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Time is running out, Democrats (Original Post) kpete Jul 2019 OP
K&R... spanone Jul 2019 #1
Who was it that said, 'He's not worth impeaching.'? Kid Berwyn Jul 2019 #2
When your house is infested with termites, it's best to ignore them dalton99a Jul 2019 #4
Kick dalton99a Jul 2019 #3
K & R Nevermypresident Jul 2019 #5
Kick for the Constitution Kid Berwyn Jul 2019 #6
You would think treating people worse than cattle he would take a hit in the polls, but no his UniteFightBack Jul 2019 #7
The plan seems to be working. Kid Berwyn Jul 2019 #8
 

UniteFightBack

(8,231 posts)
7. You would think treating people worse than cattle he would take a hit in the polls, but no his
Sat Jul 13, 2019, 01:35 PM
Jul 2019

numbers rise.

Kid Berwyn

(14,651 posts)
8. The plan seems to be working.
Sat Jul 13, 2019, 04:07 PM
Jul 2019


Trial runs for fascism are in full flow

Babies in cages were no ‘mistake’ by Trump but test-marketing for barbarism


by Fintan O’Toole
The Irish Times, Tue, Jun 26, 2018, 05:00

To grasp what is going on in the world right now, we need to reflect on two things. One is that we are in a phase of trial runs. The other is that what is being trialled is fascism – a word that should be used carefully but not shirked when it is so clearly on the horizon. Forget “post-fascist” – what we are living with is pre-fascism.

It is easy to dismiss Donald Trump as an ignoramus, not least because he is. But he has an acute understanding of one thing: test marketing. He created himself in the gossip pages of the New York tabloids, where celebrity is manufactured by planting outrageous stories that you can later confirm or deny depending on how they go down. And he recreated himself in reality TV where the storylines can be adjusted according to the ratings. Put something out there, pull it back, adjust, go again.

Fascism doesn’t arise suddenly in an existing democracy. It is not easy to get people to give up their ideas of freedom and civility. You have to do trial runs that, if they are done well, serve two purposes. They get people used to something they may initially recoil from; and they allow you to refine and calibrate. This is what is happening now and we would be fools not to see it.

Snip...

To see, as most commentary has done, the deliberate traumatisation of migrant children as a “mistake” by Trump is culpable naivety. It is a trial run – and the trial has been a huge success. Trump’s claim last week that immigrants “infest” the US is a test-marketing of whether his fans are ready for the next step-up in language, which is of course “vermin”. And the generation of images of toddlers being dragged from their parents is a test of whether those words can be turned into sounds and pictures. It was always an experiment – it ended (but only in part) because the results were in.

Continues...

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/fintan-o-toole-trial-runs-for-fascism-are-in-full-flow-1.3543375
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