“This is out of the autocratic playbook. As autocrats consolidate their power once they’re in office, anything that threatens their power ... becomes illegal,” historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat said.

“This is out of the autocratic playbook. As autocrats consolidate their power once they’re in office, anything that threatens their power … becomes illegal,” historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat said.

Donald Trump is ramping up his rhetoric depicting his political rivals and critics as criminals, while dropping a long trail of suggestions that he favors outlawing political speech that he deems misleading or challenges his claims to power.

In a speech Friday in Aurora, Colorado, the Republican presidential nominee blasted the immigration system and lobbed a rhetorical grenade at his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.

“She’s a criminal. She’s a criminal,” said Trump, who was found guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in his New York hush money trial. “She really is, if you think about it.”

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  • @aesthelete
    2•2 hours ago

    I largely agree. However, it’s not 100% of humanity that cannot handle the advent of social media.

    A large portion of the population does actually know what’s happening.

    Some of the people pushing the lies (e.g. the FEMA crap), even know that they’re creating or redistributing AI generated garbage, but they are actively participating in the perpetuation of the falsehoods and purposefully becoming detached from reality.

    All of this is what makes it so surreal to me (and arguably worse than before). A large portion of the public knows that what is being pushed is a complete fabrication and it continues anyway.

    It was easier to argue ignorance in the past (after the war a lot of people argued that they didn’t even know that the holocaust was happening). I don’t know that we could make the same argument this go around.