@christineburns can’t cope with having spent all that money in Wisconsin for nothing: and his Tesla #Swasticar biz is failing everywhere: and his #DOGE really isn’t popular even with many Republicans. ##Trump will throw him under the bus rather than take any responsibility for the mess.

@chad

Put more simply, #Trump wants a piece of the #Fentanyl action, not by stopping its flow, but "by Tariffing the value of this horrible and deadly drug in order to make it more costly [for Americans] to distribute and buy."

For an example (both good, and bad) of the type of analysis I'm talking about, take a look at this March 30th piece by Kenan Malik in The Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/30/just-like-mccarthy-trump-spreads-fear-everywhere-before-picking-off-his-targets

Just like McCarthy, Trump spreads fear everywhere before picking off his targets

"Seventy years on from McCarthyism, America seems to be entering such a moment. Over the past month, we have seen the mass deportation to a notorious foreign jail of hundreds of people declared to be illegal immigrants and gang members, without evidence or due process; the arrest, detention and threatened deportation of foreign students, including Mahmoud Khalil, Rumeysa Ozturk, Momodou Taal and Yunseo Chung, for protesting about the war in Gaza; the blacklisting of law firms representing clients of whom Donald Trump does not approve; the mass sackings of federal workers.

Fear works here in two ways. The targets of repression are groups about whom it is easier to create fear, and so easier to deprive of rights and due process. Doing so then creates a wider climate of fear in which people become less willing to speak out, and not just about Palestine. Already, “whole segments of American society [are] running scared”, as one observer put it.

Institutions such as universities, Schrecker concluded about the 1950s, “did not fight McCarthyism” but “contributed to it”, not only through dismissals and blacklists but also through accepting “the legitimacy of what the congressional committees and other official investigators were doing”, thereby conferring “respectability upon the most repressive elements” of the process.

It’s a process repeating itself today. Earlier this month, after cancelling $400m (£310m) in federal grants and contracts, Trump made a series of demands of Columbia University, including that it change its disciplinary rules, place the Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies department under “academic receivership” and adopt the contested International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism that its own lead drafter, Kenneth Stern, condemns as having been “weaponised” into “a blunt instrument to label anyone an antisemite” and to “go after pro-Palestinian speech”. Last week, Columbia capitulated."

On some levels, this is great analysis; Malik's examination of the role fear and "anticipatory obedience" had in both the Red Scare and the installation of Trump's would-be fascist dictatorship, is spot on. He's absolutely right to suggest that Trump's attempts to transform society and seize control of its institutions to shape them in his (fascist) vision is well in line with the effects of McCarthyism, and that the capitulation of the establishment was presaged by the exact same thing during the Red Scare. By that same measure however, do a quick page search for "fascism" or "dictatorship" and you won't find either word in this article. There's nothing wrong with giving readers a historical analogy to get a handle on what is happening in our society, but without the additional context of where this new (old) brand of Trumpian McCarthyism is going and what purpose it serves, all you're really accomplishing is telling readers to relax and remain calm because "we've been here before."

"And earlier he choked up on Fox News talking about the protests against Tesla and the impact it's having on the company's valuation. Both these things demonstrate the limits of his power and the scope of our power. The Tesla protests are working. People have the power."

#Musk #Trump #Wisconsin #SusanCrawford #resistance
/5

"Elon Musk has helpfully just proven how resistible power is, or the folly of confusing mountains of money with outright power. He had an apparent meltdown last night over his failure to buy the Wisconsin supreme court election, in which his candidate didn't just lose but lost in a landslide."

~ Rebecca Solnit

#Musk #Trump #Wisconsin #SusanCrawford #resistance
/4

https://www.meditationsinanemergency.com/people-have-the-power-week-whatever-of-the-stupid-coup-and-the-pushback/?ref=meditations-in-an-emergency-newsletter

Doktor Zoom points to a video (it's embedded at the link below) "where Maddow encourages Booker to hydrate and Booker encourages Maddow to keep beginning her A block every night with video of the protests against fascism that are happening EVERY DAMN DAY in this wonderful country."

#CoryBooker #resistance #Musk #Trump #filibuster #GoodTrouble #RachelMaddow
/5

#Amazon’s bid highlights the 11th-hour maneuvering in Washington over #TikTok’s ownership. Policymakers in both parties have expressed deep #NationalSecurity concerns over the app’s Chinese ownership, & passed a #law last year to force a sale of TikTok that was set to take effect in Jan.

@kattascha

Schön, dass man nicht alles kaufen kann. So muss es jetzt, bis zu den #Midtermwahlen, weitergehen.
Aber die #Demokraten sind noch viel zu lahm. Das ist noch keine echte #Resistance. #ChuckSchumer kann #Trump nicht einfach aussitzen.

"Why are they so enthusiastic? Not only can they make fortunes, but crypto advances their long-term aim of shifting financial controls out of a democratically elected government and into their own hands. ...

Trump and his family stand to gain substantially. The rest of the economy — including, increasingly, large Wall Street banks — will be subject to large and unregulated risks. Beware."

#Trump #Musk #crypto #bitcoin #corruption #scam #oligarchy
/3

"As economist Paul Krugman has said, their market value rests on nothing but 'technobabble and libertarian derp.'

They also use huge amounts of energy — especially for Bitcoin mining.

Eric and Donald Jr.’s mining project is the third major crypto venture that the Trump family has started over the past year. ...

The richest people in America with huge power — the oligarchy, including Elon Musk and Trump — are enthusiastic about cryptocurrencies."

#Trump #Musk #crypto #bitcoin #oligarchy
/2