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Are there any good blogs that are chronicling the USA Federal gov's slow descent into facism and overt corruption, just collecting and archiving pieces like thi

by sho_hn 2y ago

Are there any good blogs that are chronicling the USA Federal gov's slow descent into facism and overt corruption, just collecting and archiving pieces like this with a classiciation/categorization etc.? I think it's an unprecedented opportunity to record the history of a downfall using modern tools, and future generations might benefit enormously. When I learned about the disruption of the Weimar Republic in highschool, a thing our teacher did was make copious use of newspaper clippings to explain the delta between ground truth and public sentiment, and how certain narratives increased in frequency, etc. He had personally spent quite some time in old archives and on microfilm readers to create his little library. Something like this, but with much more data. A friend of mine did her master's in political science on crawling data in Islamic extremist social media cycles and trying to correlate activity there with a dataset on terrorist events, trying to find out if you could anticipate them somehow. This is a loose collection of thoughts, but I think there's something there in the signal.

anigbrowl 2y ago
There's lots of them, but I respectfully submit that doing something about it in the present - whatever you determine that to be, given your skills and inclinations - is a far higher priority than the educational byproduct for future generations. Using your Weimar example, I would not argue that Germany or humanity is/are better off for having gone through the cataclysm of WW2. In terms of building context, you might find it helpful to read this dry but very detailed examination of the nazi administrative state, and how it delivered economic resources to its political clients through a combination of reorganization, financial engineering, and striaght-up theft: https://archive.org/details/hitlersbeneficia00alyg https://archive.org/details/hitlersbeneficia00alyg On a more abstract level, try 'The logic of political survival' by Smith & Bueno de Mesquita. both books will give you a useful framework within which to assess the contextual significance of ongoing news events.
- sho_hn 2y ago
  Thanks! I also think this is a good summary for those who had never heard of Weimar before: https://archive.is/xh2Ci https://archive.is/xh2Ci But like most summaries, it suffers a bit from focusing on the key events, and not capturing this sort of ... change in the ambient noise floor, and what relationship the average citizen had to what was going on, and what perception of events. I think it's the "Would you have been able to tell that it'd get this bad?" is kind of the more interesting part. A political weather forecasting model, if you will.
meltyness 2y ago
On the contrary, there used to be "the spoils system." I'm just a sideline listener but I think that's an appropriate lens to look at this through rather than some severe negative, or dangerously harmful trend. I think trying to bar such a system simply would make the same things covert.
izabera 2y ago
slow?
Modified3019 2y ago
> When I learned about the disruption of the Weimar Republic in highschool, a thing our teacher did was make copious use of newspaper clippings to explain he delta between ground truth and public sentiment, and how certain narratives increased in frequency, etc. He had personally spent quite some time in old archives and on microfilm readeers to create his little library. Something like this, but with much more data. That sounds interesting. Wish it had been converted into a blogpost or something for more permanence.
pbronez 2y ago
Check out KeepTrack https://www.reddit.com/r/Keep_Track/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Keep_Track/ Also has a Patreon
- sho_hn 2y ago
  Thanks!
kfcjligmom 2y ago
[flagged]
- markoman 2y ago
  So, you're saying you can recall a 2 week period in executive branch history that could hold a candle to what we've just witnessed? This idea of just keeping track of it all is real. I marvel at the project management task that Trump & crew are maintaining in this flood-the-zone period, just to prevent duplication of effort and running into each other. There's already been a lot done to the DoJ, but its just started at the FBI. Follow the firings -- and just hope you can keep up with who they're being replaced with. That's the real encroachment. We could be on the edge of real abuse when our law enforcement agencies fall under fascist control like this.
plastic-enjoyer 2y ago
> I think it's an unprecedented opportunity to record the history of a downfall using modern tools, and future generations might benefit enormously. Well, the German atrocities of the Third Reich are well-documented and we are probably just a few years behind the U.S. The best documentary won't help to prevent backsliding into superstition and barbarism if people don't believe them. On the other hand, the history of downfall is basically self-documenting itself in real-time and people still don't believe it because people simply don't care about things that don't fit into their ideological borders or their perception of reality. Truth doesn't exist anymore and thus anything that relies on truth.
anon84873628 2y ago
IMO the LegalEagle YouTube channel has done a fantastic job: https://youtube.com/@legaleagle https://youtube.com/@legaleagle They explain the laws in question (often with historical context of their creation), answer common procedural questions, separate the facts of the case from political rhetoric & misinformation, and give an objective analysis of possible outcomes. They are certainly not unbiased, but in the "we are biased against criminal behavior" way.

by sho_hn 2y ago

anigbrowl 2y ago

There's lots of them, but I respectfully submit that doing something about it in the present - whatever you determine that to be, given your skills and inclinations - is a far higher priority than the educational byproduct for future generations. Using your Weimar example, I would not argue that Germany or humanity is/are better off for having gone through the cataclysm of WW2. In terms of building context, you might find it helpful to read this dry but very detailed examination of the nazi administrative state, and how it delivered economic resources to its political clients through a combination of reorganization, financial engineering, and striaght-up theft: https://archive.org/details/hitlersbeneficia00alyg https://archive.org/details/hitlersbeneficia00alyg On a more abstract level, try 'The logic of political survival' by Smith & Bueno de Mesquita. both books will give you a useful framework within which to assess the contextual significance of ongoing news events.

sho_hn 2y ago
Thanks! I also think this is a good summary for those who had never heard of Weimar before: https://archive.is/xh2Ci https://archive.is/xh2Ci But like most summaries, it suffers a bit from focusing on the key events, and not capturing this sort of ... change in the ambient noise floor, and what relationship the average citizen had to what was going on, and what perception of events. I think it's the "Would you have been able to tell that it'd get this bad?" is kind of the more interesting part. A political weather forecasting model, if you will.

meltyness 2y ago

On the contrary, there used to be "the spoils system." I'm just a sideline listener but I think that's an appropriate lens to look at this through rather than some severe negative, or dangerously harmful trend. I think trying to bar such a system simply would make the same things covert.

izabera 2y ago

slow?

Modified3019 2y ago

> When I learned about the disruption of the Weimar Republic in highschool, a thing our teacher did was make copious use of newspaper clippings to explain he delta between ground truth and public sentiment, and how certain narratives increased in frequency, etc. He had personally spent quite some time in old archives and on microfilm readeers to create his little library. Something like this, but with much more data. That sounds interesting. Wish it had been converted into a blogpost or something for more permanence.

pbronez 2y ago

Check out KeepTrack https://www.reddit.com/r/Keep_Track/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Keep_Track/ Also has a Patreon

sho_hn 2y ago
Thanks!

kfcjligmom 2y ago

[flagged]

markoman 2y ago
So, you're saying you can recall a 2 week period in executive branch history that could hold a candle to what we've just witnessed? This idea of just keeping track of it all is real. I marvel at the project management task that Trump & crew are maintaining in this flood-the-zone period, just to prevent duplication of effort and running into each other. There's already been a lot done to the DoJ, but its just started at the FBI. Follow the firings -- and just hope you can keep up with who they're being replaced with. That's the real encroachment. We could be on the edge of real abuse when our law enforcement agencies fall under fascist control like this.

plastic-enjoyer 2y ago

> I think it's an unprecedented opportunity to record the history of a downfall using modern tools, and future generations might benefit enormously. Well, the German atrocities of the Third Reich are well-documented and we are probably just a few years behind the U.S. The best documentary won't help to prevent backsliding into superstition and barbarism if people don't believe them. On the other hand, the history of downfall is basically self-documenting itself in real-time and people still don't believe it because people simply don't care about things that don't fit into their ideological borders or their perception of reality. Truth doesn't exist anymore and thus anything that relies on truth.

anon84873628 2y ago

IMO the LegalEagle YouTube channel has done a fantastic job: https://youtube.com/@legaleagle https://youtube.com/@legaleagle They explain the laws in question (often with historical context of their creation), answer common procedural questions, separate the facts of the case from political rhetoric & misinformation, and give an objective analysis of possible outcomes. They are certainly not unbiased, but in the "we are biased against criminal behavior" way.