I never hear this mentioned, in all of the coverage I have seen over the last couple of years. Did the DOJ confiscate computers and laptops and other digital devices during their raid? If they did I never heard about it. To me this is the elephant in the room. Sure they can get boxes of documents back in their possession, but what if all of these were scanned and those files are stored - somewhere.

Maybe DOJ is keeping this quiet, but even then you would think media would be bright enough to ask this question.

We have to acknowledge the reality that at the rotten core of America is a subculture that loves guns, death, vengeance and violence. We have groomed our society for decades, all the way from the seemingly innocent days of John Wayne and cowboy movies through the gruesome unlimited violence that is portrayed in 2023 on every movie, television and phone screen. We have become fully desensitized to violence and it was a deliberate strategy by those wishing to put their boot on the necks of the American people, not to mention those who are profiting every single day from American blood-lust.

Someone asked me recently; would a fascist like Kevin McCarthy change his mind, if one of his children or grand children were murdered in a mass shooting? The answer is simple - no. These "representatives" are fully and completely beholden to their constituents who are too stupid and brainwashed to demand reasonable gun laws, and they are too beholden to the monied interests that drive the firearms industry. Vicious depraved gun scum, no more no less.

This is all going to get much, much worse before it gets better. This will not end until there is a full-blown civil uprising in this country. You don't have to look back very far in human history to understand that human beings will eventually revert to savagery.

After that catastrophic event? We'd like to hope that our democracy will emerge intact, but there is surely no guarantee. The divisions are nearly insurmountable at this point.

Now that DeSantis has shown that at least in the Deep South he can be competitive, there is little doubt that he will emerge as an opponent to Trump in the Republican primary for 2024.

Trump and DeSantis are both authoritarians, but as enemies of democracy, they pose unique threats.

Trump is the greatest danger in the near term. There is little doubt that if re-elected that he will provoke a Constitutional crisis within the first year. He will surely move to pardon any January 6th criminals of Federal charges. He will work tirelessly to destroy the DOJ and to damage the rule of law in whatever way he can, since that is in his immediate interest for self preservation.

DeSantis on the other hand is more likely to work quietly and methodically to strangle democracy, just as he did in Florida. He is more cunning than Trump. Unlike Trump he won't be announcing on Twitter his true intent to rip apart the rule of law. Plus, he understands the Deep South and how to communicate to them, Trump simply views them as pawns.

Either of them would be disastrous but in different ways. The effort needs to begin NOW by Democrat leaders to educate the American people about the poison that will be spreading from Florida.

The recent good news, is that according to a July 5 poll by NYT and Siena college, less than half of Republicans would support Trump if he runs again in 2024.

I think this link goes around the NYT paywall, it's a pdf showing the poll results.
https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/us0722-crosstabs-nyt071222/0f9f399b059138f9/full.pdf

While Trumps popularity among the Fascists appears to be on the decline, the alarming fact is that the runner-up to Trump is DeSantis. In some ways, DeSantis worries me more that Trump.

Trump is so narcissistic that he could never keep his feelings and plans secret for long. While he is always erratic, he's also very predictable. We know exactly what he will do or say in any given situation, it's all about manipulating his dim-witted cult members.

To me there are two reasons why DeSantis is more dangerous than Trump.

1) He is shrewder than Trump. He would have no problem corrupting our military and DOJ and Federal police forces on the lowdown, while projecting "nothing to see here" to the American public. In secret, he could go a lot further than Trump to establish the authoritarian Christo-Fascist state that the Radical Right has dreamed about since before WWII.

2) DeSantis has a true ideological/political focus, he is a true Fascist, whereas Trump was simply an opportunist who hijacked the Republican party in order to stroke his own bloated ego.

Curious what others here think about it.

I saw a statistic the other day that suggests most on this forum average around 55 or 60, so not sure there are many under 30's that can answer the question or comment.

But my point is that I don't see the outrage or the energy or the willingness of young people to defy authority that we saw back in the 60's. That youth movement was without a doubt a major catalyst that set ht stage for all the great advancements that we saw, from the Civil Rights Act to the ERA, Roe vs Wade, EPA and so many other progressive changes.

Now that we see that the Fascist Right and their henchmen in robes in SCOTUS are rapidly moving toward undoing all of that, where is the outrage, especially among America's youth? Am I simply missing it?

One difference is that in the 60's we were a mere 20 years away from the Nazi catastrophe, and the memories were fresh. Have we forgotten (or never learned) how fragile democracy can be, and what the end result will be once we have gone under the boot?

I never thought at any point in my life that I would not consider flying my American flag on Memorial and Veteran's Day and on July 4th.

But this year it is becoming clear to me that the country that so many fought and died for, and that I viewed with pride and joy for my entire life, is destined to become just another chapter in the long history of failed attempts at democracy.

I feel especially bitter when I think about all of my relatives that went to Europe in WWII to stop the Nazis, that set the stage for a half century of progress for everyone, and those that fought in all the other armed conflicts along the way. The ChristoFascists and the Radical Right that are essentially opening their arms to neo-Fascism today are violating the memory of those soldiers, and I will never, ever forgive them for that.

So next week I have a decision to make. Will I fly my flag? If I do, will that flag represent freedom or will it represent fascism?

I'm not sure yet.

I have to turn off TV or change the station whenever that footage comes on. I guess it's a form of PTSD, but when I watch it, I become physically ill. It's because it confirms every fear I had throughout my life of where the Fascist Right was going to take us, and will take us if they gain power in 2022 and 2024.

Is it just me?

Mark Farner in the early days of this group was awesome, and this band was LOUD.

These are purely my opinions and speculations. Hopefully I am wrong this time.

The United States here in 2022 is shifting toward autocracy and away from representative democracy.

It remains to be seen whether Democrats or Progressives can prevail in protecting our Constitutional freedoms and rights for free expression and for free and fair elections. Certainly we will lose the battle to protect abortion rights. Certainly we will lose the fight to prevent the degradation and corruption of our election systems. Most probably we will begin to see the erosion of our free speech and free assembly.

The most likely scenario for the USA 20 years hence will be something that looks like a crossbreed of Apartheid South Africa and modern day Russia. This is reality. Those that will vote to usher in this brave new world won't find out until far too late what they have given up. "You don't know what you've got till it's gone".

Recently, several of my friends and relatives have been making plans to leave the US, and move to other North American countries like Canada and Mexico.

Is anyone else considering this? Generally I think it's a foolish idea - because the trend toward Fascism is a worldwide phenomena, it's not just the USA. Is there some Utopia out there?

On April 3, Fareed Zakharia interviewed Russian ex-oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky who explains why Putin miscalculated in his invasion of Ukraine and why he is still so dangerous.

He explains his criminality and utter lack of humanity and confirms what I suspected all along - Ukraine is just a stepping stone on Putin's path to rebuilding the Russian empire. He confirms my suspicion that the Baltics will be next.

This has a lot more credibility than most of the "experts" we hear - because Khodorkovsky was an insider who knew Putin well.

He believes that Biden's condemnation of Putin is absolutely the right thing to do, and that Putin will never stop until the West steps up with a military response.

CNN video:

https://edition.cnn.com/videos/tv/2022/04/03/exp-gps-0403-ukraianian-resistance-drove-putin-mad.cnn/video/playlists/intl-ukraine/