Thomas Zimmer
Historian at Georgetown - Democracy and Its Discontents - Newsletter: Democracy Americana thomaszimmer.substack.com - Podcast: Is This Democracy podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/is-this-de…
- Within weeks of coming to power, the white nationalist regime flew in Afrikaners as refugees from what the regime's leader called an anti-white "genocide" - while at the same time shutting down asylum and escalating their purge of non-white people they declared "alien enemies." Not very subtle.
- The regime is arresting judges and mayors, snatching people off the street, threatening to suspend habeas corpus. Is it getting worse quickly, as they escalate their assault? Or are they lashing out in frustration, as they keep losing in the courts and struggling to consolidate? The answer is: Yes.
- Escalate and intimidate. That is exactly the playbook. And it concerns me greatly: You know the Stephen Miller types in this administration are just itching for violence - searching, longing for something they can use as pretext for a drastic escalation so they can finally ditch all restraint.
- Weekend reading: I wrote about the MAGA government siding with the German Neo-Nazi party. They share the same enemy: liberal democracy. What a moment in U.S. history. This week’s piece:
- Shortly after coming to power, the regime orders a massive military parade in the nation’s capital, to be held on the regime leader’s birthday - symbolizing the regime’s claim that the leader embodies the nation. This should be anathema in a democratic republic. It’s insulting and dangerous.
- "a total Marxist" - a "woke pope" - "a globalist" - "a shitlib" - might be "a demon" MAGA is having a totally normal, not at all deranged reaction to today's big news. Not that more evidence was needed, but it's a reminder of how this movement sees the world and anyone they consider their enemy.
- !!!
- Such a long tradition on the Right of supporting foreign autocrats and longingly admiring rightwing regimes in other countries It has always been a way for American rightwing intellectuals and politicians to affirm and communicate their preferred vision of societal order at home and abroad.
