11:45 “Unfortunately the country that seems to be doing the worst, where the institutions seem to be faltering most dramatically, is the United States, so the country that is traditionally perceived as the leader of the democratic world, that has actually been a model for a lot of the rest of the world, you know people look up to the United States as almost the country that defines modern democracy – we already have the specter of someone who assaulted, literally, the citadel of democracy, the U.S. Capitol.”
24:41 “The Venezuelan regime, which is unbelievably unpopular, would not be in power were it not supported by this autocratic network…
30:51 “I am worried that we did not learn any lessons and enormous numbers of Americans seem fine with the degrading of institutions, and fine with the idea of a United States that is either part of the autocratic world or in any way enables it, and I am profoundly worried.”
This interview was before the election, before the end of America.
5:18 Yes, it is the end. Media Capture after the inarguation.
These completely over-the-top-crazy cabinet picks might be a way to compile an enemies list; I saw this done with “human relations meetings” in a couple organizations. The meetings were not about identifying problems, they were about identifying potential troublemakers so they could be pushed out and replaced with cronies. Anybody who starts saying we cannot let Trump be sworn in will be identified and put on the list and ultimately…..who knows?
People who have years of blogging and comments opposing Trumpism (like me) will, sooner or later, likely start being disappeared. This is common practice in every dictatorship on Earth. When you control the press then it is easy. It has been done in central and south America, the middle east, Africa, and Asia. Trumpists were even selling T-shirts joking about helicopter rides. Anyone who thinks America is somehow special and it cannot happen here is…. probably stupid enough to be a Trumpist and either know or do not understand it is no joke.
Nothing can save us now except the DOD and DHS joining forces to incarcerate Trump and his cronies, which will not happen. The Democrats don’t have the guts. It is the end of America.
Too late….we lost. FDR did not get reelected, the fascist did. It is the end of America. Nothing can save us except the one thing we will never do…a military takeover ending with Trump and his many cronies in Guantanamo and never allowed to hold any office or engage in subverting democracy again. Ever. The democrats are too gutless for that to happen. Ironically, if even some of what Trump is going to try to do succeeds, and it looks like it will, his regime will be able to easily overthrow the government and place any political opponents in prison if the next election holds any possibility he might lose power. Look for a Reichstag fire. We can only pray this does not end with showers and ovens and a white planet with all non-whites, jews, and useless eaters exterminated. That very few people think this could happen is terrifying. They will absolutely try.
From wiki:
Federal elections were held in Germany on 6 November 1932.[1] The Nazi Party saw its vote share fall by four percentage points, while there were slight increases for the Communist Party of Germany and the national conservative German National People’s Party. The results were a great disappointment for the Nazis, who lost 34 seats and again failed to form a coalition government in the Reichstag.After the election, von Papen urged Hindenburg to continue to rule by decree, while at the same time attempting to form a coalition with the Nazis. Negotiations failed and Papen was dismissed by Hindenburg, who replaced him with Defence minister Kurt von Schleicher.
On 27 February, the Reichstag was set on fireallegedly by Dutch council communist Marinus van der Lubbe: in response, the Reichstag Fire Decree was enacted, suspending basic liberties and allowing the Nazis to conduct mass arrests of KPD members and freely engage in paramilitary violence against their opponents.[8]
The elections were the last free and fair all-German election before the Nazi seizure of power, since the subsequent vote in March saw massive suppression against opposition politicians, especially SPD and KPD ones.
Hi Ken,
There are some of us who seem to understand the theory of basic representative democracy (which is a Republic) while most of us do not. My only suggestion is to try and explain the basic functions of our government because very few have a clue. Our single greatest enemy is well over a century of propaganda that has baked into the DNA of the public that rich people are deserving of the unbelievable wealth they now possess. Nobody, no matter how exceptional, can “deserve” what amounts to demigodhood unless they worked for thousands of years. But…if you utter such absolute blasphemy, you have already lost. That is how they did it. They invested millions over time, just pennies to them, to condition us like Pavlovian dogs. Our brains go nuts when socialism is mentioned, despite Social Security, Medicare, public works projects like the highway system, etc., all being socialism. So, I would say the best first step on the long road back from whatever hell we are about to undergo is the deprogramming to that neoliberal brainwashing, which is the old liberal saw of education. Public schools being another socialist institution they want turned into a for-profit brainwashing industry. And I think what I just wrote could help make that deprogramming work; always, ALWAYS, start with a short statement of fact about their undeserved obscene wealth and why we have been conditioned to believe they somehow deserve to rule over us with that power. This can be stated in many different ways with many different examples. There are a few good YouTube videos that do this, but MAGA will never watch them, of course.
Thanks for your time and check out my blog; Ice on the Moon wordpress.
Mammon, one of the seven princes of hell, may presently be the god of this world, but it is likely Lucifer, who represents pride and was in first place for millennia, who may have taken over the manosphere centuries ago when money became so powerful.
Peter Binsfeld’s 1589 system of classification of demons put pride first.
16:56 “-we want a big tent, we want all the customers and all the readers and everybody we can get-”
27:06 “-parts of dismantling social security or Medicare, all these things that people really aren’t going to want, or whatever is going to happen to the affordable care act, – that’s the question, right? Did The Press, as an institution, really get across what a Trump presidency is going to bring?…I think not.”
“The Press” has been used in the past to manipulate the citizenry, and now, because of the algorithms, it is destroying the truth, the very foundation of a functioning democracy. Trump is going to destroy democracy all by himself, and The Press is a problem. Despite recent cancerous conspiracies, The Press is still the cornerstone of the foundation. The firehose of falsehood, designed to destroy the truth, is the new nuclear weapon of the 21st century and the main device that ended America. With Elon Musk and Fox News on the Trumpist side there is no hope at all for “The Press.” We the People have lost our final battle.
Trump is The End Of America and this is our last Thanksgiving. I say this to wake people up to what is coming because they are absolutely not and walking into this just like Germans did a century ago. Trump was originally Drumpf and is of German ancestry by the way. If democracy somehow returns in some form after the coming fascist interregnum, it will not be what America was. There may be little left.
I am thankful for having been born and having had a long life full of advantage and adventures in this period of history. Though many with my experiences would give in to nihilism and self-destruct, I have been incredibly fortunate…and I thank God for that. Now, near the end of my life, I see everything I had being destroyed. Perhaps it is what I must experience to balance what I have been gifted with. We are all broken on the cross, and I can only pray for my family.
Prayer may not help those who will have to live through what is coming, but…it helps me at least. And while I pray, there are millions praying for something else:
The Right is bizarre because they actually have an invisible army of white supremacists and sympathizers, who are essentially nazis and want to exterminate all non-whites, Jews, and useless eaters. Their numbers are greatly underestimated because most of them tell no one and are just waiting. Then they have millions of pro-Israel Evangelicals who seem to ignore that Israel is a Jewish state made up of Jews, not Christians. They want to bring about the rapture, the end of the world, the second coming. The two blend into each other, with a great many low I.Q. white males as foot soldiers and a few super-rich donors trying to use both to do the only thing they have ever tried to do…end democracy so they can end all taxation and regulation on themselves. Trumpism is simply about owning everything and everyone. To understand what is going to happen you have to ask if the school vouchers will be available to Muslims and Hindus and… Satanists? Of course not, the vouchers must necessarily only be available to Christians and to make that happen requires Trumpism end democracy. Anything not Christian will be outlawed as a “terrorist organization.” What the people do not understand on this last Thanksgiving Day 2024 is America ended when Trump won the election.
This nightmare is already in motion, it is happening.
Critical thinking is – dispassionate- not letting your emotional buttons be pushed.
I learned to think critically troubleshooting complex systems on aircraft. Otherwise, I never would have been able to see through much of what has been used to manipulate most of America into destroying their own country. And I liked to read….I was fortunate.
We did not teach critical thinking to several generations and that, more than anything else, ended America.
The military has only one option if the services hope to survive in any form they now resemble; remove Donald Trump and his cronies to Guantanamo before he takes office. There is very little chance of that happening and this is almost certainly the end of America.
Elon Musk wants to end most of the legacy programs like human-crewed combat aircraft and armored vehicles so that money can find it’s way into his own pocket. As the principal launcher for Space Force, his company SpaceX and militarized Starlink satellite megaconstellation could take over a huge share of the defense budget.
11:40 “American power is still the most dynamic force in the world game – powers, great powers don’t fall because of military defeats or economic defeats, they fall because of psychological defeats.”
12:20 “The loss of cohesion, of solidarity, of values, that hold together a society in a common goal – this brings us to (Fukuyama)- an over-qualified, over-entitled population, etc. etc. – which of course, these are things that are stopping democracies from behaving with confidence-“
The End of History and the Last Man by Francis Fukuyama David Macintosh reaches The End of History. Francis Fukuyama is a conservative political philosopher and economist. He was politically active during the Reagan administration, when he worked for the State Department, and also during the Clinton years, mainly through Washington think tanks. During the earlier years, Fukuyama was interested in US foreign policy, later becoming increasingly interested in broader, long-term political goals in the hope of providing solutions to problems on a global scale. He wrote The End of History and the Last Man in 1992 as an attempt to solve some of these problems. His contention in this book is that liberal democracy is the final form of government for the world, and the end of human ideological struggle.
The History of The End of History The core of the book came from a paper written by Fukuyama in 1989 entitled ‘The End of History’. In it Fukuyama noted that Western liberal democratic traditions have maintained their place in politics over the last hundred years despite the successive rise of alternative systems of government: liberal democratic government has outlasted monarchism, fascism and communism. In fact, it can be said that liberal democracy has survived to increasingly become the choice of political system for all nations. Fukuyama’s central thesis in The End of History and the Last Man is that human history is moving towards a state of idealised harmony through the mechanisms of liberal democracy. For Fukuyama, the realization of an ideal political and economic system which has the essential elements of liberal democracy is the purpose behind the march of history. ‘Liberal democracy’ does not necessarily mean the exact type of constitutional democracy found in the United States. It can manifest itself in a number of ways, but its consistent features are freedom of speech, free and fair elections, and the separation of powers. Fukuyama argues that there are no ‘contradictions in human life’ that cannot be resolved within the context of liberalism; or more generally, that there is no longer an alternative political and economic structure that can offer solutions to problems such as the need for freedom, protection, and human rights.
In making his claim about history having a process and a goal, Fukuyama is following in the footsteps of the early Nineteenth Century German philosopher Georg Hegel (1770-1831). This famous philosopher saw a ‘dialectical’ process as the driving force behind human history that will eventually achieve a final goal for humanity. This Hegelian dialectic is a logical process manifest in the events of history and unfolding over time. Hegel maintained that the operation of this Idea or ‘Spirit’ (Geist) in history will continually produce opposite, and conflicting, ways of thinking, thesis and antithesis: once the thesis has been formulated there will eventually be an antithesis opposing it. The result is a conflict of beliefs that somehow must be resolved. The resolution takes the form of a compromise between the thesis and antithesis. Thus a synthesis provides a temporary solution, until it too becomes the new thesis, or in the historical sense, the new ideological state of society, which in its turn is also opposed; and this dialectical process continues until the development of the ultimate society.
For instance, as Fukuyama agrees with Hegel, human beings are alike in the sense that they have basic needs, such as food, shelter and self-preservation, and that the human spirit also demands a recognition of our worth. We instinctively want to say to others, “I am greater than you, I want you to look up to me and give me respect.” Peoples’ desires taking the form of wanting other people to recognise their superiority creates conflict with their fellow beings. This is, in essence, a struggle for dignity. Because all people desire dignity, no party is initially prepared to give ground, so a struggle for superiority ensures. Hegel refers to this struggle as the master-slave dialectic or relationship. There will always be a winner and loser; so someone will be master, and someone is always going to be delegated to the status of slave. According to Hegel, people will eventually attempt to overcome their subservient status and fight for the sake of their self-importance, their highest ideal being the desire to make the enemy respect their abilities, and so recognize their humanity. (It’s the regaining of self-consciousness too.)
These and other conflicts are played out through history as dialectical processes. But Hegel believed that at the last stage in history, every human and every country will achieve a final synthesis. Fukuyama similarly believes that all humanity will shortly arrive at the final goal of history – liberal democracy. Fukuyama cites evidence that over time, more and more countries are turning to a liberal democratic system to solve their problems.
Like Hegel, Fukuyama believes this process towards the end of history will not be smooth and linear. Some countries will continue to fall in and out of democracy; but in the end they will return to the democratic style of government because it is the only form of government than can satisfy the human need for dignity.
For Fukuyama, ideals such as the need for dignity represent important pillars upon which liberal democracy has been built; and this struggle for dignity and recognition is universal to humanity. Like Hegel, Fukuyama believes the striving for the full expression of our humanity is the driving force behind the progress of history. This striving manifests itself in the form of the nation state, since not only is there a need for individual recognition dictated by this psychological impulse, each cultural group must realize the same needs. But Fukuyama doesn’t ignore the importance of economics in the historical process, so he adds another pillar to his theory. Human progress through history can be explained in terms of ideas; but other advantages of liberal democracy are that it nurtures economic development, the rise of an educated middle class, and high levels of scientific and technological achievement. Fukuyama would perhaps say that countries such as Russia and China have not yet reformed their systems to incorporate both liberalism and capitalism because there is reluctance amongst the ruling elites to completely abandon communist ideals, although at the same time they do see the need to participate successfully in the global market. The problem for both Russia and China is the attractiveness of liberal ideals, which appear to go hand in hand with a free market economy
One problem for Fukuyama is that his thesis leads to a paradox; one he is happy to acknowledge. The end of history will be an age where liberal democracies will meet the economic and psychological needs of everyone in every nation. There will no longer be a need to struggle for respect, dignity and recognition. However, what makes us human is our desire to be recognised as something more than just creatures with basic needs to be met. This leads to a paradox because when we will have finally arrived at the end of history, our basic needs are satisfied, and there will no struggle by which our superiority to animals can be recognized. As Fukuyama writes:
“The end of history would mean the end of wars and bloody revolutions. Agreeing on ends, men would have no large causes for which to fight. They would satisfy their needs through economic activity, but they would no longer have to risk their lives in battle. They would in other words become animals, as before the bloody battle that began history… Once our physical and mental states are satisfied we no longer have any use for one of the things that has been driving us toward an historical end. We no longer need to impose our dignity upon others.” (p.311)
David Macintosh is a professional educator in New South Wales, Australia, and a regular participant in philosophy forums. He wishes to acknowledge the assistance of Andrew Macintosh, who provided a historical perspective.
Why is there is there so much war in your history (about Montefiore’s histories)?
13:41 “The reason why liberal democracy was so successful, why everyone wanted to have a system that looked like a liberal democracy even if it wasn’t a liberal democracy, was because of the victory of World War II, of ’45.
Our military is so far being placed under the control of a tattooed rapist as Secretary of Defense and an art collector as secretary of the Navy. Our spy services under the control of an apologist for dictators, our health department under the control of an anti-vaxxer, and so on. Advisor to Trump and richest man in the world Elon Musk has stated manned aircraft and tanks are no longer appropriate. These appointments are in themselves a “psychological defeat” and another proof that America is over.
An ominous portent of new era that will visit chaos and destruction on the Earth.
They will say FDR stayed in for multiple terms so Trump should be able to also.
“The fact that they are trying, doesn’t mean they will succeed.”
As much as I love Rachel, the only thing that can save us now is an unlikely pro-democracy military coup. The military arresting Trump and his cronies and taking them to Guantanamo where they will never try to end America again. And that is the proverbial snowball. And if you don’t believe what I just wrote, watch this, and remember they can call any protest a riot. The guy who controls all the money will defund anything that might be an obstacle to Trump’s regime. Money is the god of this world.
Vought plainly states they will traumatize and paralyze the government so there is no government, there is only Trump, who lied about project 2025 of course…it is the plan.
The only question in a democracy is how much a person gets to keep, which depends on how much the rest of us are empowered to keep other people from keeping everything.
Americans seem to have forgotten where the left and right come from. The French Revolution had the overtaxed poor on the left side of the room and the untaxed rich on the right side.
The only hope for a “New America” after Trumpism is somehow defeated is taxing and regulating the rich. It is as simple as that. Without first limiting the power of obscene wealth a representative democracy must inevitably die as America just did. A new party would not be a “worker’s party”, it would be a party with one prerequisite to any project they attempt: limit personal and corporate wealth. Limitarianism.
4:20 “My God…you’re anticipating the end of America as people know it.”
It is the end of America.
The double-digit IQ half of the country just destroyed democracy. It really is the end of America. There is no going back, no hope now. 248 years thrown in the garbage because of a con man and the price of eggs. I am a hard-ass old man that has seen alot…and I wept.
Ice on the Moon 