Good morning. Thursday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 49. Sunrise is 7:07 AM and sunset 4:21 PM for 9h 13m 28s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 4.8% of its visible disk illuminated. Whitewater Fire Department, Inc. holds a business meeting at 5:30 PM and the Landmarks Commission meets…
Authoritarianism
Authoritarianism, Conservative Populism, Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 10.31.21: American Populists ♥ Hungarian Autocrat
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Good morning. Halloween in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 51. Sunrise is 7:29 AM and sunset 5:47 PM for 10h 18m 24s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 22.9% of its visible disk illuminated. On this day in 1999, Yachtsman Jesse Martin returns to Melbourne after 11 months of…
America, Authoritarianism, Congress, Documentary, Never Trump, Politics, Trump, Trumpism
Frontline: Trump’s American Carnage
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
In the wake of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, FRONTLINE investigates how Donald Trump’s presidency laid the groundwork for bitter divisions, violence and ultimately insurrection. “Trump’s American Carnage” investigates Trump’s siege on his enemies, the media and even the leaders of his own party, who for years ignored the warning signs of what…
Authoritarianism, Mendacity, Trump, Trumpism
Trump’s Big Lie
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Timothy Snyder, on Twitter, writes of Trump’s Big Lie: See also Snyder’s On Tyranny.
Alt-Right, America, Authoritarianism, Congress, Herrenvolk, History, Law, Mendacity, Trump, Trumpism
Confederates, Copperheads, and Conservatives
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
It’s an understatement to say that a democratic society that endures a violent mob seizing its capitol building is a society in distress. We find ourselves in the twenty-first century facing movements as malevolent and mendacious as the nineteenth century’s Confederates and Copperheads. Karen L. Cox writes What Trump Shares With the ‘Lost Cause’ of the…
Authoritarianism, Bigotry, Law, Libertarians, Liberty, Never Trump, Trump, Trumpism
The Libertarian Remnant
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Shikha Dalmia is a libertarian, and as a libertarian who is true to those beliefs, she is necessarily opposed to the authoritarianism of Trump and in Trumpism. Because the definition of libertarianism has been distorted beyond any true meaning by opportunistic or ignorant rightwing donors, she’s lost her job Reason magazine. Conservative donors pay the…
Authoritarianism, Law, Liberty, Never Trump, Portland, Trump
Trump’s Illicit Attempts Remain Illicit
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
A man may unsuccessfully attempt a robbery or murder, yet one would rightly see him as a wrongdoer. The failure to achieve an evil end does not absolve those so attempting from moral culpability. See Attempts. So it is with Trump, now: his attempts to subvert the election through lies and (baseless) lawsuits are no…
America, Authoritarianism, Conspiracy Theories, Elections, Law, Trump, Unfit
Attempts
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
When a burglar walks through a neighborhood, and tries doorknob after doorknob to see which one might be unlocked, no reasonable person would say that his attempts to enter are innocent acts. On the contrary, he’d rightly been seen as dangerous. In the same way, when Trump challenges election results through lies, his attempts to…
Authoritarianism, Law, Never Trump, Race, Republicans, Trump, Trumpism
Trump’s Refusal: Explanations Particular and General
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
There’s more than one explanation for Trump’s refusal to concede: that he cannot manage the narcissistic insult of defeat, that he wants to support Georgia’s Republicans in a January 5th runoff, or that he wants to bolster his chances of a following after January 20th (for a television network, another campaign, or simply to vacuum…
Authoritarianism, Bigotry, Conflicts of Interest, Gluttony, Grifters, Never Trump, Seven Deadly, Trump, Unfit
Transfer
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
America, Authoritarianism, Books, City, Liberty, Trump, Trumpism, Tyranny
Snyder’s On Tyranny
by JOHN ADAMS • • 2 Comments
Prof. Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny: ‘Lesssons from the Twentieth Century’ (2017) recently came my way. By design, it’s a brief presentation of twenty lessons that Snyder has discerned after a long career as a historian, with significant study and research on twentieth-century European history. It’s a small, inviting pamphlet addressing a big, unwelcome subject. We’ve…
Authoritarianism, Bigotry, Coronavirus, Corporate Welfare, Disinformation, Economy, Elections, Herrenvolk, Militarized Policing, Parodies, Propaganda, Protests, Public Health, Trump, Trumpism, Tyranny
The Juice Media: A Message from the White House (Pandemic, Autocracy, Corporate Cronyism, and Disenfranchisement)
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Authoritarianism, Law, Liberty, Militarized Policing, Portland, Trump
A ‘Wall of Moms’ on the Front Lines of Portland Protests
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
As tensions continue between protesters and federal officers in Portland, Ore., mothers have taken to the front lines to face tear gas. Three Portland moms talk about the “Wall of Moms” demonstrations and why they think they’re needed to protect protesters from federal agents.
Authoritarianism, Books, Coronavirus, History, Libertarians, Liberty, Public Health, Reasoning, Rhetoric, Russia, Tyranny, Walworth County
An Example of Bottomless Ignorance in Walworth County
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Some residents of Walworth County, Wisconsin object to public health measures to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus. So hysterical is their opposition that one reads Opponents say county’s coronavirus safeguards are ‘like Russia’: Confronted by a raucous crowd of opponents fearing government intrusion, Walworth County Board members have backed away from a measure…