DL Open Thread Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2024

I realize it’s not popular, because everyone who’s not a MAGAt seems to think the proper response to this American idiocy is to declare that we’re doomed, but there are signs that the Trump/Musk/Project 2025 destruction of the federal government isn’t going as smoothly as the mainstream media would have you believe.

The media reports everything emanating from Musk as if it’s a legitimate order that must be followed. They fail to report that it’s illegal – they pretend that it’s unclear, mainly because they’re as scared shitless as all the politicians are. They have also failed to give court challenges the same publicity they gave to the illegal orders.

Now some of those court cases are being heard, and are indeed being ruled illegal. Republican congressmooks are getting nasty turnouts at constituent meetings, and more than one is expressing the tremulous concern so common to their kind.

Trump and Musk are master media manipulators, and getting you to shit yourself is exactly the goal of their pronouncements. They are trying to demoralize you, and too many of you are falling for it.

Will the courts stand up to this? I don’t know, and neither do you. Will Trump/Musk ignore the courts? They’ll try, but I don’t know if they’ll succeed and neither do you. If they override the courts, we’re in a new world in which the Constitution holds no water, and we’ll see what ensues. I don’t know what would happen in that scenario, and neither do you.

I do know this, because I visit the comment sections of liberal blogs: A lot of people act as if they’re in a competition to write the most pessimistic take on anything that happens. I find that the opposite of useful, for the reason I explained above. There is no prize for doomcasting your fears, and it has a demoralizing effect on everyone else. If offloading your anxiety actually eased your own it would be different, but it doesn’t, just as you infecting someone else with COVID doesn’t make your own illness go away.

If it makes you feel better to protest in the streets, go ahead, though I would note that we did lots of that the first time around and Trump got 3.6% more votes in 2024 than he did in 2020. It’s probably worthwhile to pester our people in Congress, who tend to be useless squishes in the face of adversity, though I would note that leftists have done that for years and congressional squishiness continues unabated.

I admit I’m shocked at the uselessness of elected Democrats in Congress, which The Onion summed up nicely. I don’t care if they’re vocal in their opposition, because I care more about deeds than words, but I’m discouraged by their cowardice. There are actually useless-fuck Democrats – we can thank Nancy Pelosi for this one – who told people to accede to Musk’s lawless demand that all federal employees justify their jobs. The courts are our only defense at this point.

In my reading of history the only way to overpower fascists is through violence, and the MAGAts seem to want that so Trump can declare martial law, which he might do regardless. So until the shooting starts, I don’t see a lot of options that the average person can take that would stem any of this. If you disagree, feel free to comment on what you think we can do that would. I’m not against doing something on principle – I’m against doing things that I think won’t help.

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I never understood Trump’s hatred for wind and solar energy until I read this. You know what uses more land than those energy sources? Golf courses. Trump, of course, is a golf junkie, I think for the simple reason that it’s a game where players are expected to honorably police themselves. He views that as license to cheat, which is all he really knows how to do.

The floor’s yours.