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"Today, members of the 'Department of Government Efficiency' team showed up at the Institute of Museum and Library Services, which helps to fund libraries and museums across the country and whose elimination Trump called for in an executive order last week. They sent employees home, swore in a new acting director in the lobby, and proceeded to cancel contracts and grants."

#Musk #Trump #fascism #authoritarianism #destruction #chaos #education #libraries #museums #FederalGovernment #firings
/2

"The attack of Trump and his MAGA supporters on the courts and the rule of law has illustrated how quickly the United States is sliding from democracy to authoritarianism. “'Honest to god, I’ve never seen anything like it,' Harvard political scientist Steven Levitsky told Amanda Taub of the New York Times."

#Musk #Trump #Republicans #DOGE #fascism #authoritarianism #destruction #chaos #education #libraries #museums #purges #FederalGovernment #firings #grants
/3

"Along with his colleague Daniel Ziblatt, Levitsky wrote How Democracies Die. 'We look at these comparative cases in the 21st century, like Hungary and Poland and Turkey. And in a lot of respects, this is worse,' Levitsky said. 'These first two months have been much more aggressively authoritarian than almost any other comparable case I know of democratic backsliding.'”

#Musk #Trump #Republicans #DOGE #fascism #authoritarianism #destruction #chaos #purges #FederalGovernment #firings
/5

"The toxic brew of irresponsible pseudo-news outlets and the successors of the Tea Party movement radicalized the electorate to a fever pitch. The result was a collective desire to smash the existing order to smithereens and allow Donald Trump to replace it with chaos."

~ Mark Mansour

#Musk #Trump #Republicans #DOGE #fascism #authoritarianism #destruction #chaos #purges #FederalGovernment #firings
/6

https://mmansour.substack.com/p/the-demise-of-the-old-republican

"There is a myth harbored by some that Trump turned the Republican Party into a cynical, unprincipled institution that preyed on the poor, on minorities and on working people. In fact, Trump was elected precisely because those characteristics preceded his rise. He was the perfect vessel for a large sector of the Republican constituency."

#Musk #Trump #Republicans #DOGE #fascism #authoritarianism #destruction #chaos #purges #FederalGovernment #firings
/7

"Most people in this country, most of them are unaware of what’s happening right now. They do not know the direness of the threat that we’re under. They just don’t, people don’t understand what’s happening. Plenty of people do, for sure. And plenty of people are also for it; you know—they love Trump, they love MAGA, they think Elon Musk is a genius, they’re just fascists, whatever."

~ Greg Olear

#Musk #Trump #Republicans #DOGE #fascism #destruction #chaos #media
/8

https://gregolear.substack.com/p/ramble-on-this-is-all-totally-normal

"There was a time when people collectively agreed on what constituted 'the news.' Walter Cronkite would sign off with “And that’s the way it is,” and most Americans nodded along. The New York Times was the 'paper of record,' and if something appeared in its pages, it existed as fact in our shared reality.

That world is dead. And we should stop pretending otherwise."

~ Parker Molloy

#Musk #Trump #Republicans #DOGE #fascism #destruction #chaos #media
/10

https://www.damemagazine.com/2025/03/19/is-legacy-media-dead/

"When the New York Times was treating Trump’s Tesla stunt on the White House lawn like a car show instead of corruption, independent outlets were the ones pointing out that having a president use the people’s house to promote his billionaire donor’s private company is, in fact, a serious ethical breach."

#Musk #Trump #Republicans #DOGE #fascism #destruction #chaos #media #NewYorkTimes
/11

"What independent journalism offers that legacy media increasingly doesn’t is transparency about where it’s coming from. There’s no pretense of objectivity that masks institutional biases and billionaire influence."

#Musk #Trump #Republicans #DOGE #fascism #destruction #chaos #media #NewYorkTimes
/12

"The Administration is taking a wrecking ball to services and institutions Americans rely on for essentials, as well as the fundamentals of American civic life. For example, this week:

• An Executive Order directed at the evisceration of the Department of Education"

~ Joshua Kolb

#Musk #Trump #Republicans #DOGE #fascism #destruction #chaos #DepartmentofEducation #education
/13

https://contrarian.substack.com/p/the-democracy-index-02a

"• The Trump Administration targeted private universities — canceling $400 million in grants and contracts to Columbia University; pausing $175 million for the University of Pennsylvania; and Johns Hopkins cut research after losing $800 million in USAID grants

• Trump began dismantling Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and Radio Free Asia"

#Musk #Trump #Republicans #DOGE #fascism #destruction #chaos #universities #research #grants #USAID #VoiceofAmerica
/14

@futurebird

To be fair(!) it seems they'd have lost that money anyway [Edit: as they just did], so hurting those students is just moronic and spiteful.

@wdlindsy

@bytebro @wdlindsy

OK. But they literally hate education. That's were this would always end. You can't be "one of the good ones" unless you go full Bob Jones.

@futurebird

Ma'am, if your "they" there is the US - and some other places - then you probably know that those governments absolutely want an uninformed and uneducated population. One can spin nonsense much more easily if the listeners have never gone to college perhaps, or even been taught about 'critical thinking'.

It's the most beautiful country, and I've done a couple of 1,000 mile roadtrips over there. But right now I am soooo glad I don't live there.

@wdlindsy

@bytebro @wdlindsy

I guess I'm just a little disappointed the Columbia still has illusions about their status with respect to those in power now. They cannot do anything to make them anything but something to be dismantled if possible.

That said their endowment is massive. They will be fine.

I guess liberals really struggle with the concept that THEY could be just as hated as the "embarrassing" scruffy left. I keep saying "they can't tell us apart!"

@futurebird

Sure, but maybe the nonsense going on in the US might just possibly wake a few more local people up who would eventually go "NO! Feck off with that!"

Just hoping that it might happen sooner rather than later.

@wdlindsy