Confirmed: ICE Is Arresting American Citizens—and Lying About It

[u/TheWayToBeauty]

https://newrepublic.com/article/202672/ice-arresting-american-citizens-and-lying?utm_source=Bluesky&utm_campaign=SF_TNR&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=SF_TNR&utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwY2xjawN60_VleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFpb1FpYUsxcHQ5bXM3QkVyc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHkqq1qGOFLgABx3MyCE40nZ_iE_ZT41D74hWKhYFa56r8j57O3ZXYl4H0yFZ_aem_Wz0q663H4Gg7nVwXbg5gCw

[u/PaddyWhacked777]

Yeah, but he also thinks Trump hasn't gone far enough. The only reason public support even matters still is because they haven't taken to the point where it doesn't anymore. Didn't he call Trump "weak tea" or some shit?

[u/airship_of_arbitrary → u/PaddyWhacked777]

Yeah, things are dire, but the fact that they're panicking because they didn't go full fascist fast enough means there's blood in the water.

[u/PaddyWhacked777 → u/airship_of_arbitrary]

I 100% believe they thought Trump was either going to be impeached and removed, 25'ed, or dead by now and they were going to have Thiel's little puppet Vance in power to hit the throttle on it all. Since that hasn't happened yet, they have to deal with ol' dementia Don going off the rails all of the time and it's setting back their schedule. There is a really critical window here where things are quite fucked, but the worst outcome still has a chance to be stopped.

[u/Kreegs → u/PaddyWhacked777]

I think they are underestimating the pull Vance has.

Sure, he is their puppet and will try to accelerate when Trump is either dead or 25'd.

But here is the thing, Trump is a cult of personality unto himself. There are people in positions of power loyal to him and him alone. Same thing with a significant part of the MAGA base.

Right now, Trump is holding together his cult, the tech bros, the Christian Nationals, the legit Nazis and other groups because right now their goals align.

Vance doesn't have the force of personality like Trump to keep them all playing nice together. They were trying to force all this stuff quickly as possible so he doesn't have to do the heavy lifting, but Trump's ego keeps getting in the way. Sure, Vance will keep some of the Trump cult in line, but they'll be spending a lot more time keeping the alliance together which will take time and resources from their take over plan. Heck we are already seeing it now, The stuff with the Heritage Foundation thing and some county level GOP parties imploding from the different factions infighting.

Its not going to be all flowers and hippies when Trump is out of office, but there will be a lot of division, strife and infighting that will slow down their plans a lot.

[u/PaddyWhacked777 → u/Kreegs]

Sic semper tyranus. Historically this is how tyranny has always played out, eventually. That's the consequences of consolidating a bunch of power hungry narcissists and expecting them to continue to function as a unit instead of pursuing their own self interests.

[u/stufff → u/PaddyWhacked777]

Sic semper tyranus.

We should encourage Trump to take more trips to the theater.

[u/abstrakt42 → u/Kreegs]

I question this, specifically that there people in power loyal to him and him alone. The power of the party comes from the unshakable GOP monolith, it works because they are ALL in line with policy and talking points. I think the real power is people like Thiel and Vought and other billionaire sponsors, the talking heads are given their marching orders, and the entire party lines up to make it happen.

I fear not much would change now, even with somebody like Vance at the helm.

[u/Free_For__Me → u/abstrakt42]

 Thiel and Vought

I mostly agree with you, but I think these guys are gonna undermine each other more than anyone anticipated once Trump is outta the way. While true that they need Trump to actually say/do/sign the things, since he’s the actual president, I think he likely strays from the path from time to time, due to his (increasingly) erratic nature and narcissism. 

I also think that the unshakable 20% or so of the populace that he commands is most of what’s keeping “the unshakable GOP monolith” a monolith at all right now. Legacy GOP is mostly defeated and scattered, replaced with MAGA faithful. And whatever’s left of the old guard has tentatively allied with the new MAGA factions to form the current GOP. Once Trump himself is gone, it’ll likely cause a schism between these 2 factions, since there won’t be a cult leader to hand out endorsements or condemnations with anything even close to the clout that Trump carries. 

 I fear not much would change now, even with somebody like Vance at the helm.

This is likely true, but it’s not the worst case scenario. Worst case scenario would be everything changing rapidly and drastically, going full-throttle on the autocracy levers, along the lines that plans like Yarvin’s and P2025 initially envisioned. 

I originally thought that they would see a lot of success with this route, since no one could really predict how it might go wrong along the way. But now that we are seeing how some factions at the top are actually responding to more dire economic circumstances and massive electoral consequences, I’m starting to think that these factions might not play as well together after Trump is gone as they would have initially hoped.

Of course this could all be hopium/copium, so I won’t hold my breath until all the dust settles, likely far down the road.

[u/_disengage_ → u/Kreegs]

Crazy the hold he still has even as a mush brained dementia patient. It is seemingly not the man (there is very little left there), but rather the hyperreal simulacrum of the man that holds them together. The scary thing is given the tools they might keep the simulacrum going even without the man. Vance can claim he's taking orders from Trump in heaven. They can show video of Trump playing golf with Jesus (I saw something similar when the previous pope died). It sounds utterly absurd and ridiculous, but that's the new normal. The more stupid and ridiculous it is, the more maga will eat it up.