Newsom brands Trump a ‘dictator’ after National Guard deployed

How long before they activate the USA version of the Great Firewall?

One of these days, Americans are gonna try to browse on Lemmy but then realizing its blocked, and martial law is already in effect.

I'm travelling to Florida right now and I can't view pornhub or any if it's owned brands, which is a lot of adult content right now. It's apparently like this in 17 states. That's a self-imposed block, but it's because those states have ID check laws that are so invasive that they're rather not serve to those states.

at least someone in the government finally fucking said it. its been clear as day for months though.

Love your username.

Looking in from the outside, the US 100% does seem like it's thiiiiiis close to being a far right dictatorship.

I see many commentators, both foreign and domestic (to the US), saying that there's no way Republicans will win the next election after this clusterfuck, and I can't help but wonder if it isn't a bit premature to assume that there will be anything resembling fair elections in the US in the future – at least at a federal level or in any red state. What with the Trump regime taking an axe to federal election security etc etc

Trump has not been as badly damaged as people think, his approval rating has already recovered quite a bit. People have the memory of fruit flies.
- People have the memory of fruit flies.
  That seems like an unfair characterisation. Unfair to fruit flies, that is.
  "According to a study published in the Journal of Neuroscience, fruit flies have a memory span of just 15-30 seconds."
- they're fucking morons is what they are.
Yup. Trump has demonstrated that there's no consequences for doing this shit, so it must be okay for future politicians to pull the same shit and get away with it.
- What's scary is that it seems like every conservative around the world is fully erect / has soaked their panties taking notes of what the Trump regime is doing, and so many are outright blatantly copying the tactics – and they're working
Also looking in from the outside, it seems obvious to me that the 'plan' is to manufacture sufficient crises and push people just enough that Trump can invoke the Insurrection Act and "indefinitely delay" the midterms and future elections.
What I really don't get is, this one man seems to have total unchecked power? Americans go on and on about being 'free', not having a king, but their president has more power than any UK prime minister or modern king has ever had, and it goes completely unchecked. Recently in the UK, both Boris Johnson and Liz Truss (our UK-equivalent populist grifters) were ousted from the government for overreaching and lying, but there's nothing to deal with Trump? How the heck has the US gotten in this situation? You would've expected the democrats to put checks in place to stop this, given Trump's insurrection.
I just. don't. get it.
- He has total power because the GOP is a cult and the Republicans in the other branches of government choose to let him have unchecked power.
- Republicans in Congress could begin impeachment proceedings and put a stop to this at any point. They are choosing not to. It's not just Trump.
- Lots of “unwritten rules” that most presidents have followed historically. Just takes one person who doesn’t give a fuck about the rules to break the whole system wide open.
- Yeah the amount of power they've handed to the president is just absolutely fucking bonkers. Like, how did they think that'd be a good idea? For all their crowing about democracy, a lot of them sure do seem like they want anything but a democracy
Trump verifiably tried to steal the 2020 election on live television. Even though he failed, his attempt came close enough to succeeding to give pause for thought. There are fewer guardrails now than there were before to prevent something like that from happening again.
So, to that point, I say why wouldn't trump cheat again? He was never punished for his last attempt. In fact, he was rewarded for it!
We're never having another election that won't have doubt cast on it from either side. We burned that bridge on January 6th.
Trump literally said “you’ll never have to vote again.” The only way there will be another election is if he’s forcibly removed from power
- The part the most astonishing isn't the fact that he said it, but the numerous ways his dumbfuck supporters have performed mental gymnastics to downplay concerns about it as dogwhistling.
  I have heard stupid shit ranging from "he meant votes will be cast automatically" to "he's just trolling" to "good, it's leveling the playing field after Biden rigged 2020."
  Just maybe... the simplest answer is the correct one, and the guy who claimed he would be a dictator on day 1 and is sending an armed militia to provoke protesters in an attempt justify a violent response intended to crush dissent by making people fear for their safety is, in fact, a dictator that wants to eliminate the democratic process?
- But would that be enough, considering how unhinged Republicans have become? Would it just be a "meet the new boss, same as the old boss" situation until the wider problem of the radicalisation of the right is somehow dealt with?
I'm getting the feeling that what the US is thiiiiis close to is civil conflict.
- We'll see what the national guard does. If they fight the citizens, this is it. I'm hoping they don't. They're Californians themselves.
  Edit: 700 Marines from Twentynine Palms. If they're deployed to protect ICE, this is it, because the people won't stop rioting for them until they pull a Kent State and shoot civilians. I don't see how they've been tasked, so hopefully they're kept away from the active areas.
- No kidding. Basically I'm just waiting for news of journalists getting executed by this guy
- There’s plenty of civil conflict. Trump is trying to make it uncivil by calling in the military (as if local police weren’t already militarized enough).
the US 100% does seem like it’s thiiiiiis close to being a far right dictatorship.
Driving out to the Indian Reservation to tell all the First Nations people that we're extremely worried about the direction our government has taken. Heading back through the black ghettos with a big mega-phone strapped to my car, warning people about over-policing and the gestapo-like tactics of county-wide sheriffs' gangs. Rounding out my Paul Revere-esque ride at the US/Mexico border to inform all the migrant laborers who make their living doing piecework and odd-jobs and letting them know that they should not, in fact, trust the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. Turns out they're implementing a lawless pogrom across the southern border and are not, in fact, just protecting neighborhoods from people who are doing evil crimes.
there’s no way Republicans will win the next election after this clusterfuck
I mean, historically, the President's party eats shit in the midterms. Very possible we'll get a 2006 or 2018 blue wave of legislators as public opinion of the Trump administration sours again.
But what does Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jefferies do with an incoming Dem majority? Do they rewrite budgets to curtail the resources afforded to Trump-loyal rogue agencies? Do they claw back executive authority in the next NDAA and budget bills? Do they reject Trump cabinet appointees and judges who continue to defend unconstitutional governance? Do they advance new legislation to reform the immigration process, expand the authority of state governments to protect women's health and voting rights, and prohibit executive appointees from hijacking the digital tools of the bureaucracy in order to override legislative intent?
Or do they whine about not having veto-proof majorities and sit on their hands until 2028?
I am far less worried by the prospect of "rigged elections", because the US election system has always been janky and corrupt but so heavily decentralized that it's a rats' warren of different reporting systems you'd need to hijack.
I am far more worried by the prospect of a Controlled Opposition of Democrats, who show up to lend legitimacy to Trump policy through their own tenure of ratification, while making a stink about Trump's sex habits and online persona that lead to another series of nothingburger investigations and indictments that produce no penalty even when convictions are achieved.
What happens if Dems win for the next four years and then repeat 2020?
- I am far more worried by the prospect of a Controlled Opposition of Democrats
  I've seen lots of Americans saying that they think the Dems are essentially a controlled opposition party like they have in Russia, and it really does kind of seem like that – again, looking in from the outside. Not that there aren't any good Democrats, but that the "party apparatus" is kind of purposefully ineffective
  Edit: that wikipedia article is fucking wild. What the hell, USA?
- They write letters. Strongly worded ones.

Who could have foreseen that the guy who said "I'd love to be a dictator" is doing dictator things? Certainly not the 77 million people who voted for him.

"What do you mean the guy who said he would be a dictator on day 1 became a dictator on day 1?!"

trump is already going to send MARINES to LA.

Good thing Trump is a wimp.

As others have pointed out, he may talk loud and roleplay as a dictator hard, but (so far, in the business and political world), Trump shrinks when faced with a fair fight. He'll jawbone and bully and blow little guys up to look good. He cares about himself, and will brag about every loophole he exploits.

But it's much harder for him to, say, cross the line of arresting Newsom. Other dictatorships, even modern pseudo ones, feels eerily similar, but look closely, and it appears the leaders pushed the envelope strategically. Hitler, for instance, was relatively tame at first and took calculated, increasingly drastic and brutal steps, wheras Trump consistently backs down from the Machiavellian solution. See: the response to Elon's betrayal (so far).

At least that's my hope.

And I hope someone with a spine doesn't follow in his footsteps. The apparatus built around him is much scarier than Trump.

Trump is as afraid of war as his bonespur 'incident' so everybody knows his final threat is ultimately hollow as he wont risk war. In his mind he is a creator of peace.
TACO

I would like to see how much damage was done Saturday night. Hint: not much. I watched the live streams and it was just a lot of ICE standing in a line and LA peeps walking around. Very few protesters.

Then I would like to see the damage from Sunday. Hint: It was a few cars and waymos. The rest was a bit of flags and rubber bullets aimed at reporters and protestors to do harm. Oh yeah, I lot of smoke by soldiers and/or agents. Nothing makes great photos like smoke and fire when there really isn't much else going on. The reporting photos this morning made me laugh at how they focused on the pretty waymo fires and smoke.

Saturdays Live Streams:

Sunday's Live Streams:

AP - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXT945ZJNCI
Reuters - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSNMZEjRBsk
Agenda-Free TV - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BrsI2vVHKA
AXN News (?) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kmwdCmOkdQ

From what I've seen as well most fires aside from the Waymos were started by the flashbangs and smoke grenades the police were using.
I knew it was going to be bad, but fuck that comment section is radioactive.
- If you look across the different streams, the comments are all almost exactly the same. It leads me to believe bots. I guess it could be 10 really prolific copy and pasters though.

Dicklesstater would be more effective Gavin...

The Trump White House wouldn't disagree with that...

Shitolini at it again.