It even shocked Megyn Kelly of Fox News, so you know it’s got to be far beyond the pale: a Trumpkin cites the WWII Japanese internment camps as precedent for how to deal with Muslims.
We used to legally allow slaves, denied women the right to vote, and hanged witches, too. Is this what “Make America Great Again” means?
So Trump and his folks are to the right of Fox News, but people are still arguing he’s basically the same as Clinton.
Stop the world I want to get off.
So, do you have approval ratings for President-elects, too? I’m curious to know whether the raw sewage dripping down into the public mind has already turned a majority of American citizens (not just voters) against Trump.
I bet the people who voted for him still like him and the people who say “trump and clinton are basically the same” are still convincing themselves this is true.
Trumps approval ratings will be great.
Yep, they voted for him because they think that’s OK. But don’t judge them, right?
@Giliell
That would be reverse racism, or something.
applehead @ 2:
Yes we do. Currently Trump’s approval rating sits at 42%, which is up from his pre-election rating of 34%. He also has an unfavorable rating of 55%.
There is the unlikely possibility of electoral college electors going “faithless” and appointing someone besides TrumpPence.
Here I’ll share the petition:
http://electoralcollegepetition.com
further explanation of the petition at http://electoralcollegepetition.com
“Is this what “Make America Great Again” means?”
Where were you all this time?
Is this what “Make America Great Again” means?
Yes – weren’t you listening for the past 18 months?
Not gonna watch that clip so I’l ask, did Meyn even mention Allegiance, currently on Broadway, detailing the life of an American family with Japanese ancestry, experiencing internment camps? I doubt she would, and would really like to be wrong in this case.
*sniff sniff* trying to support Takei. ‘oooh myyyy’
lostbrit @ 3
If a million people do a stupid thing it’s still a stupid thing.
[Cross-posted from the MoPM thread:]
David Cole – “The Way to Stop Trump”:
(Donating to the Center for Constitutional Rights would be a good idea right about now.)
I just learned yesterday that slavery was the likely reason we still have the electoral college system:
http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/12/13598316/donald-trump-electoral-college-slavery-akhil-reed-amar
Jesus pissfucking christ. Seriously? “Basket of deplorables” wasn’t strong enough language. I didn’t think my view of Trump supporters could get any worse but here’s one of them openly calling for fucking internment camps. What’s next, red crescent armbands?
*sigh*
Earlier today I made a post on my Tumblr urging calm. That there’s no way Trump would go full dictator. That being alarmist about him only served to frighten vulnerable people needlessly.
I’m not so sure now.
Well, that’s good.
Because you are simply, completely wrong.
As someone who lived under fascism (Russian) wrote, believe the dictator!!!
These people aren’t hiding anything. They will do what they said they will do.
In 1933 most people thought Hitler’s rhetoric about the Jews was just hyperbolic. 12 years later, 50 million were dead, including 6 million Jews.
#14, 15
Raven is right.
The executive has very strong control over the military, which is the only facet of government that really matters. Could Congress or the Supreme Court stop Trump from disbanding (or just ignoring) either of them?
I think that we should watch for a purge of the military, which would be the first step towards a coup.
The horrifying thing is that he’s probably right that such a registry would be legal (at least legal as decided by the new Supreme Court).
The five stages of grief. Denial, bargaining, anger, depression, acceptance.
I skipped denial and bargaining. Hit anger, Will never hit acceptance.
Everyone will live their own life the way they choose.
I will resist Trump and the fascists any way I can.
Lawfully, without breaking any laws.
Don’t donate to religions or religious charities. Vote. Donate to causes like Planned Parenthood, FTB’s, and FFRF. Boycott Hobby Lobby, LL Bean, Chick fil a, companies run by right wingnuts. Speak up when it is safe. Whatever else is possible.
It’s not much. It’s nothing when one person does it. It’s a lot when 100 million Americans do it.
A registry of Moslems probably wouldn’t be legal.
A registry of foreigners living in the USA probably would be.
When I was a kid back in the Dark Ages, February was “Alien Registration Month”. Once a year, all non US citizens were required to register their presence and location at the post office.
You would see ads on TV and everywhere about it.
One day it went away and no one really noticed it.
This was the Smith Act.
It’s still the law.
And, there is still a database of all non-US citizens residing in the USA.
AFAICT, the only difference now is that they aren’t required to register once a year.
I wonder about the possibility of this tactic: that when Muslim registration becomes mandatory, about 1 million (or 10 million) non-Muslim Americans convert for the day.
Sure, it’s probably a crime to lie on such a Federal form, but how could someone prove you weren’t actually a Muslim on the day you filled out the form? Will there be retroactive religious purity tests for the particular day you’re being prosecuted for? And there’s a specific value that you must have reached on that day to have justified your feelings of Muslim devotion?
I also wonder how many people it would take to snarl up Federal exploitation of such a database.
The 14 point checklist of Ur-Fascism.
I just signed up to make a $30 monthly donation to the ACLU. My wife will do the same for Planned Parenthood. It still doesn’t seem like nearly enough.
rave@19 — LL Bean, too? Shit, I’ve spent a lot of money there over the years.
Yep, not only is it legal, registration is a requirement for refugees, emigrants, foreign tourists, and so forth. So called “illegals” don’t have such things, of course, which is what makes them illegals. That part is not unique as most countries have some way to record aliens entering the country.
What is somewhat unique is that US citizens are not required to carry official identification, at least if you’re just walking around. That could change, of course.
To paraphrase, those that wish to give up some freedom for some security deserve neither freedom nor security. This dolt seems to not understand the conflict between the two.
once again some conservative ass demonstrates that he does not believe in democracy and the principles on which the government of the United States was founded.
the once noble Republican party has been taken over by those who in the 1790’s would have Royalists and now seem to be poised to try and remake the country into some new kingdoom with themselves on top of course.
a counter revolution? is that what won the election.
Has anyone access to any data on voter suppression in the country by state it might be interesting to put that up against the electoral college vote
it ain’t all just the trump effect surely
Obama won with overwhelming turnout and just cancelled the voter suppression efforts.
uncle frogy
Raven,
I would add Walmart and Bucee’s to that list. Living in Texas, it’s quite difficult to avoid businesses run by right wingnuts – even small businesses here are run by them. I do boycott them as much as possible. Haven’t been in a Walmart since 2009. Even though I’ve always been in favor of buying local, I often go out of my way to buy foods that are from the west coast or New York, etc. This became very clear to me when we passed a major egg-producing farm that had two fracking drills working and flames venting the by-products right behind the barn, which was all visible from the highway – yuck!
I feel the same way about honey produced in Texas. I like to buy directly from my favorite producer in California. I used to buy from her at the farmer’s markets when we lived there. When I don’t buy from her, I buy imported German honey from the military commissary. Both of those choices are better (and cheaper!) than the local products.
The town south of here that is famous for its strawberry festival in the spring is also in the middle of fracking territory. I check labels carefully and buy west coast produced fruit at the commissary.
I really, really want to move back to California.
And they complain about FEMA death camps.
Raven (#19):
I remember this. I had a “Green Card”, and it was very important not to forget to register yearly, on penalty of losing the card, and being deported.
Other things I remember, from traveling and then living, and then travelling in the US in the 50s and early 60s:
“Whites only” washrooms.
“Whites only” restaurants. My parents were travelling with Dad’s secretary, a Californian Latina. She was rather dark, and a restaurant refused to serve her. My parents got up and left; they ate jam sandwiches in the car, instead.
“Whites only” water fountains.
A minister who was deeply offended by Dad, who introduced him to an African-American pastor, in a way that “forced” (the minister’s word) him to shake the black man’s hand.
Girls, my classmates, suddenly disappearing, to go stay with an “aunt”. Most never came back.
“Homes” for wayward girls, meaning girls who got pregnant and wouldn’t say who the father was, or refused to marry him.
“Shotgun weddings”; remember that term? Mine was one. “Get married before you start to show!”
Back-alley abortions. One of my friends survived one. Not every girl was so lucky.
Communists under the bed. These days, it will be Muslims.
Blacklists.
No women preachers.
Debates about whether women should be allowed to vote.
And, of course, “She was asking for it, wearing that outfit, or being out alone, or walking on that street, or getting in that car with her boyfriend, or ….”
And not a single black person or Asian or native American in my entire high school.
The Little Rock riots over desegregation.
Etcetera.
America, when it was great, in Trump’s mind.
when I was a child and death seemed so very far away. and now reality is just not so friendly and the end is oh much closer
ah youth when America was great and was always right
and ignorance ruled the day
uncle frogy
I remember these.
There was a “home” stuck out of the way somewhere.
IIRC, it was called The White Shield home for wayward girls. If you got pregnant as a teenager, it was understood you weren’t going to be in school. It was forbidden.
So they sent you to the home, you gave birth, and then put the kid up for adoption.
What wasn’t seen, never happened.
I remember the shotgun weddings. It happened to a few girls I knew. It happened to…one of my relatives. They usually didn’t last too long, ending shortly after the birth.
Back-alley abortions. One of my friends survived one. Not every girl was so lucky
Presumably everyone is stockpiling RU-486?
Given the ease with which drugs can be mailed around in darkweb transactions, I’ve been pondering whether the government could do any actual thing to prevent a website where anyone who wants some could request RU-486 and get it by mail, no questions asked. Actually setting up a shuffled distribution system would be pretty simple, and a couple hundred thousand bucks worth of RU-486 would probably do the trick. A few of us could make that sort of thing happen relatively quickly.
I would add Walmart and Bucee’s to that list. Living in Texas, it’s quite difficult to avoid businesses run by right wingnuts
If someone really wanted to wad the wingnuts panties up, they could start a domestic branch of Hamas, and run cooperative food markets and assistance programs – non-militantly,
Yes, that’s what Make America Great Again means.
Maybe not those specific things, but definitely cis-het white male supremacy.
I liked her comment at the end – “When you come here, you get those [Constitutional] protections.”
When I came of age to understand such things (in my family, that was generally considered to be 13 onwards) two of my grandparents, my grandmother from my father’s side and my grandfather from my mother’s side, sat me down in out-of-the-way places to have serious private conversations during family gatherings. The gist of these talks always emphasized the same disquieting theme, with both warning me (in so many words): “It can/will happen again.”
And always with the extra advice for preparation, to protect self and and family – the emphasis always on when, not as hypothetical if – it happens.
Although neither of them knew each other very well – having only met at the engagement and wedding of my parents before I was born, and having come from very different nationalistic backgrounds associated with the horrors that enveloped Europe leading to the Second World War – as a teenager I was struck by how similar their warnings were. I certainly did not discount their experience and insight acquired from living through and amidst a condition so offensive to human life and dignity that drove it effectively beyond my ability to imagine.
Yet at the time of these various serious heart-to-heart sit-down conversations (circa late ’60s into the early ’70’s) I was not particularly concerned that the gigantic evils that conspired to engulf Europe could, by any stretch of my puny imagination, become a real issue in the country I resided in within the course of my lifetime.
And when prompted what I thought, I said just that: I just did not think it anywhere near probable that such a state of affairs could ever take root in the United States.
I well remember referencing the McCarthy era and the failure of the movement promoted by that senator from Wisconsin as an example in answer to my grandfather. My confident ability to recount history before my time was no match for his patient pause, head slightly cocked, eyebrows slightly raised.
The memory is vivid. After at least a minute’s pause (which I am sure he provided so as to allow me time to think about what I said) he asked me, very sternly and straightforwardly [translation]: “Do you think governments want to prevent stupidity in people?”
The memory of that moment has long since grown to epiphany for me…
And, by my sluggish ruminations throughout my formative years and since, I finally arrived at the big why: WHY its so important for economic and political power interests to keep people, not just uninformed but actively disinformed (MISINFORMED), and WHY people are bombarded by tactics that promote stupidity and ignorance.
The trouble is, what’s obvious to one like me who has been warned of the possibility, is utterly outside the box of most Americans: they really DON’T know or understand or care or give a flying frack how important and valuable an independent frame of thinking is.
My grandparents warned me of the possiblity.
And I, the dunce who could not conceive of the possibilty at the time, discovered they were right much more than I gave them credit for.
Democracy is supposed to ENHANCE the status of the individual and individual thinking. Democracy is supposed to PROMOTE the dissemination of news and do a better job of informing the public.
When I talked to my grandparents, I thought those were true.
But in time I discovered they were right. I learned it could in fact happen here.
I learned that much when people hired a film actor for the serious job of Presidency.
Not to mention GW, which was arguably worse, but indisputably a consequence.
But for all those who voted Republican and Trump? You know, because they wanted ‘change’? Guess what? The ball is in your court now. You got it. And with that power you now own RESPONSIBILITY IN A REAL WORLD.
You will no longer be able to blame Obama or Democrats or liberals or anything else you have fraudulently conditioned the American people to blame for your chronic ineptitude OVER THE LAST FOUR DECADES.
You’ve just heaved up the scum of your bileous outrage against ‘Big Government’ in such a REASONABLE WAY through the constant onslaught of talk radio [namely that arch-bastard Rush) constantly piping out the ‘truth’ to truckers across the country of how how rotten liberals are.
Well, now that you’ve managed that, you’ll have to explain how you’ve actually managed to Make Matters Worse.
If anyone sincerely wants to understand how horrid the effrontery behind the ‘fix’ is, how nasty the “remedy” will be – I can only refer to what my beloved grandparents warned about…and they survived what most of us incompetent spineless cowards can’t possibly imagine.
Marcus Ranum @ # 33: …I’ve been pondering whether the government could do any actual thing to prevent a website where anyone who wants some could request RU-486 and get it by mail, no questions asked.
And you a computer security professional???
As for working through the US Postal Service, pls read up on the Comstock Laws.
Are they really so ignorant as to realize that by promoting such a shitty way to treat people they directly support the people they’re trying to fight, bolstering their numbers by providing such easy propaganda?
Hard to think that they are so ignorant as to do that. Which means they are purposefully fanning the flames. And all the ignoramuses will go gladly marching toward that Crusade chanting USA! USA! all the way.
The idea that they’re provoking radical Muslims by hinting at this might be enough to agitate one that may have already been radicalized enough to do something, and then you have the fucking Reichstag all over.
This type of manipulative shit is just what they need.
Anchor
I’m currently wondering if this is how my grandparents/great-grandparents must have felt during the 1930s: Seeing the whole thing grow but unable to stop it.
I’m also glad they’re dead and don’t have to watch again.
I to worry about how bad it could get and all
then I have to stop for a minute and try to think and remember that this is not 1930 this is 2016 a lot of things have happened since then there will probably always be this potential and right now it seems pretty close. I do not think it would be so easy and this country is not one that is noted for observing law and authority with out question. if there is one thing business and economies like better than order and peace I am not sure what it is. The world and it’s economies are growing ever closer together.but stupid is as stupid does so it is no tellin what is coming next my crystal ball turned out to be made of sugar and wishes and has gone all cloudy .
uncle frogy
@40. My parents were children in the 1930s and my mother is still alive. Shortly after the war, when my father had been demobbed and they were an impossibly young, very idealistic couple, they went to Germany, Belgium and France on holiday – something which as the children of very poor families would have been unthinkable before the war. They went up the Rhine by steamer and the few trains packed with Germans auf Hamsterfahrt that were running. They were met with genuine kindness and friendliness throughout. My parents always felt it was a matter of chance that the British Fascists hadn’t seized power – British Nazis were still marching in 1940, there’s even a film of them singing the Horst Wessel Lied in London – my mother now thinks it’s the UK’s turn to be at the mercy of a gang of destructive right-wing lunatics (although Turkey and the USA are in the same queue). Her other abiding memory of their holiday is leaving Hull on the North Sea ferry and arriving in Hamburg, and being unable to tell the difference – both cities had been razed to the ground. She says she’s glad she’ll soon be dead, but is sorry for her grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
You really begin to feel just how far the Overton Window has truly shifted, and how far out of control US politics (and by extension global p0litcs) has spun, when you realize that Fox News – long term bastion of hateful stupid prejudice – no longer lies at the furthest Rightward extreme of the mainstream Right wing. The unutterably detestable Briebart is the new Fox (Briebart – for when ordinary strength bigotry just can’t quite hit the spot…), and the way things are going with Trump and his legions of deplorables, Fox News might end up being treated as being a liberal media outlet by default, as bonkers (and horribly insulting to any actually serious journalism or anyone with a progressive bone in their body) as that is.
That anyone can state that religious tests for citizenship in a democracy are a good idea with a straight face, and not expect to be called on it, shows how far the public discourse has fallen. I never thought I would say this, and I am pretty sure typing these words will blister my fingers, but good on Megyn Kelly for calling this Trumpkin bigot out and not letting him get away with implying that modern internment camps are the way to deal with Islamic extremism.
Watched one of the Adam Ruins Everything episodes the other day, in which is was asserted that 20,000 actual, legal, US citizens had been deported, but sort of missed during what period. Didn’t have a lot of time to hunt up the statistic itself, but a quick google landed me on a page with statistics for ICE and INS, which stated, “During a 50 month period, between 2008 and 2012 (yeah, while the supposed lax on illegals Obama was just starting out) 834 US citizens and something in the area of 28,000 people with legal right to be in here (which I presume means work visas, etc.) where ‘detained’. But, we have no idea how many of these people where illegally deported.” Mind, the show, with the original quoted number, pointed out that the reason for this mess was that we, literally, don’t have enough judges, lawyers, or even courts, to handle what we already are trying to deport, and that, in some cases, interviews and decisions about who to throw out are actually being done over bloody buggy, Skype connections.
So.. Yeah, I doubt “Muslim” are the only people that would need to worry about concentration camps. Short of, basically, suspending the legal right to confront the accusation, and prove legal right to be in the country, for all suspected illegals, and just deporting them without trial, there is no way in hell they could properly determine which ones, out of millions, are actually illegal. And, if the already broken system has, as suggested, deported around 20,000 legal citizens, and, in a 4 year period, detained close to 200 a year, as it is already, does that mean the number of legal citizens detained, and probably deported, or just put in a camp for decades, until they can be deported, going to be more like tens of thousands?
I think this is what a lot of people just didn’t bloody get, and no one did even a vaguely decent job of explaining – one **huge** reason for not trying to just crack down in deport everyone, instead of fixing the system first, and/or finding a way to avoid the deportations at all is simply, “It Isn’t Possible To Do It!” Not without turning the whole damn process into something liken to WWI concentration camps, and/or the sort of purges you get on some countries, where they just round everyone they don’t like up, and well, since we are being nice about it, just make them someone else’s problem (instead of shooting them, which, thankfully these wackos haven’t suggested yet).
Talking hacks on television haven’t explicitly said “let’s shoot them” in so many words, as far as I’m aware, but that is the sort of thing you’ll hear from some supporters.
Trump himself did appear to threaten Clinton, if you recall, regarding “Second Amendment people” specifically, who would “maybe” act in their peculiar way (presumably, shooting someone) when she appoints judges.
Some people give him way too much benefit of the doubt, I guess partly because you’re always forced to parse him as someone with the vocabulary and fluency of an intoxicated third-grader, but there’s no reason to think these purges would somehow be peaceful (in what sense could that be peaceful anyway?). So who’s to say what the fuck that was actually supposed to mean, except Grand Wizard Dumbfuck himself? But really, it’s not about a soundbite here or there.
When he’s been advocating torture, genocide and other war crimes, in a new fascist regime that’s aligning itself with all of the worst parties around the globe, there’s no reason to believe he thinks assassinating his political opponents is going too far.
Gregory Greenwood wrote:
This is already happening. “I think the left wing media took this by the horns because they’re not a fan of Donald Trump,” Higbie said. “This is exactly why he run because of the dishonest media.” BTW, he was talking to Megyn Kelly on Fox News at the time, after she took exception with his idea for a second time (after trying to claim he never said it in the first place).
ck, the Irate Lump @ 46;
Aaaand we now officially live in Bizarro World…
And just when you think it can’t get much worse, and for everyone who still likes to claim that Trump and his coterie of thugs aren’t as bad as they are painted, look what I found on the same site that ck, the Irate Lump just linked to – Michael Cohen, Trump’s Lawyer, tweeted (during a heightened period of threat to this journalist’s life after her various run ins with Trump during the campaign) ‘let’s gut her’. And that isn’t even the only example of the use of threatening language toward this and other journalists calculated to further whip up Trump’s more volatile supporters. Combined with his talk about ‘Second Amendment people doing something’ about Hillary Clinton and any judicial appointments she may have made if she had been elected, the course of dealing of intimidation and incitement to violence against women is both clear and utterly disgusting.