The most likely place out here to experience crime is…remote trailheads and boat ramps. You know, the parking lots far away from observers where your boots crunch as you walk across broken car window glass. The opposite of “urban.”
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I haven’t noticed any redistribution of wealth, not even to the MAGA faithful.
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They’re making arguments on different grounds, such as a particular relationship to corporations and to imposing a particular culture on the country (Cultural Revolution). It’s State Capitalism with private corporations… 
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But that’s post-Mao. There are similarities to the Cultural Revolution currently, but the parallels to fascism seem more pertinent.
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Grew up on the south side of Chicago, visit often enough since I’m only 20 minutes outside of it, and my son lives in the city.
Yes, absolutely, there’s a place or two you probably shouldn’t go at certain times and/or if you look a certain way, but the overwhelming part of the city is remarkably, boringly, safe.
Heck, growing up, Cabrini Green was the no-go place. We drove through there the other day - completely gentrified now. I was in shock. The most dangerous thing in most of the area looked like overpriced coffee.
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Yeah, I agree with you, but I think the intent there is to try and use the same tactics used by Republicans for years, just throw terms that Americans have been trained are scary to connect him with… Certainly, a bit of lazy analysis on what’s happening with regards to the kind of central planning Trump is doing, but the association is more the point. I didn’t read the WSJ article they mention, so I don’t know if they do a better job… It does seem clear that despite China being our “biggest rival” Trump holds a high level of admiration for the current government there.
Agreed, but far too many Americans seem just fine with some level of fascism, it seems. While it’s not a majority, they are okay with rounding up brown people that they don’t think are “real” Americans and putting them into literal concentration camps. But the same people still view China as the real existential threat to the US, so I can see that as a tactic to equate Trump’s policies with the policies of China right now…
And of course, most people don’t have a firm understanding of communism, the various different practices over the course of the 20th and early 21st century, and how China specifically evolved since the 1950s… Even educated people who should know better probably don’t.
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“We have had the police knocking on every door,” said a dog walker and resident of Dean, as a helicopter buzzed overhead. “They wanted the names of everybody living there and details of their social media. I know several people refused. We asked them if they were protecting us, or Vance. At least they were honest and said it is for him and that it will all be passed on to the American security people.”
I know what my social media would start saying…
But Vance, unlike the unsuccessful Democrat candidate, will be plugged into a network of like-minded VIPs based in the area for part of the summer. Nearby lives not just Cameron, his neighbour for the stay, but also the Trump-curious media doyen, Piers Morgan, and the Libertarian farmer and TV personality Jeremy Clarkson, although he has recently been critical of Vance, calling him a “bearded godbotherer” and so may well be lying low. (Rumours also abounded in Charlbury watering holes that Richard Tice and his partner, journalist Isabel Oakeshott, might visit Vance in a break from their Dubai home.) Blur’s bassist, the Tory-friendly Alex James, is also an artisan cheese-roll away, although Vance is unlikely to be around long enough to drop into his Feastival event later this month.
Although, come to think of it, I’m unlikely to be a neighbor in those parts.
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Totally weird that ICE is having staffing issues and has to get reassignments to fill the gap.
/s
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Why are American liberals more scared of imaginary communism that they are of the fascism happening right in front of them?
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Interesting point here:
But he has his set of dangerous cities that he remembers—generally the ones with baseball teams, like an 8-year-old—and so those are the ones he talks about.
The 1980s is when he was gaining notoriety for taking over his father’s business. He’s stuck in his supposed glory days, nostalgic for them as if they were his childhood (when he wasn’t the center of attention, so he wouldn’t pine for those days).
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Excellent question! My theory… Probably because the communist menace was heavily promoted in our culture for several decades, while the fascist threat was conspicuously downplayed, in part because we kept supporting authoritarians and fascists (Pinochet, for one, but take your pick). The messaging we got on the fascist threat was that it was done and over, and AMERICA had been the one to kill it! It was something that happened to Europeans (by Europeans), and we’re NOT them (until it’s cultural convenient to be European), so it can’t happen here… This way of thinking completely ignores actual US history of slavery, racism, genocide, etc.
Also… The Nazis became so cartoonishly villainous in films about the era from Hollywood, that no one thought it could rise again, because we’re all clever and will easily be able to spot a guy waving a nazi flag goose-stepping and not be fooled by his antics (we all hate Illinois Nazis, after all, because all Americans are just like the Blues Brothers). Even a well-done film like Schindler’s List has this problem, with the nazis being depicted in a sort of cartoonish way (and the victims being depicted as… sort of compliant - let’s pay no mind to the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, etc). They are just obviously, evil, so us “good” Americans who never did anything wrong and in fact saved the world single-handedly from fascism, would never be like that…
So, a combination of extreme anti-communism and American exceptionalism?
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Donald Trump said on Wednesday he would ask Congress for “long-term” control of Washington DC’s police department and signaled he expected other Democratic-led cities to change their laws in response to his deployment of national guard troops and federal agents into the capital.
The president’s comments came as the White House took credit for dozens of arrests overnight in Washington as part of Trump’s campaign to fight a “crime crisis”, which the city’s leaders say does not exist.
Trump earlier this week invoked a never-before-used clause of the law that sets out the federal district’s governance structure to take temporary control of the police department, but will need Congress’s permission to extend it beyond the 30 days allowed under the statute.
“We’re going to need a crime bill that we’re going to be putting in, and it’s going to pertain initially to DC,” Trump said during a visit to the Kennedy Center performing arts venue in Washington. “We’re going to use it as a very positive example, and we’re going to be asking for extensions on that, long-term extensions, because you can’t have 30 days.”
He said he expected to propose the legislation “very quickly”, though the Senate and House of Representatives are out of session and not scheduled to return until 2 September. Trump alluded to other options for extending control of the police department, saying “if it’s a national emergency, we can do it without Congress”.
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ETA:
Golly I wonder if there’s like a “long-term control” shopping list or something?
DOD Releases Report on Defense Spending by State in Fiscal Year 2023
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I suspect this distraction may be working – our collective squirrel brain does seem less focused on the Epstein files/Tramp’s pedophilia. 
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Me trying to explain right-wing voters to a bemused nephew:
“Egg → FaceHugger → ChestBurster → Republican”
Him: “Oh, gotcha.”
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