this post was submitted on 23 Jan 2024
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His intellectual defenders make their case that the danger is overblown.

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[–] anon6789 171 points 10 months ago

Call me overly cautious, but I don't really want a president that jokes about becoming a dictator either...

[–] [email protected] 122 points 10 months ago (4 children)

He literally said he was going to be. I'm not sure why this is even a question.

[–] ceenote 60 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

He literally already tried to be.

"Does he want to?" is not up for debate. "Can he?" is the question. People downplaying the danger he poses are pushing the needle towards "Yes, he can."

[–] [email protected] 23 points 10 months ago (1 children)

i don't see how there's any other topic in the discussion at this point
"well moving on from the plan of a brutal, unending dictatorship, what's your position on corn subsidies?"

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

Gotta feed the news goblins.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It is not. Conservatives are gaslighting you, and the media is trying to sell their clickbait. Possibly unpopular thought: at some point it becomes our own fault for choosing to engage? Like the big bad wolf asks "are you home right now?", where even if you answer "no!" then you have still fallen for the trick? (i.e., of COURSE he would be a dictator, that's not even a point, but why allow them to control the conversation to switch to the talking points that they choose, rather than driving our own points that we would rather be discussed, like what to do about school shootings or climate change and such?)

Innuendo Studios has a fascinating whole entire video series called "The Alt-Right Playbook" if anyone wants to learn more about their limited variety of tactics, that are nonetheless extremely effective for those who do not recognize them.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I really enjoyed that series. Very informative.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

IRK? It totally changed my method of responding to the world... I used to painstakingly attempt to respond unless it was extremely obvious that someone was 110% a troll, but now I know that even halfway reasonable people simply cannot be "reasoned" with, if they have an entirely different worldview than me. i.e., don't give someone a list of 100 reasons to not allow Trump to win - they don't care (after the 1st impeachment, and the 2nd impeachment, and January 6, and everything else), nor are they looking for facts and willing to change their minds. I would change my mind in a heartbeat if the facts pointed in a different direction, but they will not, b/c it is not "facts" that are causing them to support him, even if for some people that once was true.

Ofc I still fall for the tricks, but like 90% less often now:-).

[–] linearchaos 4 points 10 months ago

And he's currently fighting in court to receive dictator benefits for breaking laws.

[–] antidote101 56 points 10 months ago (8 children)

Project 2025 is a plan to reshape the executive branch of the U.S. federal government in the event of a Republican victory in the 2024 U.S. presidential election.[2][3] Established in 2022, the project seeks to recruit tens of thousands of conservatives to Washington, D.C., to replace existing federal civil service workers it characterizes as the "deep state", to further the objectives of the next Republican president.[4] Although participants in the project cannot promote a specific presidential candidate, many have close ties to Donald Trump and the Trump 2024 presidential campaign.[5] The plan would perform a swift takeover of the entire executive branch under a maximalist version of the unitary executive theory — a theory proposing the president of the United States has absolute power over the executive branch — upon inauguration.[6]

[–] [email protected] 16 points 10 months ago (2 children)

"yeah sure, but biden is really bad too...
basically the same thing..."

  • pseudo-leftists on hexbear
[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

They tend to act like democrats are actually worse.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

i never understood one...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I gave up on hexbear entirely, and lemmygrad too. The sheer tone of voice finally was enough to convince me. Plus, responding to my comment like an entire week later after everyone and their brother (& sister, & mother & father too) has already jumped all over it and I long since stopped responding - they obviously are simply looking for an excuse to work in a "dig", not even realizing what self-pwns they were dishing out the entire time. Consent should matter to people... but sadly it does not always do so.:-(

It is such a truism - actual scientists are all like "well I am not 100% certain of this, but I think what might be going on is...", while it is the literal, actual children that come back with "nuh uh, I know you are but what am I? your [sic] stupid!"

My experience on Lemmy has improved 1000% since blocking both instances, after the upgrade to v0.19. I am not here to babysit.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (7 children)

it's pretty weird... im pretty sure it's half actually paid trolls, and half mentally ill people...
i've seen it on every leftist group that wasn't heavily modded...
the goal being, of course, make leftists seem like absolute garbage people...
i mean, on hexbear it's been, yes a torrent of people digging on me, intentionally misinterpreting things i say and acting enraged, and extremely repetitive...
it's doesn't seem organic...
...
but if you go to any leftist meetup in person, they're all the nicest, most considerate people ever...

online it's always caricatures of the super unreasonable leftist memes...

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Where are you quoting that from?

[–] Blackbeard 9 points 10 months ago* (last edited 5 days ago)
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[–] pottedmeat7910 55 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Let's never ever find out.

[–] superfes 11 points 10 months ago
[–] xc2215x 36 points 10 months ago (1 children)

He will try to be one. Whether he succeeds or not is unknown.

[–] Anemia 0 points 10 months ago

Exceedingly unlikely given the fact that he's already that old and also that he only has one term left. He would have to be really industrious to turn america into shit(tier?) in that limited time.

But I don't disagree that he'll give it a go.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 10 months ago

He will certainly try, and that’s bad enough.

[–] lettruthout 24 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Yes, but only if he gets elected.

[–] anon6789 7 points 10 months ago

I dunno, he made a go of it anyway last time he lost...

[–] FlyingSquid 20 points 10 months ago

Really, truly yes.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 10 months ago

When people tell you who they are, believe them.

[–] Bytemeister 9 points 10 months ago

He said he would, and he literally tried to. Were it not for a handful of DC police and Secret Service personnel, he probably would have.

Anyone who doubts this should probably abstain from voting, or really making any critical decisions until their brain damage can be evaluated.

[–] anon6789 9 points 10 months ago

For all the deniers jumping in, just where is supposed to be the cutoff point where we let "talk" get to before rational people can say enough is enough?

It isn't the first time we've had "talk" of overthrow, and how often do we need to leave it up the chance that they don't get the opportunuty?

The Business Plot (also called the Wall Street Putsch[1] and The White House Putsch) was a political conspiracy in 1933, in the United States, to overthrow the government of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and install Smedley Butler as dictator.[2][3] Retired Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler testified under oath that wealthy businessmen were plotting to create a fascist veterans' organization with Butler as its leader and use it in a coup d'état to overthrow Roosevelt. In 1934, Butler testified under oath before the United States House of Representatives Special Committee on Un-American Activities (the "McCormack–Dickstein Committee") on these revelations.[4] Although no one was prosecuted, the congressional committee final report said, "there is no question that these attempts were discussed, were planned, and might have been placed in execution when and if the financial backers deemed it expedient."

Early in the committee's gathering of testimony most major news media dismissed the plot, with a New York Times editorial characterizing it as a "gigantic hoax".[5] When the committee's final report was released, the Times said the committee "purported to report that a two-month investigation had convinced it that General Butler's story of a Fascist march on Washington was alarmingly true" and "... also alleged that definite proof had been found that the much publicized Fascist march on Washington, which was to have been led by Major Gen. Smedley D. Butler, retired, according to testimony at a hearing, was actually contemplated".[6] The individuals involved all denied the existence of a plot.

While historians have questioned whether a coup was actually close to execution, most agree that some sort of "wild scheme" was contemplated and discussed.

And if you want a political crime family....

In July 2007, a BBC investigation reported that Prescott Bush, father of U.S. President George H. W. Bush and grandfather of then-president George W. Bush, was to have been a "key liaison" between the 1933 Business Plotters and the newly emerged Nazi regime in Germany,[51] although this has been disputed by Jonathan Katz as a misconception caused by a clerical research error.[52] According to Katz, "Prescott Bush was too involved with the actual Nazis to be involved with something that was so home grown as the business plot."

So it seems if one would want to say that an overthrow of the United States has been in progress by politically connected individuals for over 100 years, both actively and "just talk", they would have a whole bunch of things they could talk about.

[–] xhieron 8 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Maybe not, but you know, just to be on the safe side, better vote against him just in case.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago

Trump doesn't have intellectual defenders.

[–] rustyfish 4 points 10 months ago

First, I reached out to Roger Kimball, editor of The New Criterion, a highbrow journal of arts and ideas. Its most recent issue included a defense of Henry Kissinger, a lament comparing brutalist architecture to the increased acceptance of tattoos (which digressed into a complaint about the popularity of women’s soccer in Europe), and a review of a new translation of Plato‘s dialogues. Kimball himself has written several books and essays that warn against what he says are declining cultural standards. He seemed like the perfect person to place Trump in a historical context and show that our fears are overblown and that he is simply the latest iteration of the hurly-burly of American politics — rough around the edges, perhaps, but not much different from what we have faced before.

Oh, this truly sounds like someone anyone should listen to. Let’s see how grounded in reality these intellectuals defending Trump are. This will be good.

„What Trump said on January 6 was that you should proceed down and patriotically make your voice known. That is called petitioning Congress. There is a constitutional right to do that, and the more you look at what happened on January 6, the weirder it looks. There were clearly scores of federal agents in the crowd abetting people.”

Ah! I see. Intellectuals.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

People thought Hitler was a bit of a joke and the danger was overblown in the 1920s.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

When someone tells you who they are, believe them.

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