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Remember that the post-2020 US election Time article "The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election"? Somewhere between a victory lap and credit-claiming at a time it was generally thought Trump's political prospects were dead, it was a rare look behind the scenes of retroactively-admitted coordinated political obstruction and shaping efforts.
It was also the article with the memorable distinction of-
Well, the New York Times on Sunday published a more pre-emptive form of democratic fortification: The Resistance to a New Trump Administration Has Already Started.
The article in short is a look at different wings of the Democratic Party apparatus, and steps they are taking in anticipation of a Trump victory to foil the predicted efforts of the 2025 Project. Some of these fears seem a good deal less grounded than others- Trump has been an abortion moderate such that it's hard to see why a Democratic governor would need to stock years of abortion supplies in a state warehouse beyond political theater- but then the article is quite likely a form of political theater. As far as election-year advertising goes, it's both a 'here are all the horrible things that could happen' fear campaign-
-with the ACLU specifically focusing on four areas of potential lawfare-
-but all with a back-edge 'but we thwarted him before and can do it again' of tribal-protection promise.
Not necessarily optimistic, but a 'we will fight for you' solidarity / call for support framing.
While there is the occasional (potentially deliberate) amusing word choice in ways that anyone who has used the term the Cathedral might appreciate-
The core strategies include the following, none of which are particularly surprising but which are good to see identified clearly in advance:
-Passing executive actions in the Biden administration before certain timelines so that Trump can't immediately revert them
-Litigation waves to tie things in court, with recruitment of sympathetic plaintiffs with likely standing already occuring
-Implicitly by virtue of the acknowledged past strategies and current participants, more protests
-More explicitly legal preparations to prevent/limit federal intervention in protests
-A national-scale counter-ICE network to disrupt immigration raids
-Pre-emptively doing self-auditing of activist group finances in preparation of politically motivated IRS scrutiny
-Various state-based nullification theory application (such as 'inter-state commerce doesn't apply to FDA if I already have the goods in-state')
-Use of Never-Trump 'ex-Republicans' groups as part of the Democratic network, especially the Principles First organization.
(Principles First was a Never Trump wing of the Republican Party associated with Liz Cheney that started in 2022 during the anti-Trump former Republican establishment's efforts to reassert control / torpedo Trump's post-presidential prospects by cooperating with the Democrat-led impeachment trial. Since then, and her fall from the Republican Party, it's been casting itself as an alternative to CPAC. Interestingly it also works in concert with Ranked Choice voting lobbying. (In the US, ranked choice voting is often, but not always, associated with the Democratic Party, at least in the sense of pushing for it in Red / Purple, but not Blue, states.)
None of this is unique, unusual, or dangerous. Leftist NGOs and Democratic governors/AGs preparing for a potential second term of Trump. Sinister-sounding quotes like "controlling the flow of information" and "democracy-proofing our institutions" but nothing actually out of the ordinary in terms of real actions. I'll remind you that the vast majority of the actual escalation has come from Republicans. Remember J6? Remember "the election was stolen!!!" 70% of Republicans still believe that crap.
Trump will try some hamfisted executive orders, which will get massacred in the courts like much of his EO's did in his first term. He'll declare victory anyways, and the base will love him because they desire the appearance of "owning the libs" more than any actual substantive policy changes.
The actual escalation was a 10-year push to legalize racial discrimination against the country's ethnic majority, with no evidence that this would do any good for society, or ever stop.
This is an Iraq War tier screw-up. If Democrats were facing an actual world-historical political genius instead of a WWE character, they would be utterly fucked.
All of these actions are meant for one purpose - to avoid necessary reform.
Back in the 1970s, it was still early, and the exact amount by which the racial gaps could be closed was still speculative, so implying that they could close the gaps was speculation rather than a lie. As late as 2010, they still had relatively serious academics like Roland Fryer, or people studying lead exposure, who were able to show some modest results, and they weren't trying to do "race conscious" policy, so they didn't need the higher standard of evidence that explicitly racial policy requires.
Since then it's been wall-to-wall accusations like "there are too many white and asian men at Google" based on numbers that are completely made up, and attempts at racially discriminatory institutional and government policy that has to be stopped by the courts.
They have been lying to their base since 2014 about what is feasible for them to accomplish, and expecting everyone else to just take the heat.
January 6, a political riot following a year of weaponized political rioting, is not important. Democrats either do not believe that Donald Trump poses any significant risk of a fascist takeover, or they believe that being racist is more important than avoiding risk of a fascist takeover. If it were otherwise, they would simply stop being racist.
If you think you're facing down an ultra-fascist, then you capitulate to moderates and give in to their demands in order to push the potential fascist power base below 50%. You do not double down on weird HR-ified collective inherited racial guilt for the majority of the population.
Russian disinformation accusations are irrelevant. Russian collusion accusations are irrelevant. There is no reason to believe either of them from a party who are so desperate to be racist for no other reason than to selfishly gain and preserve power. Again, the stuff they support is not based on science. Kendi and DiAngelo are not scientists. Collapsing all of race into "W vs BIPOC" doesn't even match regular stats, it's just nasty in/out racial coalition politics.
If you disagree, then you can explain how this garbage, which would be recognized as far right if it were occurring in the other direction, gets stopped.
There’s also option c)- democrats are delusional and think their race/gender agenda is popular.
There’s some support for this- democrats who acknowledge that CRT and trans is unpopular tend to be begging their fellow democrats to shut the fuck up about the topics.
If someone is actually smart and self-aware, and then bans all research into like, aircraft development for some reason, then they will integrate the knowledge of that ban back into their information system.
If you ban aircraft research, then you know that you do not know aircraft capabilities, and will adjust your thinking accordingly.
Failing to reintegrate their information control back as uncertainty is not an argument in favor of Democratic governance.
No, it isn’t. In fact I explicitly called democrats delusional. I simply disagree that anti-white racism is a major part of their motivation, even as it clearly has some place in their coalition.
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Further evidence for this comes from Hollywood and other businesses - organizations addicted to making money but seem incapable of not leaving money on the table by fucking with their customers etc because of obviously unpopular woke politics.
A lot of those woke movies also suck as movies, though. I think a lot of it is shoveling woke in to try to shield the directors/writers from criticism.
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