First thing that popped up this morning: something from a DK member about what MAGA enthusiasts were saying locally, which is beyond alarming.
Edited slightly, and witholding handle on the off chance of possible harrassment.
The local MAGA [supporters] are saying it’s because “trump told musk to find the prison camps the children are in. They are tracking and will rescue the children from the Nazi regime and then arrest the democrats and their enablers. They HAD to hack the computers! Have you ever seen what happens to children in those camps?! I hope the executions are public.”
To unpack a little: The Machiavellian density of rhetorical reversal in this is truly staggering.
Trump has proposed a 30,000-person detention camp at Guantanomo. This is reversed into "camps" somewhere "out there" already.
Trump in his first administration separated children from their parents and handed them off to strangers (some still missing) and/or put them in cages with adults and/or in child detention centers. Where we know some children were mistreated, even sexually abused in at least a few cases. This is reversed into "what happens [currently] to children in those camps."
Trump's strategies and tactics have been compared, rather extensively by now, with the Nazis. He has declined to condemn neoNazis and pardoned the Proud Boys, current parallel to the violent Nazi thugs during Hitler's rise. And Musk visibly and vocally has supported Germany's Nazi-revival AfD.
Trump's proposed detention camp at Guantanomo, where prisoners were held for years without charges and tortured, also has been identified, with alarm, as potentially morphing into something like a Nazi-style concentration camp -- especially offshore, where oversight (hampered in the first Trump administration) would be much more difficult.
This is reversed into Democrats being labeled a "Nazi regime" responsible for children being confined in camps and abused. When the exact opposite was the case.
We also know that right-winger extremist provocateurs "have form" (as the British say) for whipping up panic over pedophilia where it does not exist (Pizzagate), and so does Musk (cave rescue in Thailand). Allegations of harm to babies and children very naturally trigger great anger and fear in to most people, and as such, false clains of this kind have, instigated many if the very worst pogroms and other atrocities in history ("blood libel" against Jews; also earlier, against Christians in the Roman empire).
And finally, these reversals are piled up into a warped rationalization for private citizen Elon Musk and his child hackers to take over government computer systems, download everything, including information protected by law under the Espionage Act, the Privacy Act, anf HIPPA, and without oversight, potentially to erase, alter, upload malware, or otherwise tamper with much of the electronic infrastructure that holds together U.S. society, and which citizens depend every day.
Finally, there is an appeal to blood-lust: anticipated "executions" of "Democrats and their enablers."
Of course IDK how widely this particular rationalization is being spread, but even before this, there have been extremist calls to kill Dems in general, and I don't think we should just blow it off with "Now don't get overexcited" or "It will never happen."
I think those of us who have MAGA family, neighbors or associates could do well to listen, those who still have Twitter or similar accounts would do well to listen in, and to report back at a minimum to our elected representatives and perhaps trusted journalists -- if we find this kind of toxicity is further penetrating communities.
....
Now this that follows will be going a long way, and maybe it is saying too much too soon, but actually, even before the above snippet appeared, here is how the overall landscape looks to this observer; discount it if you think fit:
The ultimate aim of at least some who are in on the Musk-Trump coup is both to isolate the U.S. diplomatically, militarily and economically by alienating all our allues and neighbors, and at the same time effectively undermine the foundations of civil society. Paranoid suspicions would supplement crashing much of the IT infrastructure.
And, as to why anyone would want to visit near-apocalypse on our country, there could be a number of players with overlapping motives; no need to go there just now.
But, Timothy Snyder this morning is on a similar, though not identical, page.
More:
I can't really evaluate the truth of this, but seems to confirm worst suspicions. If so, the house fire is NOW.
x
This is a backdoor. Elon's coders are creating a backdoor into the US Treasury. This is incredibly dangerous both because of its intended use (by Elon and Trump) and the risk of other actors exploiting a major security vulnerability to cause a massive disruption to the US government.
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— Corey Rayburn Yung (@coreyryung.bsky.social) February 4, 2025 at 12:43 PM
And finally:
Thanks for reading. It is hard to keep up. There is no doubt much not covered here.
Please add, and it's also worth looking back at earlier installments, as there are some excellent comments, thanks all!
I will try to make the next thing more about "what to do."
