Sinister, yes. These autocrats are building a theocracy, with notions of blood-and-soil racial and religious supremacy. Their intentions go beyond merely influencing midterms. They are entering homes without warrants, defying judicial orders and executing innocent civilians in plain view, not only to root out perceived imposters, but also to threaten dissidents from within. Democrats in Congress need about 16 Republicans to vote with them to block funding for Trump's militia; and about 23 Republicans to bring impeachment. Governors of Blue states need to stop funding Red states, to pressure those reps to start standing up for democracy. Another peaceful form of protest is for Americans to boycott corporations and/or strike. It would mean stocking up on essential supplies, locking up and hunkering down. Such economic pressure could shift policy because in America, big donors exert massive control.
Anne, you’ve made the connection that matters most: Pam Bondi demanding Minnesota’s voter rolls while federal agents murder protesters in the streets is textbook authoritarian playbook. I’ve been tracking this exact pattern from Argentina’s Dirty War, and the parallels are chilling.
The sequence is deliberate:
Deploy paramilitary forces (ICE with promised federal immunity).
Commit extrajudicial killings (Renee Good, Alex Pretti).
Blame victims as “domestic terrorists.”
Use the “chaos” to justify escalation.
Demand state compliance or face more violence.
Bondi’s demand for voter rolls isn’t about election integrity. It’s about identifying who to target. Argentina’s dictatorship did the same…used state records to build lists of “subversives” for detention and disappearance.
The Minneapolis resistance you’re documenting: the legal observers, the Signal networks, the trained protesters; is exactly what prevented Argentina’s body count from being even higher. The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo did this. They made the invisible visible. They documented every disappearance. They created international pressure.
But here’s what Argentina’s neighbors didn’t do: apply meaningful external pressure while it was still stoppable.
Europe is making the same mistake right now. Mark Carney stood at Davos and spoke truth about building alternatives to American power. Got a standing ovation. Then what? Where’s Macron’s follow-through? Where’s Scholz? Where’s the FIFA World Cup boycott? Where are the sanctions on regime officials operating death squads?
The regime is telling you what comes next. Stephen Miller: “You have federal immunity.” NSPM-7: protesters are domestic terrorists. Secret ICE memos: no judicial warrants needed. Bondi: give us your voter rolls or we escalate.
They’re not hiding it. They’re announcing it. Building the legal fiction. Establishing precedent. Creating permission for what comes after the midterms if they lose them.
This is Argentina 1976, not Argentina 1983. The difference between those years is what happens now. Whether Americans resist (and Minneapolis is showing how). Whether allies apply pressure (and Europe is failing this test).
The body count is rising. The infrastructure is operational. The normalization is happening.
Believe them when they tell you what comes next.
— Johan
Former Foreign Service Officer
P.S. as my wife said this morning, and Anne Applebaum has been spot on about everything.
"Fascists ALWAYS come for EVERYONE". First they came for........ And if you do not stand and fight they are coming for YOU next! Now they are murdering white people - a woman and a man......and LYING about it and COVERING IT UP! Just like the LIAR and CRIMINAL Pam Bondi is COVERING UP the Epstein Files!! The longer that goes on the more we KNOW she is Covering Up for some very very high ranking people in America (like Trump?) and probably her government. They already are attacking and assaulting - Hispanic people, Black people, Asian people, Somali people, Trans, LGBTQ,...... And if YOU are in there way (which you are by the way) YOU ARE NEXT! Trump's Masked Gangs of "Jack Booted Thugs" ICE and CBP are the front line (Brown shirts) soldiers of his REVENGE, RETRIBUTION, and EXTORTION Racket. They are pushing aside ANY Local Law Enforcement to get the hell out of their way and just sit there as they attack and assault the people of the latest place they go. And the rest of the people in his regime are his servants for this TERROR campaign against the rest of us. Even Pete Hegseth, from Minnesota, is attacking his home state. I wonder what the people who grew up with him and around him think of him now, including his parents and grandparents and teachers and classmates....? People like John Thune of South Dakota (home to Kristi Noem - go figure), have been TERRORIZED into SILENCE already by Trump and his MAGA hordes to the point that John Thune lives in FEAR of violence from them against him so he will do NOTHING. See how it works...... Get busy and get active NOW before it is too late for you and the rest of us...........
Autocracies don't rise when citizens collectively trust and respect their democratic government. It's imperative that we address the cause of the decline in trust and respect of our government.
Forty years ago, the top 10% of Americans received one-third of all income in the US, today they receive one-half. The 90% fell from two-thirds to one-half of all US income.
Why was that shift necessary? What will stop it from increasing further? Why wouldn't those in the 90%, particularly those in the lower 50% feel unseen, unappreciated, and left out.
Politicians rely on the top 10% to fund their careers and direct their policies, which continue to favor the top 10%. For forty years they have been telling the 90% to trust them, they will make things better, and have not.
We can do better if we decide we must do better to save our free market economy and democracy. Citizen guardrails are essential. Free and fair markets and democracies require free and fair sharing of information. Information is influence, influence is income.
An independent Informed Citizens Commission should be a parallel goal with overcome the current and dire threat of authoritarianism to improve the resistance and to improve the next phase of America's destiny.
An independent Informed Citizens Commission would have as its purpose to create:
A Government that Represents Everyone
An Economy that Benefits Everyone
A Society that Respects Everyone
It would have as its strategy to ensure:
Informed Voters for Qualified and Trustworthy Leaders
Informed Employees for a Fair and Efficient Economy
Informed Citizens for Respect of the Views of Others
One of your recent articles helped re-motivate me, a pediatric hospital medicine specialist, in my conversations with parents who are refusing various newborn interventions. “Informed refusal” discussions are a pain point for us doctors, and I suspect for new parents also, as exactly none of us what to engage in any kind of “confrontation”. And when you are telling parents explicitly that something they are doing might lead to the death of their child, it’s tough for that to feel like a nurturing or supportive intervention. But when I do engage, I ask parents, do you have any specific questions or concerns that I can help you address? The answer is always some version of, I just don’t trust you/Western medicine/science. Sometimes (indeed, most recently) couched in terms of “science is based on questioning, so my questioning your recommendations is actually me respecting science.” I sometimes want to say, you know, you can question whether or not gravity is a misleading corporate construct despite all the evidence, but if you throw him up in the air, your son will still fall back to the ground . . . I really love your phrase “deliberate undermining of reality”. . . Would it be okay with you if I try to work it into these conversations somehow? I will continue to use it as inspiration no matter what. Thank you for your work.
Thank you for this careful analysis. I attend to your thoughts with careful attention, here and at the Atlantic and on MSNOW. You are a lodestar in our current moment, and I hope knowledge and awareness will permeate our culture before it is too lste.
Sinister, yes. These autocrats are building a theocracy, with notions of blood-and-soil racial and religious supremacy. Their intentions go beyond merely influencing midterms. They are entering homes without warrants, defying judicial orders and executing innocent civilians in plain view, not only to root out perceived imposters, but also to threaten dissidents from within. Democrats in Congress need about 16 Republicans to vote with them to block funding for Trump's militia; and about 23 Republicans to bring impeachment. Governors of Blue states need to stop funding Red states, to pressure those reps to start standing up for democracy. Another peaceful form of protest is for Americans to boycott corporations and/or strike. It would mean stocking up on essential supplies, locking up and hunkering down. Such economic pressure could shift policy because in America, big donors exert massive control.
Thank you, Ms. Applebaum. Your insights are invaluable to me. Stay safe.
Ditto
Anne, you’ve made the connection that matters most: Pam Bondi demanding Minnesota’s voter rolls while federal agents murder protesters in the streets is textbook authoritarian playbook. I’ve been tracking this exact pattern from Argentina’s Dirty War, and the parallels are chilling.
The sequence is deliberate:
Deploy paramilitary forces (ICE with promised federal immunity).
Commit extrajudicial killings (Renee Good, Alex Pretti).
Blame victims as “domestic terrorists.”
Use the “chaos” to justify escalation.
Demand state compliance or face more violence.
Bondi’s demand for voter rolls isn’t about election integrity. It’s about identifying who to target. Argentina’s dictatorship did the same…used state records to build lists of “subversives” for detention and disappearance.
The Minneapolis resistance you’re documenting: the legal observers, the Signal networks, the trained protesters; is exactly what prevented Argentina’s body count from being even higher. The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo did this. They made the invisible visible. They documented every disappearance. They created international pressure.
But here’s what Argentina’s neighbors didn’t do: apply meaningful external pressure while it was still stoppable.
Europe is making the same mistake right now. Mark Carney stood at Davos and spoke truth about building alternatives to American power. Got a standing ovation. Then what? Where’s Macron’s follow-through? Where’s Scholz? Where’s the FIFA World Cup boycott? Where are the sanctions on regime officials operating death squads?
The regime is telling you what comes next. Stephen Miller: “You have federal immunity.” NSPM-7: protesters are domestic terrorists. Secret ICE memos: no judicial warrants needed. Bondi: give us your voter rolls or we escalate.
They’re not hiding it. They’re announcing it. Building the legal fiction. Establishing precedent. Creating permission for what comes after the midterms if they lose them.
This is Argentina 1976, not Argentina 1983. The difference between those years is what happens now. Whether Americans resist (and Minneapolis is showing how). Whether allies apply pressure (and Europe is failing this test).
The body count is rising. The infrastructure is operational. The normalization is happening.
Believe them when they tell you what comes next.
— Johan
Former Foreign Service Officer
P.S. as my wife said this morning, and Anne Applebaum has been spot on about everything.
Anne applebaum standing up bringing us the truth about this autocratic scourge taking over country we must stand up and make good trouble
"Fascists ALWAYS come for EVERYONE". First they came for........ And if you do not stand and fight they are coming for YOU next! Now they are murdering white people - a woman and a man......and LYING about it and COVERING IT UP! Just like the LIAR and CRIMINAL Pam Bondi is COVERING UP the Epstein Files!! The longer that goes on the more we KNOW she is Covering Up for some very very high ranking people in America (like Trump?) and probably her government. They already are attacking and assaulting - Hispanic people, Black people, Asian people, Somali people, Trans, LGBTQ,...... And if YOU are in there way (which you are by the way) YOU ARE NEXT! Trump's Masked Gangs of "Jack Booted Thugs" ICE and CBP are the front line (Brown shirts) soldiers of his REVENGE, RETRIBUTION, and EXTORTION Racket. They are pushing aside ANY Local Law Enforcement to get the hell out of their way and just sit there as they attack and assault the people of the latest place they go. And the rest of the people in his regime are his servants for this TERROR campaign against the rest of us. Even Pete Hegseth, from Minnesota, is attacking his home state. I wonder what the people who grew up with him and around him think of him now, including his parents and grandparents and teachers and classmates....? People like John Thune of South Dakota (home to Kristi Noem - go figure), have been TERRORIZED into SILENCE already by Trump and his MAGA hordes to the point that John Thune lives in FEAR of violence from them against him so he will do NOTHING. See how it works...... Get busy and get active NOW before it is too late for you and the rest of us...........
Autocracies don't rise when citizens collectively trust and respect their democratic government. It's imperative that we address the cause of the decline in trust and respect of our government.
Forty years ago, the top 10% of Americans received one-third of all income in the US, today they receive one-half. The 90% fell from two-thirds to one-half of all US income.
Why was that shift necessary? What will stop it from increasing further? Why wouldn't those in the 90%, particularly those in the lower 50% feel unseen, unappreciated, and left out.
Politicians rely on the top 10% to fund their careers and direct their policies, which continue to favor the top 10%. For forty years they have been telling the 90% to trust them, they will make things better, and have not.
We can do better if we decide we must do better to save our free market economy and democracy. Citizen guardrails are essential. Free and fair markets and democracies require free and fair sharing of information. Information is influence, influence is income.
An independent Informed Citizens Commission should be a parallel goal with overcome the current and dire threat of authoritarianism to improve the resistance and to improve the next phase of America's destiny.
An independent Informed Citizens Commission would have as its purpose to create:
A Government that Represents Everyone
An Economy that Benefits Everyone
A Society that Respects Everyone
It would have as its strategy to ensure:
Informed Voters for Qualified and Trustworthy Leaders
Informed Employees for a Fair and Efficient Economy
Informed Citizens for Respect of the Views of Others
It is possible if we want it to be possible. See www.informedcitizens.com
One of your recent articles helped re-motivate me, a pediatric hospital medicine specialist, in my conversations with parents who are refusing various newborn interventions. “Informed refusal” discussions are a pain point for us doctors, and I suspect for new parents also, as exactly none of us what to engage in any kind of “confrontation”. And when you are telling parents explicitly that something they are doing might lead to the death of their child, it’s tough for that to feel like a nurturing or supportive intervention. But when I do engage, I ask parents, do you have any specific questions or concerns that I can help you address? The answer is always some version of, I just don’t trust you/Western medicine/science. Sometimes (indeed, most recently) couched in terms of “science is based on questioning, so my questioning your recommendations is actually me respecting science.” I sometimes want to say, you know, you can question whether or not gravity is a misleading corporate construct despite all the evidence, but if you throw him up in the air, your son will still fall back to the ground . . . I really love your phrase “deliberate undermining of reality”. . . Would it be okay with you if I try to work it into these conversations somehow? I will continue to use it as inspiration no matter what. Thank you for your work.
Simply horrible.
Thank you for this careful analysis. I attend to your thoughts with careful attention, here and at the Atlantic and on MSNOW. You are a lodestar in our current moment, and I hope knowledge and awareness will permeate our culture before it is too lste.