Tootfinder

Liberals Cannot Stop Authoritarianism by Compromising With It (Radley Balko/The UnPopulist)
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/liberals-cannot-stop-authoritarianism
http://www.memeorandum.com/250829/p32#a250829p32

"""
The barbarian role of cultural demolition crew is especially important when you consider how often cultural reconstruction is needed. Many of Rome’s glaring defects — exploitation, authoritarianism, corrupt self-aggrandizement — flow from deeply human tendencies. Time and again they’ve transformed promising civilizations into decaying, oppressive monstrosities. Time and again, history seems to cry out: Bring on the demolition crew! And time and again barbarians cheerfully respond to the call. Their previous massive wreaking of destruction, near the end of the second millennium B.C., had come after civilization went through centuries of apparent ossification.
In a way, barbarians are just a special case of that general and potent zero-sum dynamic in cultural evolution: brutal competition among neighboring societies. This rivalry renders ossified cultures vulnerable to a makeover, minor or major. They may be taken over by a vast neighboring civilization, which will revamp them in its image. Or they may be infiltrated and perhaps even disassembled by barbarians, paving the way for future reassembly. Or they may revive and prevail — an example of the “challenge and response” dynamic stressed by Arnold Toynbee. In any event, the point remains the same: however deeply human the tendencies of exploitation, authoritarianism, and self-aggrandizement, cultures that surrender to them may not be long for this world.
"""
(Robert Wright, Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny)
Is it time for the barbarians now? Or perhaps we — here on Fedi — are the barbarians.

Donald Trump’s march towards authoritarianism is so steady,
taking another step or two every day,
that it’s easy to become inured to it:
you can’t be in a state of shock permanently.
And, besides, sober-minded people are wary of sounding hyperbolic or hysterical:
their instinct is to play down rather than scream at the top of their voice.
There’s something else, too.
Trump’s dictatorial behaviour is so brazen, so blatant, that paradoxically,
…

Welcome to Computing's weekly roundup of tech news in Asia. This time we look at another site ban in India, China’s ‘convenient’ virtual ID and Japan’s power challenges in the face of datacentre construction.
https://www.computing.co.uk/news/2025/indi

India’s digital authoritarianism - Asian Tech Roundup
Welcome to Computing's weekly roundup of tech news in Asia. This time we look at another site ban in India, China’s ‘convenient’ virtual ID and ...

Workshop on authoritarianism, law, and the remaking of society
https://ift.tt/98JaM7s
Date: 19 June 2025 to 20 June 2025 Time: 10:00 am Venue: Room S312 (Paul Webley Wing), SOAS,…
via Input 4 RELCFP

Workshop on authoritarianism, law, and the remaking of society
Date: 19 June 2025 to 20 June 2025Time: 10:00 amVenue: Room S312 (Paul Webley Wing), SOAS, University of LondonEvent type: ConferenceRegistration: The event is free to attend. Click here to register. Join us for a 2 day workshop that seeks to draw attention to the social life of laws used by authoritarian states and leaders to change the composition of societies.Download programmeScheduleRegister here to attend.

"i find this image so fascinating. it is both a literal example of authoritarianism but also a second-hand reproduction of the aesthetics of other authoritarian states. it's like a simulacra of authoritarianism whose purpose is to attempt to make the simulacra real."
-- Jamelle Boule
https://bsky…

Michael Clemens (@mclem.org)
This is a real photograph of Washington, DC this week, where the United States president has ordered military occupation in peacetime, and ordered the display of colossal portraits of himself. https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/in-trumps-second-term-a-bolder-president-charges-ahead-unchecked-1c8c5b79

"A retread of the defeated 2015-19 project is unlikely to be a recipe for future success.
"Even so, this is a very encouraging beginning. The march of authoritarianism and racism across this country, the disgusting consensus behind complicity in Israeli genocide and the attempt to keep public ownership and wealth redistribution off the table can all be challenged by the emergence of a left movement on this scale."

Photographic exhibition on Authoritarianism, Law, and the Remaking of Society
https://ift.tt/F3Z1SrB
Authoritarian regimes often use everyday laws and bureaucracy to target communities and consolidate…
via Input 4 RELCFP

Photographic exhibition on Authoritarianism, Law, and the Remaking of Society
Authoritarian regimes often use everyday laws and bureaucracy to target communities and consolidate power. From missing documents to viral jokes, ordinary actions can have extraordinary consequences. This exhibition explores how control is exercised through the mundane—and how people resist the quiet force of authoritarian rule.

Tonight, Diego offers a tip on how to deal with authoritarian figures like Trump.
▶️ Guest Host Diego Luna on Fighting Authoritarianism
https://youtube.com/watch?v=CCJuvGta5G0&si=hEkhjGsnNQCzY27_
✅ Diego Luna Hits Trump With Frank Reminder Of 1 Huge …

Trump Is The Bogeyman The Right Always Warned Us About (The Big Picture)
https://thinkbigpicture.substack.com/p/trump-authoritarianism-rightwing-conspiracies
http://www.memeorandum.com/250826/p134#a250826p134

“The United States, just months before its 250th birthday as the world’s leading democracy, has tipped over the edge into authoritarianism and fascism. ”
https://www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/america-tips-into-fascism-f51000e08e03254d

America Tips Into Fascism
Today is different than before.

Q&A with Wired's global editorial director Katie Drummond on how it is impossible to disambiguate tech from politics as the US turns toward authoritarianism (Oliver Darcy/Status)
https://www.status.news/p/wired-katie-drummond-interview

WIRED for the Moment
In a conversation with Status, WIRED’s Katie Drummond argues that Silicon Valley is no longer just innovating new technology—it’s actively shaping American democracy.

Key to whether Trump can tilt America decisively into authoritarianism will be his efforts to assert control over the armed forces.
“Trump’s ramping up of the effort to politicize the military can still go in multiple directions,” Levitsky said.
“It could be really ugly and bad, because the only way that you can get from where we are to real authoritarianism like Nicaragua or Venezuela or Russia is if Trump has the military and security forces on his side,
and he’s taken s…

From @… 5 Things AM, August 18, 2025
More National Guard deployed to Washington, DC
#authoritarianism #PoliceState

The new Online Safety Act – safety or authoritarianism?
https://northwestbylines.co.uk/politics/opinion/the-new-online-safety-act-safet…

The new Online Safety Act – safety or authoritarianism?
Is the UK's Online Safety Act 2023, with people having to age-verify for social media, a step toward safety or digital authoritarianism?

> Writer J. Michael Straczynski has been warning his readers for 30 years about authoritarianism, from Babylon 5 to Spider-Man.
post text from: https://bsky.app/profile/comicbookclub.bsky.social/post/3lxa2lxzff32w
linking to:

I got this post by @… in my email today, it was forwarded while it still was attributed to Liz Cheney with this preface which I agree with:
"When she was in Congress, I disagreed with almost everything she said and every vote she made. But on the transcendent issue of our time — protecting our democracy from Trump and the forces of authoritarianism and fascism — Liz Cheney has been correct, clear, and courageous."
Turns out the message is not by Liz Cheney but is well worth reading as a kick in the ass to the Democratic Party.
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/a-remarkable-message

"In the past 10 weeks America has witnessed an extraordinary outpouring of decisions from its highest...
The six rightwing justices who control the court – three of them given their lifetime seats by Trump himself – have effectively greenlighted the president’s explosive and law-busting agenda.
The supermajority has granted Trump 18 straight victories in the administration’s requests for emergency relief...

Democracies should stop focusing on efficiency: Lack thereof and friction are important parts of what defines a healthy democracy. Efficiency will always sacrifice participation, representation and meaningful political discourse. The focus on it is a path into authoritarianism. In the essay ...

Basically, someone I know in real life, is blatantly pretending and lying, attempting to trick my mind into believing that anarcho-syndicalism is the same thing as authoritarianism. The absurdity of this conflation is laughable.
Anarcho-syndicalism fundamentally opposes authoritarian structures by advocating for decentralized, worker-controlled organizations and direct democracy, whereas authoritarianism centers on concentrated, top-down control and coercive power.
The attempt to…

This is democracy — the American people are getting what they voted for.
AND: This is authoritarianism — Not Trump cleaning up crisis or disorder but Trump creating crisis and disorder so he can build what he has wanted to build:
an authoritarian state, a military or a paramilitary that answers only to him
— that puts him in total control.
I can see the picture of a president doing what he was elected to do.
Donald Trump ran unquestionably on mass deportations. …

Opinion | Trump Is Building His Own Paramilitary Force
The journalist Radley Balko explains the mechanisms Trump is using to create a personal army.

#Jacobin is really the king of commissioning older western white #leftists to write about the global south. This piece does no original reporting, has no Indonesian voices, and makes blanket statements.
It's not bad, but I can think of dozens of Indonesians who could have written a far better pi…

Indonesia’s Rulers Are Whitewashing the Crimes of Suharto
In the 1960s, the Indonesian dictator Suharto was responsible for one of the twentieth century’s bloodiest political massacres. Under the rule of Prabowo, the country’s government is suppressing the memory of Suharto’s crimes while vilifying the Left.

Citizen Lab director warns cyber industry about US authoritarian descent
Ron Deibert, the director of Citizen Lab, one of the most prominent organizations investigating government spyware abuses, is sounding the alarm to the cybersecurity community and asking them to step up and join the fight against authoritarianism.
🕵️

Citizen Lab director warns cyber industry about US authoritarian descent | TechCrunch
Ron Deibert, the head of the prominent digital human rights groups Citizen Lab, sounds the alarm at the Black Hat security conference about the "dramatic descent into authoritarianism," but one that the cyber community can help to defend against.

My earliest recollections of #SCOTUS rulings date to the mid 1960s, along with both family and classroom discussions of rulings such as Brown vs Board of Education and Loving vs Virginia.
I never dreamed that #SCOTUS would provide cover for a

My earliest recollections of #SCOTUS rulings date to the mid 1960s, along with both family and classroom discussions of rulings such as Brown vs Board of Education and Loving vs Virginia.
I never dreamed that #SCOTUS would provide cover for a

Is comparing crowd size at No Kings versus the pathetic military parade just pure pettiness?
❝No. Right now crowd sizes matter a lot because competitive authoritarianism rests largely on self-fulfilling expectations.❞
1/
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/trumps-parade-flopped-no-kings-day

A succession of opposition politicians, including Alex Padilla, a US senator, are handcuffed and arrested by heavy-handed law enforcement for little more than questioning authority or voicing dissent.
A judge is arrested in her own courthouse and charged with helping a defendant evade arrest.
Masked snatch squads arrest and spirit people away in public in what seem to be consciously intimidating scenes.
The president deploys the military on a dubious legal premise to confro…

Mijn altijd grofgebekte weer app denkt er het zijne van.

"The question of whether we’re in a constitutional crisis or whether authoritarianism has arrived is kind of an academic one. It’s either here or it’s going to be here very soon. **We’re still short of them openly defying a supreme court ruling or intentionally deporting US citizens or attempting to shut down a news media operation. But we’re not very far short.**"
Trump promised to be a dictator on day one. We’re now past day 200 | Donald Trump | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/10/donald-trump-authoritarian-democracy

Workers install a sign "Alligator Alcatraz" at the entrance to a new immigrant detention facility at Dade-Collier Training and Transition facility, on Thursday in Ochopee, Florida.
Photograph: Rebecca Blackwell/AP
#resist #authoritarianism

Mzia Amaghlobeli, a prominent independent journalist in the country of Georgia, was sentenced to two years in prison for slapping a police officer at a protest (Francesca Ebel/Washington Post)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/08…

Georgia sentences journalist to two years in prison, drawing condemnation
Mzia Amaghlobeli, the founder of two media outlets, had slapped a police officer at an anti-government protest, but her case was seen as part of a wider crackdown on dissent.

Citizen Lab director warns cyber industry about US authoritarian descent
https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/06/citizen-lab-director-warns-cyber-industry-about-us-authoritarian-descent/

Citizen Lab director warns cyber industry about US authoritarian descent | TechCrunch
Ron Deibert, the head of the prominent digital human rights groups Citizen Lab, sounds the alarm at the Black Hat security conference about the "dramatic descent into authoritarianism," but one that the cyber community can help to defend against.

Workshop on authoritarianism, law, and the remaking of society
https://ift.tt/C13G075
Date: 19 June 2025 to 20 June 2025 Time: 10:00 am Venue: Room S312 (Paul Webley Wing), SOAS,…
via Input 4 RELCFP

Workshop on authoritarianism, law, and the remaking of society
Date: 19 June 2025 to 20 June 2025Time: 10:00 amVenue: Room S312 (Paul Webley Wing), SOAS, University of LondonEvent type: ConferenceRegistration: The event is free to attend. Click here to register. Join us for a 2 day workshop that seeks to draw attention to the social life of laws used by authoritarian states and leaders to change the composition of societies.Download programmeScheduleRegister here to attend.

Trump Is Winning the Battle to Undermine Democracy (Thomas B. Edsall/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/15/opinion/trump-authoritarianism-republican-party-democracy.html
http://www.memeorandum.com/250715/p118#a250715p118

Bernie Sanders warned of the US’s slide into authoritarianism
following Donald Trump’s decision to deploy the national guard to Los Angeles over the city’s protests against federal immigration raids.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/j…

Krugman continues:
❝While there is a cadre of Trumpist true believers who will obey the Leader under any circumstances, most of those doing the dirty work of undermining democracy and the rule of law are cowards and opportunists. They’re willing to participate in the destruction of America as we know it because they believe that many others will do the same. As a result, they believe that they are unlikely to face any personal consequences for their actions and may even be rewarded for their lawbreaking.
And what of those who oppose Trumpism? While there are heroes willing to take a stand against tyranny whatever the personal cost, most anti-Trumpists are reluctant to stick their necks out unless they believe that they are part of a widespread resistance that will grant them some measure of safety in numbers.
In other words, the victory or defeat of competitive authoritarianism will depend to a large extent on which side ordinary people believe will win. If Trump looks unstoppable, resistance will wither away and democracy will be lost. On the other hand, if he appears weak and stymied, resistance will grow and — just maybe — American democracy will survive.❞
2/

Photographic exhibition on Authoritarianism, Law, and the Remaking of Society
https://ift.tt/xRrUVMj
Authoritarian regimes often use everyday laws and bureaucracy to target communities and consolidate…
via Input 4 RELCFP

Photographic exhibition on Authoritarianism, Law, and the Remaking of Society
Authoritarian regimes often use everyday laws and bureaucracy to target communities and consolidate power. From missing documents to viral jokes, ordinary actions can have extraordinary consequences. This exhibition explores how control is exercised through the mundane—and how people resist the quiet force of authoritarian rule.

Here’s what the “just let tech bros run everything” crowd fundamentally misunderstands about how innovation actually works: It requires exactly the kind of chaotic, unpredictable, open ecosystem that authoritarianism systematically destroys.
Real innovation happens when companies have to compete on merit, not on who can kiss the leader’s ass most effectively. In a functioning democracy with actual rule of law, the best products have the opportunity to win. In an authoritari…

Fascism For First Time Founders
Over the last year or so I’ve seen a disturbing tendency in tech/startup/VC worlds to buy into the neoreactionary view that for startups to be successful they need to get on board the Trump t…

Good Signal tips for activism.
#signal

Using Signal groups for activism
Things are heating up. Millions of people are taking to the streets against Trump's rising authoritarianism. Communities around the US are organizing to defend against ICE raids, to protest Israeli genocide, for mutual aid, and for other forms of fighting fascism. Signal can help people safely organize in all of

Cannot emphasize enough how much we need people with experience as public defenders and civil rights lawyers to run for political office.
At a time of authoritarianism, their skepticism of power is critical.
https://bsky.app/profile/davidmenschel.bsky.social/post…

"The difference between us and MAGA is they rally behind their choice no matter what, while we’re busy policing each other as MAGA works to take over the world and take away the rights of the poor, queer folk, women & minorities."
From: @…

Andy Neal (@andyfilmsandhikes) on Threads
Dear fellow liberals, there is no perfect candidate. Every one of them has flaws, moments they regret, policies you may strongly oppose. The difference between us and MAGA is they rally behind their choice no matter what, while we’re busy policing each other as MAGA works to take over the world and take away the rights of the poor, queer folk, women & minorities… we can have those discussions amongst ourselves but right now we’re fighting against authoritarianism...& they’re flooding…

Democrats must organize urgently for the 2026 midterm elections
and avoid a “it can’t happen here” mentality
to stop Donald Trump from staging a full-scale autocratic takeover,
a Hungarian opposition parliamentarian has said.
Katalin Cseh,
a critic of Hungary’s strongman prime minister, Viktor Orbšn,
told a forum on authoritarianism that
the central European country’s experience held vital lessons for Trump’s opponents
in their attempts to resi…

Photographic exhibition on Authoritarianism, Law, and the Remaking of Society https://www.socialifeoflaw.com/post/photographic-exhibition-on-authoritarianism-law-and-the-remaking-of-society

Photographic exhibition on Authoritarianism, Law, and the Remaking of Society
Authoritarian regimes often use everyday laws and bureaucracy to target communities and consolidate power. From missing documents to viral jokes, ordinary actions can have extraordinary consequences. This exhibition explores how control is exercised through the mundane—and how people resist the quiet force of authoritarian rule.

When Trump federalized the D.C. police, he clobbered the idea that the people of the city govern themselves.
That’s what Mussolini did when he centralized Italy’s municipalities.
That’s what fascists do:
crush local authority under the weight of a single man’s will.
https://www.cl…

Trump’s Fascism Isn’t Coming. It’s Here.
America is not drifting toward authoritarianism.

Just your daily reminder that I stand firmly against #MarxismLeninism, and all the Tankies desperately trying to make authoritarianism cool again!
#Anarchism #Syndicalism

Joe Walsh: "Trump’s tactics are in fact communist. Many Republican elected officials do see this but turn the other way. Because the base of the party embraces these communist tactics. Again, so much of this can be attributed to the fact that the right had always had a thing for authoritarianism."

Workshop on authoritarianism, law, and the remaking of society
https://ift.tt/PX6BivW
Date: 19 June 2025 to 20 June 2025 Time: 10:00 am Venue: Room S312 (Paul Webley Wing), SOAS,…
via Input 4 RELCFP

Workshop on authoritarianism, law, and the remaking of society
Date: 19 June 2025 to 20 June 2025Time: 10:00 amVenue: Room S312 (Paul Webley Wing), SOAS, University of LondonEvent type: ConferenceRegistration: The event is free to attend. Click here to register. Join us for a 2 day workshop that seeks to draw attention to the social life of laws used by authoritarian states and leaders to change the composition of societies.Download programmeScheduleRegister here to attend.

The US government is blatantly misrepresenting events captured on video
in an effort to intimidate powerful officials and ordinary citizens who seek to challenge the White House’s policies.
Alec Karakatsanis, the founder of Civil Rights Corps, a nonprofit legal advocacy group, argued:
👉 “By relentlessly telling the population that ‘two plus two equals five’, it helps determine who is willing to go along with ‘two plus two equals five’ and deny basic truths.
“It’s also…

We lost.
We lost because this is what our elected Representatives & Senators voted for.
We lost because we voted for this #Congress.
We said forget morality & democracy. We like dictatorship & Authoritarianism.
This is who we are now. This is our failure.
We'll see who we vote for 2026.

Photographic exhibition on Authoritarianism, Law, and the Remaking of Society
https://ift.tt/eyH35qi
Authoritarian regimes often use everyday laws and bureaucracy to target communities and consolidate…
via Input 4 RELCFP

Photographic exhibition on Authoritarianism, Law, and the Remaking of Society
Authoritarian regimes often use everyday laws and bureaucracy to target communities and consolidate power. From missing documents to viral jokes, ordinary actions can have extraordinary consequences. This exhibition explores how control is exercised through the mundane—and how people resist the quiet force of authoritarian rule.

The authoritarian dream is rooted in the belief that state violence should serve as the primary tool of governance.
When the guardrails of democracy are dismantled, violence shifts from being a last resort to a governing principle.
This is precisely what unfolded in Los Angeles, where Trump deployed the National Guard and Marines to crush protests against his mass deportation policies,
while mobilizing ICE as a modern-day Gestapo.
What cannot be ignored is that the…

From the Streets of LA to the National Stage: The Left Must Win the Cultural War
Trump’s war on dissent can only be defeated by a left that challenges the values sustaining authoritarianism.

Applebaum on Autocracy ... Anne Applebaum has spent decades chronicling the rise of authoritarianism ... (Oliver Darcy/Status)
https://www.status.news/p/anne-applebaum-autocracy-interview
http://www.memeorandum.com/250803/p69#a250803p69

One Million Rising:
Strategic Non-Cooperation to Fight Authoritarianism
· Hosted by No Kings
Wednesdays
8 – 9pm EDT
Virtual event
Join from anywhere
https://www.mobilize.us/indivisible/event/803953/

One Million Rising: Strategic Non-Cooperation to Fight Authoritarianism · Indivisible
Across the country, authoritarian forces are getting bolder and more dangerous. Trump and his allies are not hiding their agenda: mass deportations, rollbacks of civil rights, weaponized courts, and full-scale attacks on our democracy. We don’t have to wait until it’s too late. We can stop this. But it’ll take all of us—not just on single days of mass action, but through sustained organizing in our communities. That’s why this summer, we’re launching One Million Rising—a national…

Some of the country’s largest liberal foundations are quietly working to raise at least $250 million
to help civil groups push back against President Trump and what they see as his steady drift toward authoritarianism.
The effort is in its early days,
working to secure initial commitments.
But the scale of the collaborative undertaking has turned heads in the tightly networked world of philanthropy.
It comes as donors are licking their wounds and many efforts to …

Liberal Fund-Raising Drive Seeks $250 Million to Aid Pushback Against Trump
Donors hope to raise huge sums of money to help those fighting what they see as a drift toward authoritarianism, but without attracting unwanted White House attention.

It’s authoritarianism and in-your-face grift all in a neat little uniquely American package
That it it’s his personal brand, not the state, is just the cherry on top.
https://bsky.app/profile/scottlincicome.bsky.social/post/3lrqa6jslpy2x

Scott Lincicome (@scottlincicome.bsky.social)
So the guy who can singlehandedly set US tariffs on smartphones is launching his own US smartphone company do I have that right

"The immigration detention system has become a testing ground for authoritarianism." - @silkys13.bsky.social
https://bsky.app/profile/democracynow.org/post/3lqpltpcg522i

Ron Deibert,
the director of Citizen Lab, one of the most prominent organizations investigating government spyware abuses,
is sounding the alarm to the cybersecurity community
and asking them to step up and join the ⭐️fight against authoritarianism. 
On Wednesday, Deibert will deliver a keynote at the Black Hat cybersecurity conference in Las Vegas,
one of the largest gatherings of information security professionals of the year. 
Ahead of his talk, Deibert …

Citizen Lab director warns cyber industry about US authoritarian descent | TechCrunch
Ron Deibert, the head of the prominent digital human rights groups Citizen Lab, sounds the alarm at the Black Hat security conference about the "dramatic descent into authoritarianism," but one that the cyber community can help to defend against.

Photographic exhibition on Authoritarianism, Law, and the Remaking of Society
https://ift.tt/68VnE7t
Authoritarian regimes often use everyday laws and bureaucracy to target communities and consolidate…
via Input 4 RELCFP

Photographic exhibition on Authoritarianism, Law, and the Remaking of Society
Authoritarian regimes often use everyday laws and bureaucracy to target communities and consolidate power. From missing documents to viral jokes, ordinary actions can have extraordinary consequences. This exhibition explores how control is exercised through the mundane—and how people resist the quiet force of authoritarian rule.

Photographic exhibition on Authoritarianism, Law, and the Remaking of Society
https://ift.tt/7rRiHkw
Authoritarian regimes often use everyday laws and bureaucracy to target communities and consolidate…
via Input 4 RELCFP

Photographic exhibition on Authoritarianism, Law, and the Remaking of Society
Authoritarian regimes often use everyday laws and bureaucracy to target communities and consolidate power. From missing documents to viral jokes, ordinary actions can have extraordinary consequences. This exhibition explores how control is exercised through the mundane—and how people resist the quiet force of authoritarian rule.

Right-wing media has embraced Trump’s violation of local control in Washington,
dismissing constitutional concerns about creeping authoritarianism
and embracing exaggerated depictions of the level of crime in the nation’s capital
(Washington’s violent crime rate fell sharply last year, though it remains higher than that of Los Angeles, New York and Chicago.)
MAGA influencers like Charlie Kirk have called for a “full military occupation” of other major cities.
Ms…

Rollout of Trump’s D.C. Crackdown Included Fox News Stars and Charts
Jeanine Pirro had a starring role in promoting the president’s federal takeover on TV, and Will Cain’s charts made a cameo.

Representing Authoritarianism in Modern Latin American Politics and Literature
https://ift.tt/gtTl4U5
updated: Wednesday, June 18, 2025 - 5:55amfull name / name of organization: Joseph Mulligan, Weber…
via Input 4 RELCFP

Keep the pressure on the very few republicans who know none of this is okay
https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3lr3xaxp7m22l

Authoritarianism and the decentring of the constitution
https://ift.tt/Ar46wTX
by Mayur Suresh The impetus for this project stems from a disquiet, felt by so many in different…
via Input 4 RELCFP

Authoritarianism and the decentring of the constitution
by Mayur SureshThe impetus for this project stems from a disquiet, felt by so many in different parts of the world, of the arrival of authoritarian strongmen who had been elected to power. As Kim Scheppele’s influential article tells us, “By now, we know the pattern” of a charismatic leader elected to power, on the back of a wave of popular disenchantment with the state. This leader promises to wipe away the roadblocks that he says have held the country back: established elites, oppos…

“Siloviki” is perhaps the most borrowed word in Russian studies
— probably because it explains so much about Putin’s Russia.
Its members are the police, the border control, the army, the security services, the spies.
For their service to the regime, they are rewarded with early pensions,
plenty of cash and almost total immunity from investigation for corruption or brutality.
In truth, the American security state, with its qualified immunity, surveillance appar…

Opinion | Here’s What’s Happening in America, in Six (Mostly) Russian Terms
To help Americans name their new reality, we wrote a phrase book of authoritarianism.

Workshop on authoritarianism, law, and the remaking of society
https://ift.tt/xdHYwVh
Date: 19 June 2025 to 20 June 2025 Time: 10:00 am Venue: Room S312 (Paul Webley Wing), SOAS,…
via Input 4 RELCFP

Workshop on authoritarianism, law, and the remaking of society
Date: 19 June 2025 to 20 June 2025Time: 10:00 amVenue: Room S312 (Paul Webley Wing), SOAS, University of LondonEvent type: ConferenceRegistration: The event is free to attend. Click here to register. Join us for a 2 day workshop that seeks to draw attention to the social life of laws used by authoritarian states and leaders to change the composition of societies.Download programmeScheduleRegister here to attend.

What, exactly, constitutes a “conservative idea?”
That dictatorship is preferable to democracy?
That white Christian nationalism is better than tolerance and openness?
That social Darwinism is superior to human decency?
The claim that higher education must be more open to such “conservative ideas” is dangerous drivel.
So what’s the real, underlying reason for the Trump regime’s attack on education?
Not incidentally, that attack extends to grade school.

DEI, antisemitism, and transgender athletes are not the real reasons for these attacks on higher education. They’re excuses to give the Trump regime power over America’s colleges and universities.
Why do Trump and his lackeys want this power?
They’re following Hungarian president Viktor Orbšn’s playbook for creating an “illiberal democracy”
– an authoritarian state masquerading as a democracy. The playbook goes like this:
First, take over military and intelligence ope…

Fellow citizens: What are you going to do between now and July 4, 2026, to protect and preserve our independence from a tinpot dictator❓
So, fellow citizens, I ask you:
Bow down to authoritarianism and normalize anti-democratic behavior.
Or
Reflect on the challenges facing the nation and become an advocate for policies that align with liberty, freedom, sovereignty, democracy, and the principles enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.
This is your America. The choice …

Give Me Liberty or a Tinpot Dictator
Peggy Noonan has been a voice of conservative reflection for The Wall Street Journal since leaving the Ronald Reagan administration as his primary speechwriter. Five of Noonan’s books have been New York Times bestsellers. Consuming every word of her weekly column keeps me politically balanced.In her...