By Professor Marc Murphy of the Brandeis School of Law
Cheetos can’t melt steel beams.
Cheetos shit themselves
I’ve never seen anything in the US more complicit towards fascism and autocracy than the US media. They reported NOTHING negative about Trump for months? Why? Fairness? But Kamala got fucked every headline ''Job Numbers trending up, but are the numbers too soft because of Harris? " type of bullshit.
Why? Because right wingers own 98% of the mainstream media and push bullshit constantly while telling you and I that the left is controlling media and the government when they control neither in any substantial way.
Almost as if the rich and powerful have WAY too much control. Break out yer guillotines!
They want fascism. It’s an element of class war.
Always has been. Have you ever checked out how the imperial media covers genocide?
I’ve never seen anything in the US more complicit towards fascism and autocracy than the US media.
yes, including social media. People think adopting Donald Trump methods of dehumanizing those you disagree with, Donald Trump Twitter-think and Tweet-length mental attitudes is actually addressing the problem… in reality, it is joining in with the bonfires of goodness. Instead of a “we are under siege mentality” of posting a thread to the top of every social media platform every 6 hours since 2015 when it was clear Donald Trump and Putin wanted to fulfill their “Conservative International 2013” politician aims, people have just mocked and gone along with the total mockery media values of MAGA / Donald Trump Twitter-tweeting thinking.
I’ve never seen anything in the US more complicit towards fascism and autocracy than the US media.
People are entirely unable to defend and resist absurd comedy, surreal humor, surreal absurd "jokes’, they all end up joining in / jumping on the bandwagon with the mocking and mockery.
Neil Postman was correct in 1985: “When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience, and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; culture-death is a clear possibility.” ― Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, 1985
The pathway to authoritarianism is lined with people telling you to stop overreacting
I hope as fuck that everyone who said that eventually realize they were warned, and take some humility into the future
Maybe, maybe, break Cassandra’s curse. At least for a little bit
Yea, and then they’ll say “never forget” and build a monument and a museum. And then everyone forgets 2 generations later. Just look at Israel, the families there still materially experience the lingering effects of genocide yet they continue to perpetrate another one.
That is the unfortunate reality of it. I wish I could say that I hope it will be different this time but…
About the one hope I have is that during the next iteration we overhaul society’s systems to so solidly work for the average person that it helps counteract this cycle, but it’s hard to stay optimistic for sure
There are plenty of people overreacting, so stop overreacting about no overreaction /s
2016 was worse for America than 9/11.
Yes. Trump’s failure during Covid was killing a 9/11’s worth of Americans weekly.
Trump was already responsible for one 9/11’s worth of American deaths when he refused to send aid after Hurricane Maria. Then COVID happened.
give 'em some time. it’s still early in the first quarter and he’s still getting warmed up
Republicans preventing the US from joining the first world probably kills more than that every week.
First, second, and third world country idealogy is outdated.
Well, the US has joined the second world now, but not in the way that the parent commenter means it.
Yep, we’re now aligned with Russia.
Jr Bush/ Cheney laid an awful lot of the groundwork for Trunk One’s malevolence
Karl fucking Rove
Lee Atwater, Newt Gingrich etc etc etc
The Heritage Foundation, Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan
Andrew Johnson.
Donkey!
Edit. Added a link: You forgot Roy Cohn, the master snake.
As did Reagan and Bush I. And for that matter, a lot of their people cut their teeth under Nixon. Some cancers take a long time to grow.
Never ForgetWe Forgor2000 was worse for America than 9/11.
I’m sure this has been discussed to death but… would Gore have read the memos and stopped the attacks?
Retrospectively? Would give someone’s left nut for 2016 murca and not fucking bullshit 2025 fucking Russia (the one between Maine/Alaska/Hawaii/Florida under the orange thumb)
Hope your kids never wanted to ski outdoors Heritage Foundation!
Mr. President, a second presidency just hit the south tower.
They’re building a third tower now
I mean… I’m from the US myself and this is extremely true
wait what
Uhhhh get this human generated slop out of here!
rejected by who?
He did not point the finger at any particular paper. At least not where I saw the cartoon.
I bet most any publication would have rejected it at the time.
Needs an update:
Now of course the “Rule of Law” is already destroyed and the plane should be headed for the 2nd one…
Just need a 2nd plane labelled “republican traitor filth”.
I don’t know why you would write the same term 3 times.
They could be labeled trump 2024 and trump 2028
I do think that Trump’s first administration was fascist-lite. He had set precedence that future politicians will do. However, his second term has now gone full fascist and it is no longer “setting precedence”, but making breakthrough and ripping apart the very heart of democracy and what it means to be human.
Kick a narcissist out of your home and tell them you don’t want them anymore, and if they manage to get back in, you won’t ever forget you crossed them.
The media called his second run a “revenge tour”, and they weren’t fucking wrong. Trump’s only objective this time around is to stick it to the people who held him back the first time. First his old cabinet, then career civil servants, then judges, and eventually, the rest of us.
That’s what I was looking for! Thank you.
Lots of real people actually died on 911.
Imagine believing that losing the constitution and “us law” is similar to even a single life. They’re both racist authoritarian trash.
So you’re saying the people that have died and continue to die due to Trump’s policies aren’t ‘real people’?
My friend, it’s important to keep in mind that abstract concepts have real impact on real people. Innocent people kidnapped to CECOT are losing their lives because their constitutional right to due process under the law is not being respected. We don’t just want the real prison to be nicer.
Over a million Americans died to covid, and his administration chose to not send ventilators to blue states because they didn’t deserve the help.
The joke in Team America is that the destruction they’re trying to prevent be 9/11 times 1000. Well, covid had gotten us to almost half at 1.2 million. https://www.pnas.org/doi/epub/10.1073/pnas.2313661121
He and his administration helped covid kill many people directly and indirectly by sewing doubt in the CDC.
Citations please.
Also people have died already from trumps choices. A lot of people. Probably much more than 9/11.
The “war on terror” killed more innocent civilians alone.
Hiroshima had a lot of deaths too. Do you have a point to make or do you just want to point out random shit that doesn’t matter?
What you write sounds very emotional, and that is precisely the issue.
There are for times as much drunk driving related deaths in the US every damn year than died in the 9/11 attacks. Of course it is a tragedy. But it has been used, and is still used, as a tool for emotional manipulation.
The attacks have been used as justification to destabilise a whole region to this date, uprooted the lives of millions, directly resulted in the death of countless civilians. Not to mention that it has been used to erode civil rights in a manner that was unthinkable for a liberal democracy before.
But if you try to mention this, the switch flips in people’s head, and you become the enemy. It is emotional manipulation, plain and simple.
Hiroshima had a lot of deaths as well, so had Tokyo or Dresden. There are very real ethical questions in there. But let’s not forget that the axis powers did the London Blitz first, the total war, the trains and death camps and the mass graves in Russia, China and Korea and countless other crimes.
Besides, it is accepted to discuss the ethics of the WW2 bombings now. I distinctly remember doing so in school. But 9/11? No. They conditioned the US to believe that the end justifies all means, even if the means are bombs on hospitals and civilians dying of starvation.
I’m not reading that but thank you for trying
And, that is precisely the issue, summed up in one sentence.
1 tweet from trump kills more ppl then 9/11.
-150 000 children now will be born with HIV because of trump. -remove food regulation, how many millions will get cancer in usa. -covid, throw in another 100 000s ppl because of his incompetence and rather give his russians friends the testing machines, instead of Americans. -crashing the economy, agony, suicides. weakening USA and your foreign aid that saved over 25 million ppl is gone. millions more to die becuase of trump. -his incompetence in ukraine, 100 000s of dead. would be very easy to push back russia if you support ukraine with weapons, forcing russia to surrender.
Tens of thousands have already died this year directly due to Trump abruptly cutting off medical aid across the globe.
Is it violence only when there’s a bullet fired, a knife stabbing or an explosive collision?
There are plenty of ways to inflict violence on another just by way of policy and letting extremists have their way with no constraints.
Would you say the millions upon millions of people who died under Hitler’s policies aren’t comparable to the “lots of real people” of 9/11 just because it wasn’t Hitler himself firing all the bullets and setting off all the gas chambers? All violence can be traced back from the direct perpetrator to the one who gave the order, and both are accountable for it.
Is it violence only when there’s a bullet fired, a knife stabbing or an explosive collision?
There are plenty of ways to inflict violence on another just by way of policy and letting extremists have their way with no constraints.
Would you say the millions upon millions of people who died under Hitler’s policies aren’t comparable to the “lots of real people” of 9/11 just because it wasn’t Hitler himself firing all the bullets and setting off all the gas chambers? All violence can be traced back from the direct perpetrator to the one who gave the order, and both are accountable for it.
It was rejected for being extremely distasteful.
It’s not wrong, but there’s no tie in to the administration that makes the image need to be the scene of thousands of people murdered by terrorists.
Trump’s terrible response to COVID19 resulted in a daily thousand people dead for nearly three years, 10,000 a week at it’s peak, almost a million in total.
His admin has also been accused many times of using terror tactics.
I think 20 years is long enough that political cartoonists can make 9/11 similes without worrying too much about pearl clutching.
It’s not pearl clutching, I’m saying it’s not a well designed comic. If he wanted it to be about Covid, he could have drawn it that way.
As seen by how you’re saying “no, people died of Covid” and other people are saying “no, people are being deported” and you both are at least notionally interpreting this political cartoon that has labels, none of which mention any of that proves you have to make one too many leaps in logic.
It’s just generic “Trump bad” which like I said, I agree with, I just don’t like the cartoon.
Americans aren’t very good at history, but most of them can at least keep this millennium straight…
Not really. “Conservative”/now far right media “entertainment” networks went wild for those 20+ years and managed to garner greater support for an ever further learning pro-fascist edge. It was overly effective for some and now it’s a runaway train.
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I took the analogy not as “Trump equals terrorism and death” but that Trump’s attack on the rule of law and the Constitution is at least as big of a threat and should be met with an equally vigorous response by a united United States. The cartoonist could have done it in the style of the Pearl Harbor attack and it would have achieved the same metaphor, though probably wouldn’t have had the same gut-punch effect.
Point is it should be a lightning rod for America to act. Sad that it is not.
Also, not condoning the wars that followed 9/11 and the Patriot act and all of the other bullshit we got because of it.
Thousands of people are on the verge of being murdered/deported by terrorists now, seems like a fair comparison to me.
Trump and his cult are terrorists though
How much blood will be on their hands before this is over. I totally get this image.
He’s killed way more than 911
You certainly have a point that doesn’t deserve to be downvoted like that.
Are you New Yorkian, by any chance?
Not the person you replied to, but I’m a New Yorker. I lived near the city on 9/11. My friends lost family members. My dad was across the street from the towers and thankfully made it out alive.
I’ve downvoted every single 9/11 joke I’ve ever seen. I’ve personally shut down people who made 9/11 jokes in real life. It’s not really something to make jokes about.
But this comic is right. 9/11 was the defining moment of my generation. It changed America for the worse.
Comparing that to Trump’s fascist takeover is apropos.
