Authoritarianism
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Jason Pack uses it on the Disorder podcast, late in ep. 107, March 18, 2025. ↩︎
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See Heather Digby Parton, “Donald Trump’s Dead Cat Strategy Puts the Pressure on JD Vance,” Salon, September 16, 2024. ↩︎
- “Trump-Putin call: Russia agrees to 30-day pause of energy infrastructure strikes." (Kyiv Independent)
- Kremlin demands halt to foreign military aid, intelligence to Ukraine as condition for avoiding war escalation. (Kyiv Independent)
Democracy failed in Europe in the 1920s, ’30s, and ’40s, and it is failing not only in much of Europe but in many parts of the world today. It is that history and experience that reveals to us the dark range of our possible futures. A nationalist will say that “it can’t happen here,” which is the first step toward disaster. A patriot says that it could happen here, but that we will stop it.
– Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny (2017), chap. 19.
Committing war crimes against Ukrainian POWs trains perpetrators to abuse their fellow citizens in custody back in the motherland. See “How Russian prison officers are ‘honing their cruelty’ on Ukrainian POWs,” meduza.io/en…. 🇷🇺
Micro.blog's European Server Option
The IndieWeb blogging platform Micro.blog recently added an option to use a server in the European Union (Germany) instead of the United States. They began with the blogs themselves and then added images and other files. These changes comport with a broader movement to reduce exposure to services hosted in the United States, especially those dominated by or entangled with big tech, which has shown itself eager to cooperate with the lawless impulses of the Trump administration.
I’m not sure if the European option will make much of a practical difference to my particular situation at present. Nonetheless, I’ve made the switch because I like the idea of being more mindful about what services I use and where they are hosted. Doing so matters not only in the current political climate but also given big tech’s longstanding unethical treatment of user data, a circumstance lent more urgency by their development of LLM-based artificial intelligence.
When the American president and his national security adviser speak of fighting terrorism alongside Russia, what they are proposing to the American people is terror management: the exploitation of real, dubious, and simulated terror attacks to bring down democracy.
– Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny (2017), chap. 18.
The good thing about the security lapse revealed today is that many are talking about it instead of about the administration’s sadism and criminality, never mind its entanglements with Russia’s anti-Ukrainian disinformation campaign. Perfect. 🙄
When we take an active interest in matters of doubtful relevance at moments that are chosen by tyrants and spooks, we participate in the demolition of our own political order.
– Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny (2017), chap. 14.
You submit to tyranny when you renounce the difference between what you want to hear and what is actually the case. This renunciation of reality can feel natural and pleasant, but the result is your demise as an individual—and thus the collapse of any political system that depends upon individualism.
– Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny (2017), chap. 10.
I’ve heard historian Timothy Snyder a lot in the past several years thanks to his fantastic public speaking, captured in freely available videos and podcasts. Today, I’ve finally begun reading him. First up: On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century (Tim Duggan Books, 2017).
Just arrived from Berlin to an empty Dulles airport in DC. Assumed because Heathrow outage. “No,” says my WashFlyer cabbie, the past month has been super slow. “Fewer tourists, fewer business people. This is not normal, believe me.” Says he’s looking for a new job because he needs to pay his bills.
– Thomas Rid on Bluesky, March 21, 2025
I heard the term deadcatting for the first time today.1 It means employing a shocking distraction to pull peoples' eyes away from what matters. Why a dead cat? Imagine throwing one on a table at which people are engaged in a heated discussion. Their focus will be pulled to the cat instead of lingering on whatever difficulty is before them. This dead cat strategy can overlap with scapegoating and the politics of division, as when Trump claimed that Haitian immigrants were eating their neighbors' cats and dogs.2
It’s not just that both Putin and Trump lie, it is that they lie in the same way and for the same purpose—blatantly, to assert power over truth itself.
– Masha Gessen, quoted in Brooke Gladstone, The Trouble with Reality, (Workman Publishing, 2017), chap. 3.
The Trump administration is slashing the State Department’s annual human rights report — cutting sections about the rights of women, the disabled, the LGBTQ+ community and more.
The goal appears to be a far thinner report that meets the minimum standards required by the law, according to documents obtained by POLITICO, as well as a current and a former State Department official who were familiar with the plan.
Carl T. Bergstrom, a professor of biology at the University of Washington, has written an excellent thread about his and his colleagues' experience of the White House’s attack on U.S. science and education.
Putin Playing Trump for a Fool Again
The 30-day partial cease fire that Putin and Trump agreed to is a one-sided joke.
Russia probably needs relief from strikes on its energy infrastructure more than Ukraine does because the former depends on energy to finance its war. Ukraine, at least, has made it through another winter, when attacks on its energy infrastructure hurt the worst. Moreover, its air defenses seem to be more effective than Russia’s.
The real kicker, though, are the accompanying demands and threats, which continue to assert Russia’s maximalist aim of destroying Ukrainian sovereignty by demanding it do nothing to improve its defense posture. Meanwhile, the White House and Kremlin “agreed to set up Russian and American expert groups to ‘resolve the war bilaterally,'” i.e., without Ukraine or the rest of Europe. Of course, the Kremlin issued yet another tired threat of “escalation.”
Will the White House side with Russia again, despite the Kremlin playing Trump for a fool? It wouldn’t surprise me, given that Trump has no advisors who will tell him what he needs to hear. I hope I’m wrong.
“After Trump DEI Order, Navajo Code Talkers Disappear From Military Websites,” www.axios.com….
From 1942 to 1945, the Navajo code talkers were instrumental in every major Marine Corps operation in the Pacific Theater of World War II.
America hasn’t felt this upside down since I was a child in an internment camp.
Seen in grocery store: Old guy prolly dependent on Social Security, etc., wearing a black windbreaker marked ICE. Maybe supposed to look cool or intimidating, like a big swastica, if you’re into that sort of thing, but it felt more like a big “I am an asshole” or “Kick me” sign.
“JACL condemns Trump erasure of 442nd and 100th Infantry Battalion,” asnews.com….
“The 100th and 442nd remain the most decorated military units in U.S. history for their size and length of service,” the Japanese American Citizens League said in a statement. “Their heroism, despite the racism and incarceration their families faced at home, is a testament to their loyalty and sacrifice, as is their unit motto, ‘Go For Broke.'”
Started rereading a little book I enjoyed when it first came out: Brooke Gladstone, The Trouble with Reality: A Rumination on Moral Panic in Our Time (Workman Publishing, 2017).
“Idaho Teacher Told To Remove ‘Everyone Is Welcome Here’ Sign From Classroom,” www.today.com…
There are only two opinions on this sign: Everyone is welcome here, or not everyone is welcome here," argues Sarah Inama, a sixth-grade history teacher.
Deeply disappointed in the votes of my two senators for cloture and for submitting to a GOP budget that will harm New Hampshire’s residents. Yes, we’re a purple state. No, they should not be putting their jobs ahead of the state’s residents, let alone democracy. #NH #Shaheen #Hassan
This change says a lot about the ambitions and delusions of the current Trumpy regime:
Arlington National Cemetery has scrubbed information about prominent Black, Hispanic and female service members and topics such as the Civil War from its website, part of an effort across the Defense Department to remove all references to diversity, equity and inclusion from its online presence.
If you pretend this isn’t real, it’s very exciting.
– Laurie Kilmartin on “Have I Got New for You” (U.S.), s. 2, ep. 4, March 8, 2025.
Only Orange Choad could side with the Russian Bear and think that doing so makes him look strong. #RussoUkrainianWar #RussiaIsATerroristState #ПутінХуйло 🇺🇦