Serious question

[malaise]

What kind of fucked up system exists when a coup leader can be empowered by the Judicial Branch, escapes punishment for the same reason and now pardons his thug army?

Meanwhile elected officials and the media play along .
And the rogue leader continues committing crimes.
This is fucked up on way too many levels.

[Think. Again.]

1. Thank you malaise...

....you're one of the few that can clearly see what is happening.

[SamKnause]

2. A corrupt and broken system.

A two party system where one party is filled with criminals.

[TommieMommy]

3. I agree. I'm so upset, angry and disappointed.

[Martin Eden]

4. A system in which citizens have too little critical thought

And too much disinformation

[yellow dahlia]

28. Absolutely.

Critical thought?

Aaargh!

[djacq]

5. Welcome to the the "real" United States of America"

[Voltaire2]

6. An authoritarian illiberal republic.

Which is mumbo jumbo for a fascist regime.

[Skittles]

7. I truly cannot understand

HOW a multi-felon who tried to overthrow the government is in the White House instead of where he belongs, IN FUCKING JAIL

[joshdawg]

11. Doesn't make any sense to me either.

A criminal in the White House. Who would thunk it?
He needs to go away, I care not how.

[Martin Eden]

21. J6 should have been a deal breaker for every patriotic citizen

Problem is that a majority of Republicans believe the BIG LIE that the 2020 was stolen, and far too many others never registered that assault as a big deal.

[Skittles]

27. NOPE

THEY *ALL* KNEW THE ELECTION WAS NOT STOLEN.....it's just something they had to go along with to justify pimping for that orange fascist FREAK

[Martin Eden]

30. It's been proven that Trump knew he lost

Very likely R's in Congress also knew, but polls consistently showed the rank and file fools who vote for them believed the lies. Those I know personally did.

An entire political party with a core tenet that is a LIE, perhaps the worst ever told by a president -- the other being the lies of GW Bush that sucked us into Iraq.

The Republican Party is utterly corrupt, beneath contempt, and has the House, Senate, presidency, and Supreme Court.

[HAB911]

8. The Constitution is a suicide pact

[bucolic_frolic]

9. Obama warned voters on Election Eve, 2016, Philadelphia

'Don't lose your democracy.' Don't let them steal it.

He knew more than he was telling. Mitch's SCOTUS plan was almost fait accompli at that moment.

Sometimes it feels like there is a Deeper State to the Deep State.

[NJCher]

10. Why hasn't anyone mentioned

End stage capitalism?

[Irish_Dem]

12. The US has gone to the dark and evil side.

We are no longer the good guys.
We are the bad guys.

[Botany]

13. It is called a coup, the end of the rule of law, and

a hostile take over of America by the GRU, Musk, Oligarchs, and a corrupt media to install
the biggest criminal in American history to burn the country to the ground.

For the love of Dog the very people who attacked our Capitol and are the equivalent of
Mussolini Blackshirts are being let out of prison to become a domestic terrorists as they are rebranded as political prisoners.

We are fucked.

[yellow dahlia]

29. I have been calling it a take-over.

Coup works.

[Macrophylla]

14. How you ask?

It's America everyone and everything is for sale.

The reality of American history

This period of prosperity for average people post WW2 was in reality and historically an anomaly.

[Mossfern]

15. For me

the realization started when my father voted for Reagan.

All those dystopian novels I started reading when I was a young adult have become real.
Somehow I felt that they would remain locked up safely in fiction.

I think that most of us here, even though we saw it happening and fought against it feel helpless.
We need to get out of that mindset (at least I do)

It's a damn shame that I am wary of displaying any protest on my property because I fear that it will bring retribution. Maybe my garbage and recycling will cease to be collected - maybe aggressive language from neighbors who happen to be Republican. ( I now consider ALL Republicans to be MAGA).

Who thought that there were such numbers of fellow Americans so base, so ignorant, so downright selfish.
I lived in a Pollyanna world- and I'd bet that a few of you were there with me - where people believe that deep down everyone was good. Heh......

[malaise]

18. We all did although I have often wondered if your establishment

and establishments in many other powerful countries actually believed any part of what they preached given how they destroyed other countries for their own self interests.

[Joinfortmill]

16. A fascist system, I fear.

[nowforever]

17. A system

driven by greed and lust

[bronxiteforever]

19. This is not a government but an

organized crime syndicate. There will be protection rackets, no show jobs, a second set of national books, squealers will be threatened with rape, prosecution, and death. Judges are on the take too with vacations and secret funding.

Welcome to Mafia land.

[spanone]

20. We'll be lucky to have a country in four years or four weeks.

[malaise]

22. He has effed up every effing thing he ever touched

in life.

[spanone]

24. Absolutely

[DFW]

23. It's called "gaming the system."

If you have evil intentions combined with street smarts, then you look for loopholes in the existing rules to worm your way in, take over, and then legally transform the rules from the existing ones to your own, all the while convincing the very people who did well under the old system that doing less well under the new system is better for them. That goes for any group with less-than honorable intentions (i.e. control under them). Whether from the right (U.S. Republicans under Reagan, GW Bush or Trump) or left (French socialists under Mitterand or Hollande), it can be accomplished with the help of highly skilled propagandists and a population too comfortable to bother to notice what is being done to them.

[Martin Eden]

31. Most fools are blind to the evil intentions, and don't think they will do less well

They were conned into believing the economy under Biden was terrible, and the Orange Creature will bring them personal prosperity.

The rank and file of the religious right are all fired up about drag queens, homosexuals, transgender children, abortion, and what they've been told are attacks on their religion. They've been conned into believing the most immoral corrupt liar ever to poison our national discourse was chosen by God Almighty to save America.

Democrats have been placed in the almost impossible position of convincing voters they are fools, duped into believing the lies.

Our greatest opportunity is the coming Find Out part of FAFO, as the leopards start eating their faces.

[yorkster]

25. In the meantime "institutional memory" will

go on life support, many will suffer or die,
and we will desperately seek out those who can reconstruct, say, entire agencies and their
functions, for starters.

This is admittedly a very dire prognosis, but a mere 5 days into this madness I am
stunned. Feels more like blitzkrieg than shock and awe, to use that deplorable phrase.

[Martin Eden]

32. Rebuilding our institutions will be orders of magnitude more difficult than what it took to destroy them

How many career public servants who manage to find a decent job in the private sector will want to stick their neck out again only to risk having it chopped again the next time the idiot voters they served decide to elect another face eating leopard?

[gab13by13]

26. This is the 5th time I have posted this,

Heard on Thom Hartmann:

Oligarchies are not permanent, they are transitional. There will come a time in the future when we Americans will have 2 choices;

1. Throw out the billionaires
2. Become a country like Russia or Hungary.

I'm afraid we don't have enough people who will want our democracy back, as bad as it will be.