I think they have so far. I know that letter I mentioned earlier was signed by the dean of the University of Missouri-Kansas City Law School, which kind of surprised me because Josh Hawley taught Constitutional Law there before running for the Senate. It doesn’t have a reputation as a woke institution.
I hate everything about this.
Clearly Minority Report was something Rubio considered aspirational rather than cautionary.
This concept probably isn’t new to any of us here, but it’s concisely stated:
For those who don’t want to click through to Bluesky:
Punished for thought crimes that are yet to be. I think that may one up Orwell.
This is so great. The constant barrage of fuckery from this guy is such that I had all but forgotten about so many of these things. Yet, every one of these things (and more!) should have disqualified this guy from ever running for office the first time around, let alone a second or third time (and winning two of those 3 times, FFS). Yet the influence this fucking guy has over so many people simply cannot be understated.
I often think about how it wasn’t all that long ago that Howard Dean’s presidential run was torpedoed because he got a little bit overexcited at a campaign event.
We’ve moved on from an Orwellian dystopia to one written by Philip K Dick.
@Millie_Fink
@womanhood_deferred
So they’re speed-running the Declaration of Independence and stated that “expected” beliefs are sufficient for deportation (and presumably other punishment), so basically anyone who expresses admiration or support for American values can therefore reasonably be expected to find this administration reprehensible, and thus are worthy of deportation.
“Are you now, or have you ever been, loyal to the Constitution of the United States?”
I don’t understand it. I don’t understand any of it.
The horribleness of that man and his cabal has been so obviously apparent pretty much from day one (I didn’t think much of him back in the 80s, during his first bump of notoriety), especially during the first campaign. I cannot get my head around how so many people just cannot, will not see that.
Even when I was a kid, I felt slightly out-of-alignment with the world at large. A good chunk of that was probably being an awkward social misfit, and not always liking the latest “in” things… but this is beyond anything so mundane as that. I’ve wondered about my own sanity plenty of times, but it feels like so much of the country (and the world, because the Far Right is surging globally) is going completely unhinged in the opposite direction. It’s terrifying. It goes against pretty much everything I was taught to believe and value-- and yeah, we all kinda got sold on a lot of things about “the way of the world” that weren’t true, but this is beyond even that. (I remember the Pratchett quote about believing untruths, but it gives no comfort in the face of such rampant greed and depravity.)
Tl;dr: I am not okay.
I don’t understand it either. But I remember the Republicans fielding a whole crowd of awful candidates, I don’t believe it’s coincidence they somehow settled on the very worst one. I think on some level people do see how loathsome he is…and that’s where he gets his support.
On a rational level, I get it, but it’s still hitting me fundamentally, in whatever part of me was still holding on to the illusion that good guys win and bad guys lose, that respect and decency were still valued and valuable, that for the most part we’d learned from history and would keep striving to become better as a society.
I know everyone isn’t so awful and evil, there are still many good people in the fight, and that at some point the tide must turn… but it’s getting harder and harder to hold on to that, as we fall deeper into this destructive chaos. Part of me understands the various historical and social-psychological factors that play into it, but there’s another part that cannot rationalize or accept any of it… like being trapped in a nightmare and struggling to wake up. But it’s real, even if I don’t want it to be.
I can’t explain it any better than that, and it sounds trite, even to me. 
It just hurts.
I don’t think any of us here are. At least we are in good company.
I can only hope it happens soon because things are looking pretty fucking dire right now.
I was just thinking that my worst nightmares are now always less scary that reality. It’s almost like my consciousness and unconsciousness have flipped. 
Here’s a hug for you, and everyone else who needs one!
This is a big part of why I’m glad I went to the Hands Off protest. I got home and described the experience to my spouse (who couldn’t go). He said “I’m glad being around so many other people helped you feel more sane.”
Because it did.
Um…
Maybe that’s a joke, and it really means the opposite?
Cuz hey, I’m in the dumps too, but I also think most of Tramp and Co. are dumb as garden gnomes. And I’m pinning a lot of what hope I do have on their ultimately failing partly or even mainly by tripping and falling over their own stupidity.