Nailed it. This is the culmination of a Republican party that has, at its core, one big requirement to fulfill:

There must be an enemy. Real or imaginary, there absolutely, at all times, must be a supremely powerful, evil, threatening force that is the embodiment of the anti-Christ and wants to destroy America. That keeps people in fear. People living in fear will trade their freedom and way of life for a false sense of security, but no matter how many rights and freedoms they get, the enemy never goes away. It may change from time to time, but there will never not be a threat.

It's why they have been working so hard to dismantle education the last several decades. Critical thinking is not only a prohibiting trait to be a Republican, but for Evangelicals as well. Asking questions has always been shunned and shamed. A "I am never wrong/do not question me/I am the decider" mentality of Republican Presidents has persisted since Nixon, continued through Reagan, continued through GWB, and is strongly shown in Trump.

Coupled with many of those in political power (to include some Democrats, no doubt) that are compromised by Russia (either willingly via financial bribes, or because Putin has dirt on them), this looks like it could very well be the messy end to the US.

*offer void in US

We do. We just don't harp about it or make it a part of our public persona. We don't advertise it on our cars, clothing, or houses. And honestly? That's for the best. A Democrat with a weapon is absolutely going to be seen as an enemy of the state in a short time. Best we continue to stay low.

It absolutely enrages me that I had to write it.

I think there are a lot of people who honestly mean well. Have been in the past, and likely still are. But what we have right now, to take a cue from Komodo up above with his Captain American post, this is like real-world Captain America: Winter Soldier, where it looks like overnight we've suddenly become a fascist nation. Sad reality though is, like that movie, things have been going on for decades that led us to this point.

I'm not optimistic about our near future. Shit looks grim. But, I'm optimistic that we can eventually fight our way out of it, and hopefully correct things after whatever needs to be done, is done. Got to have some hope, otherwise there's no point in holding on at all.

It's a shame, there was a scene cut where Captain America walks by a building showing graffiti art of his helmet with the word 'fascist' in red on it, causing him to sigh and toss it off. I don't think he wore it again until Endgame, where they incorporated it into the time travel suit.

Wish that scene should've been kept in, and had a bit more focus on Steve Rodgers questioning if he truly was working for organizations that believed what he did. A crisis of faith moment for him instead of a quick 3-second pass with a joke from Hawkeye.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7g7stCb4qY&ab_channel=cutiesmolbaby

Thanks, forgot to include that. Editing the post to include that and a few other things I meant to include similar to what you added.

Ah, I see our glorious leaders are reaching the "FO" phase of "FAFO".

No gang ties, no criminal history, not even from that country.

We are the baddies.

I've been encouraging more people to carry. The way the three letter agencies are conducting themselves, they are indistinguishable from random kidnappers or gangs. Which, I suppose, is quite fitting.

It isn't even snapping back to the left. In the US, even our "left" is considered to be right wing in most of the rest of the world.

We're on track to replay WW2, only with the US as the Nazis.

Seems like a lot of things are coming together. Reports of neo-Nazi militias becoming more prominent in certain communities, the DoD no longer rooting them out of the military, this administration's brazen 'middle finger' to the Judicial branch, and the continuation of deportations without due process.

Stay alert, people.

People need to really pay attention to what states are leaning which way, and start analyzing said states' warfighting capabilities.

He praised the Republican party for their "antitrust stance"?

Is he in the same timeline as I am?

Just wait until your average beat cop is given Federal powers to "assist", regular citizens are deputized with Federal powers, or military units are tasked with rounding up people en masse.

Those are very likely going to happen. Logistically, it is the only way he can round up everyone he wants. There are 14 million undocumented immigrants in this country. If he were to evenly split how many are detained and deported, that is 3.5 million annually, or, just under 9,560 people a day. ICE isn't staffed for that, having only 20,000 employees (general employee number count, many of those may not be 'field officers'). Even including Customs Border Patrol and their 58,000 employees (most of which can't be tasked with field missions because they need to work the borders themselves), empowering standard law enforcement and Federalizing the military is the only option to logistically complete Trump's task.

And, when rounding up nearly 10,000 people a day, there are absolutely going to be innocent US citizens kidnapped as a result. And if Trump's goal is to not just detain but deport that number of people as well, that means that there are likely going to be law-abiding US citizens who are kidnapped and flown into a foreign prison without any due process. There may be US citizens already caught in the process of this; sadly, we don't know. The US government may determine that it would just be easier for them to just be "disappeared" rather than bring them back to the US and spill the story to the media. US families will just one day find that their husband, wife, son, or daughter didn't come home from school or work, or was taken in the middle of the night, and vanished with no confirmation or acceptance of responsibility from the government.

Democrats are spineless and shameless. They had the capability to do so, yet sat with their thumbs up their asses because they wanted to "take the high road" in a game where their opponents are slinging mud and smearing feces on the walls.

Republicans openly show contempt for the law, just as much as Democrats make no effort to hide an unwillingness to enforce it.

I have a feeling "disturbing" is going to be a word used quite a lot this year.

No. Soundproofing foam doesn't do anything to protect you from it.

Well, that's just lovely. I don't know how they expect to pull off $4.5 trillion dollars in tax cuts without a) severely gutting Medicare/Medicaid, b) adding trillions to our deficit, or c) both.

The next few months are going to have my anxiety levels at their peak as we start to see the effects of everything. Much of what Trump wants done has been held back by the courts because it is Congress with the "power of the purse" that dictates what money is spent where. With this, that opens the floodgates.

So, in other words, Trump tasked Elon Musk to hire a someone to play the Battlefield World of US Police Soldier games*, and write up a plan based on that.

*yes, I know that isn't an actual game. They're all the same to me. Generic copy paste FPS soldier games.