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Sort of. Miller has been involved in developing and test running the concept on years, see Hungary (field test of the fearmongering populism + the "Mike Johnson" special - we had "don't know, wasn't there, didn't hear about it, ask someone else" press conference memes like 12 years ago) and other examples. Definitely involved to some degree with Fico and Putin, and to a lesser extent, Babis, Meloni and Simion. They weren't sure they could get away with it last time Trump was up there, although if my memory serves, national guard was deployed due to maybe BLM?
I mean really, it's shocking how fast it ramped up but I cannot say that I'm truly surprised it did happen, and if I look back at the people involved in it, it seems more like a gentle increase of the knob than a sudden twist. It's also just that the higher you are on the dial, the closer together are the red lines.
Yeah I wouldn't say I'm surprised, and I wouldn't say it's entirely "UnPReCEDenTeD" or anything, but it is new and different in terms of scope, brazenness, and certainly technology. We've struggled with periods of waxing and waning fascism and fascist-like governance for practically the entire history of the country. The Alien and Sedition Acts were passed into law when the country was less than two decades old. But this is still shocking, smothering, abhorrent and a departure from even ten years ago.
The argument that the US is or was always like this and could only be like this is, in my view, made intentionally to paralyze and further demoralize those of us in the US who wake to a fresh, new hell on a daily basis.
There's a world of difference between "was always like this" and "could only be like this".
This is precisely what the fall of Nixon has been building up to, brick by brick. But the fact is that sitting presidents could do literally whatever they wanted since at least the Bush era. It's almost a wonder it took this long for someone to take advantage of that possibility. In that regard, it has been like this for a long time, they've just been very careful about what they do. And the funniest thing is that they still are. I find the claims for example that Trump is doing this to provoke a violent reaction so that the army can be deployed almost comical. Why? If you need to provoke a reaction, provoke harder. If you don't, well, why don't you just deploy the army for no good reason. He can, after all. He could literally attempt to murder his political opponent by coughing at him knowingly while having COVID. Bush could gaslight the entire NATO into furthering US imperial goals in the Middle East. Bush was allowed to walk away with what was essentially a stolen election. For all we know, Clinton could've been raping children on Epstein Island while he was sitting president. It's been like this for god knows how long, this is the first guy with the sheer audacity to do it out in the open.
The could be different is then another question, right? I think you see the problem about how far this reaches. Almost everyone with a significant amount of capital in the US is all in on this. Media is playing along the party status quo, the faces of tech can finally come out of the closet and fall in line as nazis, insurance companies have been death dealers for the longest time, and now, a slimy greasy businessman and not politician is in charge of the country. Could it be different - sure. But the house cleaning is effectively insurmountable. Every career politician on corporate bankroll, wall street, CEOs, boardrooms, corporate private militaries, and of course, the human waste who proudly exercise their 2nd amendment rights to serve their oligarch overlords. So yeah, it could be different, but it won't be, not like this. The system is not set up in a way that you can democratically elect someone that isn't beholden to the interests of the same people, and is willing to do anything about it. And even those who would be willing to do anything about it will find that all the other branches are long time gone. The same supreme court that gives Trump a complete blank check to bypass the legislative branch can take the same blank check away from any progressive president for reason. You can't rely on party lines in the legislative to help you out either, if you're a progressive president you were miraculously elected as an independent - dems are in just as deep as GOP.
So yeah. It's paralyzing, it's demoralizing, but it's also just the reality. The knob only goes way up or slightly down. Up to you how to react to that. In the same situation, I decided to up and leave my home country. It was the best decision ever.