What would that look like in practice though? Would all MAGA iconography be banned? Would Trump and his family collectively become persona non grata? How do you distinguish between MAGA and anything that is too similar to it?

If we look to Germany for parallels, we see there are nationalist right wing movements still there, they just don't call themselves Nazis. What criteria would be criminalized?

Eliminating is a strong term. While the way they have entrenched themselves into all aspects of US political power can make it seem like there is no other way I'm not fully convinced. If the dear leader does cancel midterms then it will likely be time to eliminate the MAGA party. If we instead actually have something approaching free and fair elections then there may be hope for a less radical solution.

Very true.

I actually suspect we may be approaching the end game of the two-party system. While our democracy was never designed to work this way, it has been locked into this for far too long. In 2000 the democrats became subservient to the GOP, now it has essentially be codified as such - hence we really have only a one-party system.
Br> If we could rebuild our government with at least 4 or 5 parties we could possibly prevent a situation like this - where one party takes over the entirety of government and locks out everyone else - from happening again, though I don't see that as being an easy reformation.

I can understand the desire to demonize the MAGA party, especially considering how much effort they have put in to demonization of everyone who isn't in their party. However I really see it as counterproductive. Nobody is going to get traction in this country by only declaring themselves to not be MAGA; they have to have a coherent platform (even when the MAGA platform is spectacularly incoherent).

While perhaps the conservatives who wield power - currently or in the past - are all of the MAGA mindset now, I have met plenty of conservatives who do not align with everything MAGA. There are conservatives out there who are voting only reluctantly for Trump and the rest of MAGA, generally more as a vote against the opposition than a vote specifically for anything.

In fact I would say that the majority of those elected from the MAGA party likely don't support everything MAGA. However they want to keep their elected positions and they know they can't do it without the support of their Dear Leader. As a result many of them are supporting things that are counter to their own beliefs, simply because they want to keep their cushy elected positions.

I would argue for a little more granularity on that argument.

The Republican movement - as embodied by the GOP - is not entirely evil. Cruelty was never the point of the GOP.

However with the MAGA movement - which now stands in for the GOP - cruelty is indeed the point. MAGA wants to hurt everyone who disagrees with it. First it insults, then it harasses, then it eventually goes at its enemies directly and physically if it cannot drive them away any other way.

It is important to recall though that during the Lawnchair Administration, the GOP told us that every democrat was mentally ill; that the democratic party was run entirely by people of the same description you just used. They told us the democrats would take over and destroy the USA. Of course that did not happen, but don't fall into using the same rhetoric that they used, as it could well lead towards the same follow up actions (if the chance ever presents itself).

If our country is to survive this in one piece - which I would say is very much an open question - then we need to be ready to extend a helping hand to those who have so enthusiastically embraced MAGA.

The MAGA party is pretty blunt on what they want - a country only for themselves and people who think exactly the same way they do. Every day they push a little harder towards that goal. Eventually they will also try harder to fracture bonds between people who are not in line with MAGA, and the communications network will be part of that.

Before you say that could never happen, think of all the things that happened in the past 12 months that we thought would never happen.

Why would he be that precise? We've seen the carpet bombing approach that ICE is using and the complete lack of concern for collateral damage. He'll eventually be ready to just shut down all the networks in all the blue states, while tapping all the lines in all the red ones.

That's one thing that scares me more than anything. If the MAGA party successfully starts the civil war that they are itching for, the first thing they'll attack is the communication networks. My evacuation plan with my family revolves around how to find each other if this happens.

The cost won't matter here when the MAGA party deploys the same; after all Musk will likely let them do it here for free. The lesson to learn is how are the Iranians communicating without it? Is the cell network (as much as they have one) down as well? People are still getting information around and out, but how?

I've been looking for better handheld radios for communicating with my family in exactly this situation. The best option for long-range portable radio uses the cell networks, and I wouldn't count on them to stay up here if someone declares an emergency. We should be thinking of what our plans will be when our government is weaponized against us. Don't fool yourself into thinking you can make an effective weaponized stand yourself.

Back when Dilbert was still carried nationally - and people read his website - Adams was using Dilbert.com as his own personal blog. During the Clinton / Trump presidential race, he once very specifically declared that someone from the Clinton campaign had directly threatened to kill him. Of course he couldn't be bothered to offer anything to back up that allegation, but he made it nonetheless.

I'm surprised he didn't try to blame them for his death. He was more that ready to credit any recovery to the MAGA party.

We've never seriously regulated headlights, it certainly won't start now. If someone else blinds you and you crash, how will you ever prove how that happened (assuming you survive)?

Some auto parts stores have the street legal lights right next to the "off-road use only lights", which doesn't help the situation either. With so many bulbs sold online though it really doesn't matter, people who want super-ultra-bright lights will still get them.

And this problem goes back decades. I remember in the 90s when some joker in a Toyota pickup had what I could only assume to be a pair of arc welders for headlights. He was way too close to the rear bumper of my Mustang on the freeway (my car at stock riding height) and I was so completely blinded by his light from behind me it was a miracle I didn't crash. I stood on my brakes and made him pass me but of course he thought the situation was too amusing to do so.

He put money into the companies he wanted to support, by purchasing parts of them. He could retract his money at any time by selling the shares. That is either an endorsement of what they are doing, or an endorsement of what they plan to do.

The majority of what Musk claims is not true. He's had at best a shaky relationship with reality for some time. He happily endorses and propagates - amongst other things - the false narrative that he launched Tesla. Don't count on his narrative of "sleeping in the factory" to actually mean anything beyond occasionally yelling at employees there and then leaving to go sleep in the nicest hotel in town.

I can't speak to all cases of "administrators", but I can very much speak to one case in higher education where I was employed for some time.

Where I worked, employees were grouped into three different bins, depending on their role. There were "faculty" (rather self-explanatory), "civil service" (mostly janitors, along with lab techs, some librarians, and other roles), and "professional and administrative (or P&A)". The P&A was often misconstrued in the public to be composed entirely of administrators, which was nowhere near correct, it had far more professionals - especially professional research staff which were largely non-faculty scientists with advanced degrees.

Even more so to counter your point, *nobody* in the P&A category were union. All the unionized workers were "civil service" - though lots of civil service were not unionized. The union couldn't have cared less about the count of administrators.

If you go in - as an adult - to a mass shooting event at a school, how do you expect to survive? The police are trying to stop the shooter and will reasonably expect that anyone who is not a student could potentially be a shooter. Police have mistaken cell phones for guns in other situations, don't expect to be exempt from that possibility in something as high stakes as a mass shooting.

If your kid is laying low and keeping quiet, their odds of survival are far better than if they are calling you on a phone.

I don't know if you're building some strange straw man argument here or if you're just out to waste my time with that, but I'll also point out that a kid on a phone is only going to be making noise and end up doing more to draw in the attention of a shooter. Smart phones in the hands of kids don't do anything to help this situation; I could just as easily ask if you're shilling for Samsung, Apple, or the phone companies in pretending otherwise.