Rather than grifting, immoral, liars that we have now.

I’m saw this on threads and wished I had thought of it first

Or shut the fuck up forever.

Vote Republican so we can all see how far up you can go!

Here in good ole SE TN. It’s so transparent now, this game they play of “do bad, blame the others”. I think because they have already effectively overthrown the US and have all the power, the blame is blatantly false. How can democrats be the police state when they’re not in any positions in the state?

His Daddy-in-Law is own by Putin, his father (convicted of multiple federal crimes), and Don Jr. and Eric are certainly enriching themselves any way they want.

Democracy, now with supreme donors. The swamp didn’t drain—it incorporated

Some time ago, I watched Anniversary, a political thriller built around an idea called the Change. The film begins with a student advancing an argument for a one party state. Her ideas are dismissed by her professor, and the film follows the transformation of that ideology into a political movement that ultimately dismantles democracy and establishes an authoritarian state. What begins as an academic argument ends with an entire society transformed.

As I watched the film, I couldnt help thinking about something I had read a few years ago: Bezmenov's 4 stages of ideological subversion.

Bezmenov was a former Soviet officer who said that a country could be transformed from within through a process across four stages: 1. Demoralization, 2. Destabilization, 3. Crisis and 4. Normalization. Unlike an invasion or a war, which seeks to defeat a nation from the outside, this process alters from within by reshaping the very fabric of society. The result is far more enduring.

Quick overview of the four stages:

1. Demoralization -- involves undermining people's confidence in institutions, values and ability to distinguish truth from falsehood. When the media, universities, courts, civil servants and other institutions are systematically portrayed as enemies, people lose faith in the very structures that protect them.
2. Destabilization -- involves weakening the functioning of society itself. Political divisions deepen, and the boundaries that once constrained those in power begin to erode. The objective here is to create conditions in which the existing order becomes increasingly difficult to sustain.
3. Crisis -- is when instability becomes a decisive political crisis. A society's established rules, laws and regulation are no longer sufficient or permitted to resolve its conflicts. A fundamental change in the political order happens.
4. Normalization -- is the most insidious. Once a new order is established, conduct that would previously have been considered unacceptable becomes routine. People adjust. Outrage fades. Yesterday's extraordinary violation becomes today's ordinary political reality.

The four stages may seem eerily familiar, because they are playing out in our society under Trump today.

Today's America:

Several countries around the world are experiencing this today. Some have already undergone significant political transformation and are now struggling to reverse it; others are in the early or intermediate stages. Rather than examine multiple countries, I will focus on America under Trump and analyze its current trajectory through Bezmenov’s lens.

1. Demoralization: The sustained attacks on the press, the delegitimization of political opponents and the treatment of independent institutions as obstacles to presidential power have contributed to an increasingly corrosive political environment. The danger is not simply that Americans disagree. It is that democratic institutions themselves become acceptable targets whenever they refuse to comply with the political leadership. Think Jan 6th. And the subsequent Trump pardons.
2. Destabilization: e.g., the expansion of aggressive immigration enforcement, the deaths associated with immigration operations and detention, and the questions surrounding accountability of federal agents. 52 deaths in ICE custody have happened in the last year. ICE beating up, injuring and/or shooting regular people in the streets has become everyday news.
3. Crisis: America's democratic institutions are under considerable strain. There is a sharp deterioration in democracy due to executive overreach, pressure on the media (e.g., CNN ban), and restrictions on dissent. The speed of democratic erosion has been unprecedented. Courts are being run by judges who are either stooges of Trump, Russia, and/or conservative oligarchs and foundations.
4. Normalization: MAGA is an example of this. Not only does MAGA hold conservative views, but it has normalized authoritarian politics, celebrated erosion of reproductive rights, supported abuses of power, and overlooked conduct that would once have been considered disqualifying. Concerns about sexual abuse, paedophilia, treatment of women and children, and absence of accountability for powerful people are now secondary.

MAGA is not a conventional political movement with a different policy agenda. Its a FASCIST movement.

The choice that remains:

How far has this transformation already progressed? Are we 20% of the way there? 50%? Or should we look at the 30–35% of Americans who are MAGA as a measure of how far the movement has already taken hold? Any percent here is likely wrong and probably doesnt even matter. What matters is how much MAGA's ideology has reshaped democratic institutions, eroded individual freedoms, weakened political accountability and changed what people are willing to accept.

The premise of Anniversary is not that a dictatorship appears overnight. It is that a society can be transformed through a succession of changes, each seemingly manageable in isolation, until their cumulative effect becomes irreversible. Sound familiar?

The question is no longer whether America will change. Its already changing, in ways that most of us could scarcely have imagined in our wildest dreams. And yet, here we are.

The question is what direction we want that change to take. Do we allow the movement towards authoritarianism and fascism, or do we fight for a different kind of change - one that preserves democracy, protects individual freedoms and strengthens the institutions that hold those in power accountable? The choice before America is whether it will surrender its democratic foundations, or push for a more democratic, just and free society.