If a coup is on the way, everything for the past several years will retrospectively be part of it.
But yeah, they could miss the mark.
Man, JMM can turn a phrase, in the context of debt ceiling (tying it in to media manipulation for 2024 plans): "The fire alarm keeps going off because one side keeps lighting fires. But a generation of prestige journalists still insists this is just the same old gamesmanship between the arsonists and the first department over how often the alarm should go off."
Also JMM: "The essence of Big Lie activism is to discredit civic democracy and lay the groundwork for its overthrow. It is based on the core conviction that elections which Republicans do not win by definition cannot be legitimate. But there's a more immediate and concrete aim. The people who steal the 2024 election will mostly know they're stealing the election. They will do it because they've created a path of logic that justifies doing so. One of the key ways Rick sees this happening is in the marinading intensity of what we might grandiloquently call 'Big Lie discourse'. If you stew people long enough in the claim that the Democrats stole the 2020 election they'll feel justified in stealing it for themselves in 2024 because that's just fair play. You're just evening the score."
Also, they might be afraid they'll get shot if they don't steal it.
5: I really feel more needs to be made of the fact that most Republican politicians are operating in the knowledge that if they cross Trump he will try to have them killed.
Who is the Ernest Röhm of the Americans?
6: And this doesn't seem really worthy of coverage in the Times. Just how it is! They report the news, not the olds!
Now I'm wondering if people in 15th Century Spain did expect the Spanish Inquisition.
When we say Trump will try to have his enemies killed, do we mean something more calculated than using inflammatory speech around violent and aggressive right-wingers with shocking private arsenals?
But that's more than sufficient. Looking at 1/6 shows that, plus the "background" terrorism.
Speaking of having people killed, have you guys read the batshit story about the CIA and Assange? Thoughts? I never know what to make of this shit. How do you verify something like this?
In response, the CIA and the White House began preparing for a number of scenarios to foil Assange's Russian departure plans, according to three former officials. Those included potential gun battles with Kremlin operatives on the streets of London, crashing a car into a Russian diplomatic vehicle transporting Assange and then grabbing him, and shooting out the tires of a Russian plane carrying Assange before it could take off for Moscow. (U.S. officials asked their British counterparts to do the shooting if gunfire was required, and the British agreed, according to a former senior administration official.)
(n.b. article is not paywalled, but is on Yahoo News, which extracts a toll via terrible UX.)
13: I agree, roughly! But I'm just clarifying that it still does mean two different things when Putin has someone killed vs when Trump has someone killed.
14: Isikoff. He can be on and off*. Emptywheel has been pointing out that the story really obscures other stuff going on with the Admin and Assange where Trump was getting in the way of doing stuff against him (some of which Isikoff had written about himself.). Ratfuckers at odds. Seems to be a very partial picture written to be as inflammatory as possible.
*People might forget, but it was Isikoff who had the Lewinsky blue dress scoop but Newsweek (his outfit at the time) were hesitant and Drudge ended up with the story.
OP: Yes, there is a chance it is just another cycle like we've had since Reagan, the Dems sort of kinda fix up major stuff broken by the Rs (but with a lot of their own fuckedupedness thrown in) but overall it is just a temporary stop on the slide downhill.
Now Tucker Carlson can basically go full Stormfront and it is met with only scattered outrage and almost no scrutiny from other more mainstream press. (Or even in general how almost none of the big coverage of why people won't get vaccinated even mentions Fox news).
14: the drama quote there seems to refer to a scenario with the Russians trying to spring him from the embassy, in which case I would damn well hope the Met would do something and certainly not rely on US spooks of whatever kind.
August was very depressing for me on this front. (And I have probably reached the crank stage on this and should be ignored ... maybe.) The combination of Afghanistan press craziness and the crazed SCOTUS "Remain in Mexico" shadow docket decision were the one-two punch.
I know both of those are peripheral to the main election stuff; but they clearly signaled to me that two of fuckedupedness of two key national institutions*. For the SCOTUS stuff , this piece by Lithwick and Stern is useful in cataloguing how truly wild it was. Far less consequential than the Texas abortion thing, but just an utter shitshow on so many levels. They will do whatever they want or need to do; as I said in the Audit thread surely the 4 "squishy" fascists on the Court would prefer to not need to do something hugely consequential in a Presidential election (like a Bush v. Gore) but I'm sure theyl do so in a a pinch (Alito and Thomas on the other hand are chomping at the bit to do so.) The coverage of the immigration stuff was generally muted with "political**" reorters noting the Biden admin was relatively muted in response since it kind of helped them with immigration optics.
The Afghan press stuff was just so beyond the pale of sanity that it left me shaken in general. (And they will beat that drum and the "competence issue" right through the midterms.)
*And the primary press basically ignoring the Eastman plan revelations did nothing to disabuse me of those thoughts.
**There seem to be very few in the political press who view their job as reporting on governance an policy; political reporting should be something focusing on elections but it is basically the only prism things get viewed through.
Speaking of coup participants, the one that went to my high school is apparently trying that thing where you take a guilty plea for a reduced sentence but publicly maintain your innocence.