 4D-chess move. Trump acts instinctively but he's had a lifetime of narcissistic manipulation informing that instinct. Gaetz would already have been looking for ways to maximize his visibility while skirting the investigation, Stephen Miller probably could have contributed the "trigger the libs and deep state at first, and make it seems like they get a win once they've got it out of their system" part.
Everyone around Trump is self-interested evil in their own way and I could see how it works together pretty well.
The best explanation I've seen is that this was a calculated pick to distract and lower the bar for Trump's eventual real nominee (Paxton?), allowing the Senate and public to swallow someone who will still enable the DOJ as Trump's own personal vengeance law firm. It is also again Trump nonsense taking up all the oxygen, preventing debate over his other extremely problematic picks like Tulsi Gabbard.
It gave Gaetz cover to resign and prevent his ethics probe from being public, and if this theory is correct, he'll withdraw from consideration before any of that information is made public. Mission(s) accomplished.
At the end of these appointment press releases, I fully expect to see one last press release that just says, "The Aristocrats!"
How many more are going to come out of the clown car? This is quite a performance.
Well, we're going to see plenty of new crimes in the next 4 years, and Trump is going to be motivated to stay out of jail if it's even still remotely possible. I think he's going to do everything he can to stay president until he's actually dead or incapacitated.
Yeah, the generational divisions aren't clean any longer. Young men voted for Trump, thanks to social media "alpha" male influencers and recommendation algorithms.
So convenient to have detention centers - camps, really - outside places that have major concentrations of political opponents. Better to be prepared, right?
Nothing at all to worry about that Trump's nearly highest priority is to install loyal leadership at the military. Nope, nothing concerning about that. Everything is fine.
I really hope someone is keeping a list of all of the saboteur hires, not just the cabinet level posts but stuff like this, in case we have the chance to remove them later.
I know in Mexico and other countries higher on the corruption index, where there are still elections that aren't pre-decided but a lot of additional corruption and arbitrary politicking, this purge-and-replace cycle happens every election. It's so unfortunate but may just be the new way of doing things, even if somehow we retain democratic elections.
I wish people would have left earlier as well, but it's not just sunk cost fallacy. Network effects are a rational reason to stay, and that's the issue. If he has a community, he loses the community. I get it.
That's why I wish celebrities would coordinate and all leave at once - it's far more likely their network will follow them in that case, both hurting X more and helping themselves more, and accelerating people leaving as the network effects disappear on X.
The physics metaphor applies pretty directly here: They need to create momentum to counteract inertia.