It's horrifying that one unelected man has so much power. A major media platform. Rockets. Satellites. It will grow immeasurably worse if DT becomes dictator.
Okay, let's go with that, Marg. So you cannot just create a law. So if Trump tries to do that, it would be law and order to the rescue. In o. words, the system would need to work as it is designed to, and declare the dictatoship illegal. Or everyone in the country, including many officials in their elected or appointed positions, could just refuse to obey. That is called "do not comply," right?
. Now, having said all of that, if the dictator still wins, then the country was not able to stop him. That means there is a failure of the state. So, it is a state failure and the dictator did not cause that. It was already in failure and ripe for take-over. If this country cannot STOP a dictator, then there is no legal basis present and essentially the country already did not exist. We only found out whan a dictator succeeded.
.Now, I want to say I really do not think Trump is the guy. As bad as he is, the exists national failure is worse. RFK & Trump working together is a plausible opportunity. Everyone should think about this.
You think Musk doesn't have counterweights? If you're looking for dictatorship, look to Obama, Harris, Soros, Schwab, Zuckerberg, Pichai, and those tech bros.
What we have is two groups fighting for dominance. Both want global dominance. I believe it become inevitable if DJT does not win the election. Just look at the tyrannical impulses that were realized around the world in the last 4 years, with the US leading the way. It has been both jarring and breathtaking.
For the moment, at least, Musk is more oriented towards freedom than his adversaries.
Kellen: Strongly disagree with most of these your assertions. Where to start?
1. Obama ran for president, was re-elected, and left office. Hardly the hallmark of a dictator.
2. Harris is running for president. There’s no indication that she, if elected, would strive to maintain that position for life. She’s exhibited no evidence of authoritarian tendencies throughout her lengthy career as an elected official. Like Obama, she’s not a broligarch. Nor has she shown herself to be empowering of the same.
6. The U.S. is hardly blameless but that’s not exactly a new feature that emerged suddenly in the past 4 years. Try the past 70. And that doesn’t mean we who live here should then be OK with an autocrat—which DT has said outright he would be.
Musk is no ally to “freedom.” He’s a libertarian oligarch who holds some abhorrent views, particularly when it comes to people of color, women, and his very own transgender child.
Freedom for oligarchs to have all the money and power, damn the rest of us, if that’s a definition of freedom that suits you.
1) It is widely reported that Obama is the one running the country behind the scenes. That sounds like a dictator wannabe.
2)Harris isn't nearly smart enough to be a dictator. She's just a puppet being installed, so Obama can continue his control. Biden was a puppet.
3) Musk is, as I said, "at the moment" more oriented towards freedom. So you substantially misinterpreted my statement on him.
4) DT's statement is taken out of context. He said it, jokingly, referring to his first day in office only. Kinda like Biden and all his exec orders on day 1. I know the left desperately wants to paid DT as a dictator but it is simply in accurate. There is nothing in his first term that indicates this tendency, and it is Dems who want to abuse their power to take away rights, not the least of which is parental rights. And that, Marthe, is the foundation of dictatorships: place the state between parents and children.
5) Freedom, as I define it, would result in money and power moving away from oligarchs and towards "the rest of us".
6) Soros - first George, now Alex - are dictatorial globalists. There is absolutely no question about that. All you have to do is look at the politicians he has supported for office. They are all marxists.
Thank you Jay. I knew some of this but not all and it’s truly terrifying. In the short term, we need to make sure Kamala Harris wins and to support down ballot democrats.
In the longer term we need to take up campaign finance reform again, something I haven’t seen discussed much in a while. I know there are some major barriers to this now that court rulings have established corporations as counting as persons for the purpose of free speech and therefore near unlimited campaign contributions. I realize this is a topic for another day, post-election but I would love to see a legal analysis of what can be done about this later. I was first made aware of the issue of campaign finance reform by the late great Molly Ivins and I’m not sure who is the standard bearer for it now. Hindering these broligarchs from buying politicians isn’t the whole answer, but this story reminds me why it’s important.
If a corporation was like “a person” re first amendment rights and political rights, shouldn’t the limits to political campaigns be like a person rather than the unlimited amounts being donated , such as Thiel buying a senate seat in the form of JD Vance for $15m? I may be mixing metaphors so to speak as the use of PACs and super PACs along w the Citizens United ruling has allowed this red tide to bloom.
then the Death Penalty can be invoked for major misdeeds such as treason, murder of workers or customers, and promoting the overthrow of the government. Monopolies should not exist and be broken up and sold off to create real capitalistic competition. Utilities should be owned by the government.
Peter Thiel was one of the prime leaders of the push to drive women out of Silicon Valley firms and out of Computer Science jobs, he is notorious among women in the industry who dominated the field in the early 70s.
His misogyny was amply demonstrated as he remade that landscape with his buddies--and we pay for it very dearly, every single day. I argue that the lax treatment of private data, and the fact so much of the Internet is dedicated to porn for the male gaze would have been considerably tempered if women had been building these systems. Few men have been stalked online by creeps -- except LGBTQ.
One suggestion: follow this up with a summary of the involvement of cryptocurrency, because Thiel and his broligarchs and the Russian oligarchs are so entangled with that money laundering operation it is now hard to keep them apart. Follow the money.
SC that is an extremely relevant point, and sets the Techno-Fascist evolution history and locus exactly. Silicon Valley was not all a Steve Jobs summer camp, an envious and aggressive dark crew saw opportunities to control and rule in the distance, vs developing beautiful and high-function products with inherent and creative social benefits.
These emerged TechBros all share a common trait which they flash to the public constantly, there is “bad code” there, emotionally and intellectually and allowing them ANY political power is a terrible mistake.
Great point about crypto. Especially since Trump talked at the crypto conference last weekend and is now mixing crypto into his statements. There is something cooking and it needs to be exposed.
Thiel is the mastermind of Palantir, a data collection farm that specializes in providing data assets to law enforcement agencies around the globe, including for totalitarian regimes.
Thiel's company probably knows what color pyjamas y'all wear to bed at night.
Dems need to ask the American public: Is this the kind of regime you want overseeing the emergence of AI?
Would you prefer the Chinese social credit model? Cameras everywhere and facial recognition technology in use? State mandates enforced by police and military? Fiery but mostly peaceful protests?
Death for those who do not comply. For that is the alternative if Ms Harris gets into power. Just take a look at Britain under Smarmer.
My son is a mid-level bureaucrat in state government, and I’m very aware that it’s people like him who know how the systems work, how to keep everything running smoothly, and where upgrades are required. Replacing all of them at the federal level with mindless sycophants would be a recipe for instant dystopia where nothing works right, nothing that breaks will ever get fixed, and nothing new can ever be attempted. Not to mention Putin levels of corruption.
Scary stuff that will be denied by many in my social and family circles. Most of them won't even listen or read negative commentary about their 'heroes'.
So, wait a sec..... If jdv believes people with children should have more votes, do those children lose their right to vote when they turn 18? Otherwise, they're double dipping.
Vance is "...a man intentionally placed by the tech billionaires ... a tool of those prepared to destroy our Republic and replace it with an Orbánian new “postliberal” order." In other words, the proverbial Manchurian Candidate. Thanks for clarifying.
That's what I'm talking about. Does each parent get to vote for each kid, which could mean two votes per kid? Or does just the father get to vote since women shouldn't be voting anyhow. 🤬
What about foster parents? Or adoptive parents? Or grandparents raising grandchildren? Do fathers in prison get extra votes for their children? Aunts and uncles who raise the children of their siblings after tragedies? What about when teens have children? Do their parents get even more votes than before? Honestly, the possibilities are endless. And finally, do child-less men still vote?
Just the father votes of course: as women must be disenfranchised, and children are not old enough. Property ownership will probably become necessary too, for even men to qualify to vote. Turning the clock back around 100 years. And, in any case, Donald Trump (if he wins) will "fix things so good" that people need never vote again -- except in sham elections.
The Father. The children a wife are subsumed into his control. That's how it was in the good old days. Everything the woman owned became his, including her paycheck, her body, her kids. And he could spend it all and dump her in a asylum, or abandon her, or beat her to death. And he could have mistresses or whatever. She couldn't buy a car or house or get a credit card or open a bank account without a Father, Brother or Husband. Voting? Are you kidding? Women died trying to get the vote.
And we intend to keep it. We outnumber them. They know it and there are more guns than people. The voting booth is the preferred method. Putin wants Trump or a civil war.
Don't worry, they will be pregnant at 14 so they won't lose the right to vote as long as they comply with their bodies. I'm sure the age of consent would be removed or lowered nation wide. I'm also assuming when they say the "parent" has the votes of the children they mean the father. Obviously they have to get rid of artificial insemination otherwise that guy with like 1000 kids would be the standard, eh nevermind they're probably fine with that.
Sounds like these broligarchs have used “ Handmaid's Tale” as the inspiration behind Project 2025. That freaks me out. We’ve got to wake everyone up to this horrid possibility and grab the reigns of democracy.
“And so I come full circle on this response and just want to encourage you with some substance that we are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”
It was such a curious choice of words by Mr Roberts. That’s what caught my eye. I’ve read many disjointed pieces on this subject but yours was the first that tied it together
I had to laugh at Deenan's "aristopopulism" with the "virtuous elite" (like Catholic priests?) providing "order and structure." I thought "the elites" were bad, now my head is spinning!
I’ve been yelling about this for years. The elites on the right obsessively talk about “elites” as if they aren’t the exact same thing they are talking about. Every accusation is a confession on the right. Every.Single.Time.
Observing from half a world away - the best response to so many of those right wing loons seems to be "I know you are, you said you are, so what am I?"
And like Germans and others who believed - wrongly- that they would be exempt from state-led discrimination and mob violence, Peter Thiel (gay man) and David Sacks (Jewish man) - should be careful what they wish for.
Theil doesn't think that they will turn on him in a second, as soon as they have power, and either force him to marry and impregnate a devout woman, or be interned.
Thank you, Jay, for this vital information. Much of it, I'm embarrassed to admit, is new to me. You're performing an essential service by pulling so much into the open.
In the leaked Roe V Wade reversal draft, Alito included a citation that referenced a CDC report that said almost 1 million women were seeking to adopt children in 2002 ( actual words included “they were in demand for a child”),but the domestic supply of infants relinquished at birth and available for adoption had become almost zero.The media claimed nothing to see here as Alito was referring to Safe Haven laws. Well…this Baby Scoop Era adoptee says Alito, MAGA and the broligarchs are planning for Baby Scoop Era II.
“We’ve been here before, of course—most recently in the decades from 1945 to 1973, now known as the “Baby Scoop” era, when more than 1.5 million pregnant girls and women in the U.S. were sent away to maternity homes to surrender children in secret.
By the 1960s, more than 200 homes for unmarried pregnant women were operating across 44 states. Parents, often counseled by religious leaders, sent their daughters away to these homes to wait out their pregnancies and relinquish their babies to “legitimate” married couples. Meanwhile, the young men who shared equal responsibility for the pregnancies typically carried on with their lives unfettered by social stigma.“
I've thought about that and the MAGAs will do the same as they won't feed, raise, educate and train the numerous excess unwanted kids that are produced. There will be a generation of emotionally stunted mentality damaged kids like in Romanian Orphanages.
Ironically, none if this was taking about when Musk bought Twitter. I was adamant that he had an agenda that he didn't reveal. Now we see it.
It's horrifying that one unelected man has so much power. A major media platform. Rockets. Satellites. It will grow immeasurably worse if DT becomes dictator.
America does not have a position of "dictator." There is no such office. He cannot legally become a dictator.
Hilarious, Jacob. He’s clearly desirous of a president-for-life position. Six of one.
A dictator doesn’t need the law he creates it.
Okay, let's go with that, Marg. So you cannot just create a law. So if Trump tries to do that, it would be law and order to the rescue. In o. words, the system would need to work as it is designed to, and declare the dictatoship illegal. Or everyone in the country, including many officials in their elected or appointed positions, could just refuse to obey. That is called "do not comply," right?
. Now, having said all of that, if the dictator still wins, then the country was not able to stop him. That means there is a failure of the state. So, it is a state failure and the dictator did not cause that. It was already in failure and ripe for take-over. If this country cannot STOP a dictator, then there is no legal basis present and essentially the country already did not exist. We only found out whan a dictator succeeded.
.Now, I want to say I really do not think Trump is the guy. As bad as he is, the exists national failure is worse. RFK & Trump working together is a plausible opportunity. Everyone should think about this.
You think Musk doesn't have counterweights? If you're looking for dictatorship, look to Obama, Harris, Soros, Schwab, Zuckerberg, Pichai, and those tech bros.
What we have is two groups fighting for dominance. Both want global dominance. I believe it become inevitable if DJT does not win the election. Just look at the tyrannical impulses that were realized around the world in the last 4 years, with the US leading the way. It has been both jarring and breathtaking.
For the moment, at least, Musk is more oriented towards freedom than his adversaries.
Kellen: Strongly disagree with most of these your assertions. Where to start?
1. Obama ran for president, was re-elected, and left office. Hardly the hallmark of a dictator.
2. Harris is running for president. There’s no indication that she, if elected, would strive to maintain that position for life. She’s exhibited no evidence of authoritarian tendencies throughout her lengthy career as an elected official. Like Obama, she’s not a broligarch. Nor has she shown herself to be empowering of the same.
3. Who’s Schwab again?
4. Soros? Really? https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-49584157.amp
5. Zuckerberg is a destructive force. Agreed.
6. The U.S. is hardly blameless but that’s not exactly a new feature that emerged suddenly in the past 4 years. Try the past 70. And that doesn’t mean we who live here should then be OK with an autocrat—which DT has said outright he would be.
Musk is no ally to “freedom.” He’s a libertarian oligarch who holds some abhorrent views, particularly when it comes to people of color, women, and his very own transgender child.
Freedom for oligarchs to have all the money and power, damn the rest of us, if that’s a definition of freedom that suits you.
1) It is widely reported that Obama is the one running the country behind the scenes. That sounds like a dictator wannabe.
2)Harris isn't nearly smart enough to be a dictator. She's just a puppet being installed, so Obama can continue his control. Biden was a puppet.
3) Musk is, as I said, "at the moment" more oriented towards freedom. So you substantially misinterpreted my statement on him.
4) DT's statement is taken out of context. He said it, jokingly, referring to his first day in office only. Kinda like Biden and all his exec orders on day 1. I know the left desperately wants to paid DT as a dictator but it is simply in accurate. There is nothing in his first term that indicates this tendency, and it is Dems who want to abuse their power to take away rights, not the least of which is parental rights. And that, Marthe, is the foundation of dictatorships: place the state between parents and children.
5) Freedom, as I define it, would result in money and power moving away from oligarchs and towards "the rest of us".
6) Soros - first George, now Alex - are dictatorial globalists. There is absolutely no question about that. All you have to do is look at the politicians he has supported for office. They are all marxists.
I sure do agree. With Kellen...
I don't understand the sentence "Ironically, none if this was taking about when Musk bought Twitter."
Are there typos? Could you explain what it means, please?
Should say, " none of this was talked about when a Musk bought Twitter"
Thanks.
Thank you Jay. I knew some of this but not all and it’s truly terrifying. In the short term, we need to make sure Kamala Harris wins and to support down ballot democrats.
In the longer term we need to take up campaign finance reform again, something I haven’t seen discussed much in a while. I know there are some major barriers to this now that court rulings have established corporations as counting as persons for the purpose of free speech and therefore near unlimited campaign contributions. I realize this is a topic for another day, post-election but I would love to see a legal analysis of what can be done about this later. I was first made aware of the issue of campaign finance reform by the late great Molly Ivins and I’m not sure who is the standard bearer for it now. Hindering these broligarchs from buying politicians isn’t the whole answer, but this story reminds me why it’s important.
If a corporation was like “a person” re first amendment rights and political rights, shouldn’t the limits to political campaigns be like a person rather than the unlimited amounts being donated , such as Thiel buying a senate seat in the form of JD Vance for $15m? I may be mixing metaphors so to speak as the use of PACs and super PACs along w the Citizens United ruling has allowed this red tide to bloom.
If a Corporation is a person
then the Death Penalty can be invoked for major misdeeds such as treason, murder of workers or customers, and promoting the overthrow of the government. Monopolies should not exist and be broken up and sold off to create real capitalistic competition. Utilities should be owned by the government.
"The US has the best democracy that money can buy"
Peter Thiel was one of the prime leaders of the push to drive women out of Silicon Valley firms and out of Computer Science jobs, he is notorious among women in the industry who dominated the field in the early 70s.
His misogyny was amply demonstrated as he remade that landscape with his buddies--and we pay for it very dearly, every single day. I argue that the lax treatment of private data, and the fact so much of the Internet is dedicated to porn for the male gaze would have been considerably tempered if women had been building these systems. Few men have been stalked online by creeps -- except LGBTQ.
One suggestion: follow this up with a summary of the involvement of cryptocurrency, because Thiel and his broligarchs and the Russian oligarchs are so entangled with that money laundering operation it is now hard to keep them apart. Follow the money.
Always follow the money!👍
SC that is an extremely relevant point, and sets the Techno-Fascist evolution history and locus exactly. Silicon Valley was not all a Steve Jobs summer camp, an envious and aggressive dark crew saw opportunities to control and rule in the distance, vs developing beautiful and high-function products with inherent and creative social benefits.
These emerged TechBros all share a common trait which they flash to the public constantly, there is “bad code” there, emotionally and intellectually and allowing them ANY political power is a terrible mistake.
Great point about crypto. Especially since Trump talked at the crypto conference last weekend and is now mixing crypto into his statements. There is something cooking and it needs to be exposed.
If you can.
Excellent report! These BROLIGARCHS aren't just "weird" they are destructive fascists.
Thiel is the mastermind of Palantir, a data collection farm that specializes in providing data assets to law enforcement agencies around the globe, including for totalitarian regimes.
Thiel's company probably knows what color pyjamas y'all wear to bed at night.
Dems need to ask the American public: Is this the kind of regime you want overseeing the emergence of AI?
Would you prefer the Chinese social credit model? Cameras everywhere and facial recognition technology in use? State mandates enforced by police and military? Fiery but mostly peaceful protests?
Death for those who do not comply. For that is the alternative if Ms Harris gets into power. Just take a look at Britain under Smarmer.
David you are describing a Trump presidency.
No I dont think so.
Bullshit
BS
My son is a mid-level bureaucrat in state government, and I’m very aware that it’s people like him who know how the systems work, how to keep everything running smoothly, and where upgrades are required. Replacing all of them at the federal level with mindless sycophants would be a recipe for instant dystopia where nothing works right, nothing that breaks will ever get fixed, and nothing new can ever be attempted. Not to mention Putin levels of corruption.
It's the corruption that's tempting them. Looting the Government and running it thru bribes is what they desire.
They act like there’s somewhere to go.
Scary stuff that will be denied by many in my social and family circles. Most of them won't even listen or read negative commentary about their 'heroes'.
So, wait a sec..... If jdv believes people with children should have more votes, do those children lose their right to vote when they turn 18? Otherwise, they're double dipping.
Vance is "...a man intentionally placed by the tech billionaires ... a tool of those prepared to destroy our Republic and replace it with an Orbánian new “postliberal” order." In other words, the proverbial Manchurian Candidate. Thanks for clarifying.
He also thinks parents should get to cast more votes, one for each kid. I wonder which parent will get to cast those votes in his worldview…?
That's what I'm talking about. Does each parent get to vote for each kid, which could mean two votes per kid? Or does just the father get to vote since women shouldn't be voting anyhow. 🤬
What about foster parents? Or adoptive parents? Or grandparents raising grandchildren? Do fathers in prison get extra votes for their children? Aunts and uncles who raise the children of their siblings after tragedies? What about when teens have children? Do their parents get even more votes than before? Honestly, the possibilities are endless. And finally, do child-less men still vote?
Just the father votes of course: as women must be disenfranchised, and children are not old enough. Property ownership will probably become necessary too, for even men to qualify to vote. Turning the clock back around 100 years. And, in any case, Donald Trump (if he wins) will "fix things so good" that people need never vote again -- except in sham elections.
The Father. The children a wife are subsumed into his control. That's how it was in the good old days. Everything the woman owned became his, including her paycheck, her body, her kids. And he could spend it all and dump her in a asylum, or abandon her, or beat her to death. And he could have mistresses or whatever. She couldn't buy a car or house or get a credit card or open a bank account without a Father, Brother or Husband. Voting? Are you kidding? Women died trying to get the vote.
And we intend to keep it. We outnumber them. They know it and there are more guns than people. The voting booth is the preferred method. Putin wants Trump or a civil war.
But we aren’t going back.
Don't worry, they will be pregnant at 14 so they won't lose the right to vote as long as they comply with their bodies. I'm sure the age of consent would be removed or lowered nation wide. I'm also assuming when they say the "parent" has the votes of the children they mean the father. Obviously they have to get rid of artificial insemination otherwise that guy with like 1000 kids would be the standard, eh nevermind they're probably fine with that.
I would think that banning IVF would abolish artificial insemination.
Sounds like these broligarchs have used “ Handmaid's Tale” as the inspiration behind Project 2025. That freaks me out. We’ve got to wake everyone up to this horrid possibility and grab the reigns of democracy.
This explains Kevin Robert’s statement,
“And so I come full circle on this response and just want to encourage you with some substance that we are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”
I thought of that while writing this piece.
It was such a curious choice of words by Mr Roberts. That’s what caught my eye. I’ve read many disjointed pieces on this subject but yours was the first that tied it together
Trump and Vance are just the frontmen for the broligarchs. Thanks for bringing these guys to light. We live in dangerous times.
I had to laugh at Deenan's "aristopopulism" with the "virtuous elite" (like Catholic priests?) providing "order and structure." I thought "the elites" were bad, now my head is spinning!
I’ve been yelling about this for years. The elites on the right obsessively talk about “elites” as if they aren’t the exact same thing they are talking about. Every accusation is a confession on the right. Every.Single.Time.
Observing from half a world away - the best response to so many of those right wing loons seems to be "I know you are, you said you are, so what am I?"
Elites are only bad if it's not them. 🙄
And like Germans and others who believed - wrongly- that they would be exempt from state-led discrimination and mob violence, Peter Thiel (gay man) and David Sacks (Jewish man) - should be careful what they wish for.
Theil doesn't think that they will turn on him in a second, as soon as they have power, and either force him to marry and impregnate a devout woman, or be interned.
I love the "broligarchs" title for these weird, creepy guys. It captures their isolation from the rest of us.
Thank you, Jay, for this vital information. Much of it, I'm embarrassed to admit, is new to me. You're performing an essential service by pulling so much into the open.
The concern of a low birth rate was one of Nikolai Ceaușescu’s priorities.
This is only one of the articles. A friend of a friend adopted some of the orphans.
https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/176102
The parallels between his programs and the aims of Project 2025 and the MAGA senators and representatives are apparent.
This is only one of the articles on his other programs.
https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2014/12/24/369593135/25-years-after-death-a-dictator-still-casts-a-shadow-in-romania
In the leaked Roe V Wade reversal draft, Alito included a citation that referenced a CDC report that said almost 1 million women were seeking to adopt children in 2002 ( actual words included “they were in demand for a child”),but the domestic supply of infants relinquished at birth and available for adoption had become almost zero.The media claimed nothing to see here as Alito was referring to Safe Haven laws. Well…this Baby Scoop Era adoptee says Alito, MAGA and the broligarchs are planning for Baby Scoop Era II.
Baby Scoop Era? I am not familiar with this term.
“We’ve been here before, of course—most recently in the decades from 1945 to 1973, now known as the “Baby Scoop” era, when more than 1.5 million pregnant girls and women in the U.S. were sent away to maternity homes to surrender children in secret.
By the 1960s, more than 200 homes for unmarried pregnant women were operating across 44 states. Parents, often counseled by religious leaders, sent their daughters away to these homes to wait out their pregnancies and relinquish their babies to “legitimate” married couples. Meanwhile, the young men who shared equal responsibility for the pregnancies typically carried on with their lives unfettered by social stigma.“
https://time.com/6103001/baby-scoop-era-abortion/
Thanks for sharing. Very important article. I learned something today.
Thank you for reading,Gabriela. Adoption is complicated…and certainly not the answer.Please share.
💙
It gets worse: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54693159 Similar things happened to unwed mothers in this country.
Wow. Thanks for the link. It’s inhumane how mothers and babies were treated.
I've thought about that and the MAGAs will do the same as they won't feed, raise, educate and train the numerous excess unwanted kids that are produced. There will be a generation of emotionally stunted mentality damaged kids like in Romanian Orphanages.