We’re not there yet, but this “one of ours, all of yours” warning is definitely aspirational and it’s where they’ll take us if we allow it.
Currently they are surging to 4,000 ICE in Minneapolis, a city with only 600 police. They are trying very hard to provoke a response that will “justify” something like martial law. So far people have controlled themselves and it hasn’t descended into violence despite such provocative tactics as ICE ramming people’s cars at red lights for no particular reason, and going door to door with their faux papers and guns drawn.
There has always been a MAGAesque presence lurking in America. Rabid nationalism, anti-elitism and populist pandering isn’t new.
There’s Jacksonian Populism going back into the 1800’s. The isolationist America First movement in the 1940’s. You can’t leave McCarthyism and Red Scare of the 50’s out of the mix. Then you have Reagan and Gingrich bringing up the rear to till the soil for Trumpism.
These people have always been here. They will always be here.
America suffers from a Free Speech Fallacy believing ALL speech is protected and consequence should be damned. In the concurring opinion of Whitney v. California, a free speech case way back in 1927, Justice Louis Brandeis wrote of the the fix for harmful speech as: “The remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence”.
Almost 100 years and we still haven’t grasped the simple concept that speech is best used in dialogue, not promoting rancor or censorship.
Oh they will remain. They were there before Trump, fantasizing about a champion they could back, and along came Trump. When Trump is gone (and he will be, one way or the other), what we now call MAGA will remain. In fact they will probably become a bunch of domestic terrorists before they settle down, awaiting their next Dear Leader / opportunity to “own the libs”. They will comfort themselves with conspiracy theories and bide their time.
That is why we have to relentlessly prosecute AT LEAST the current leadership as well as select lesser people like Renee Good’s murderer (there’s no statue of limitations for murder). MAGA can indulge whatever persecution narrative they want to, but they need to be given pause next time they think about doing something like this. Of course that will only last for a generation or so; their kids will just think their elders didn’t try hard enough or do it right.
Freedom is something for which the struggle never ends.
“SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — A demonstrator was hit in the face with a projectile fired by a federal officer at close range during a Southern California protest, leaving him bloodied and with serious injuries, according to video and accounts from fellow protesters and family on Tuesday.”
Right after the election, a long-time poster who is maga wrote, “We’re taking America back.”
Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson’s house was searched by the FBI today. She had spent the past year covering the Trump administration’s effort to fire federal workers and redirect much of the work force toward enforcing his agenda.
Searching the residences of reporters is an extremely rare event, due to chilling first amendment implications, but will probably become more common as Trump cracks down on dissent.
Any of you participating in protests like I’ve been recently? If so, here’s some advice: Don’t bring your cell phone with you. Bring a prepaid burner phone instead. The feds have technology (Stingray) that can track phones and even extract information from them.
When I participate in a protest, I record it, and any resulting law enforcement response, using an app that livestreams video to a server located in another country. This server does not allow anyone, even me, to delete a video for 90 days.
Lastly, I never drive one of my own cars to a protest. I always take public transportation or an Uber. This is to prevent law enforcement getting my license plate number if they go around the area of the protest recording numbers. I also leave my driver’s license and other identifying documents at home and carry cash instead.
This may seem like overkill, and it is in many areas, but with what’s happening in places like Minneapolis, Portland, and Chicago, I’d rather be safe than sorry.
His skull was fractured and he underwent six hours of surgery to save his life. As a result of the injuries to his eyes, he has been permanently blinded.
This is good advice. I don’t have the info with me where I am now, but there is a new cell carrier offering service tied only to your zip code. So another way to go is to only carry a cheap phone using this carrier in public (assuming you need, like I do, to keep your longstanding phone # for business reasons). And use that phone strictly to make calls and perhaps very generic and guarded web access.
Also when discussing anything politically sensitive online, I only use Signal, and lately I’ve set it to expire / erase messages after a few days so that there’s no message history at all, on either end (it self destructs on the receiving end as well).
Here and on social media I always have Proton VPN up & running. It’s not perfect but at least it makes casual surveillance more difficult.
I only see this from overseas and through the lens of the media and recounts by people who were present. But I think your precautions are sound. Better safe than sorry. So stay safe.
When I lived in Portland, before it got really bad, people would live stream their activities and repost it all over social media. I know, a real face palm moment… It took them about a year, but most of them wised up.
I agree with SodaAnt. You’re out there with the American Sturmabteilung. Tuere te
Because threatening to send our youth to take entire countries by force, or just sending our youth to bomb foreigners, remains a preferred alternative to transparency.
Trump’s Iceland ambassador nominee jokes country will become a U.S. state
Don’t these people have any sensibility or sensitivities at all? Were they raised by their parents to become bullies? Is everything a joke to them? Are they able to function adequately in a society at all? How deep down in the bottom of which pit does Trump and his cronies find these people? Are these questions meant rhetorically or not?
